Talking About The Courier Journal, John David Dyche "Pokes" Courier Journal Newspaper -- And His Boss -- "In The Eye". Who's Next -- David Hawpe?
Columnist faults C-J for ‘bias'
By John David Dyche
In his piece “The politics of a newspaper” in last Sunday's Forum, Arnold Garson, president and publisher of The Courier-Journal , assured readers that it is “an apolitical newspaper if you're talking about its news coverage.”
This, he explains, is because “our goal in the news pages is to let the facts tell the story without injecting opinion at all, and to select for publication the major stories of the day without regard to how they fall politically.”
With all due respect to Mr. Garson, “Baloney!” There is every bit as much liberal opinion in The Courier-Journal's news pages as in its editorials. The liberal bias is merely implicit and subtle in the former while it is open and notorious in the latter. In this, The Courier-Journal is not much different from most other big city dailies.
News editors and reporters carry out their newspapers' political agendas differently than editorial writers do. Cloaked in virtual anonymity, editors infuse news pages with leftist tint with almost every decision they make.
What stories will the paper cover? What resources will the paper devote to which stories? What reporters will cover what stories? What parts of their stories will survive into print? On what page and where on the page will the stories run? What will the headlines say? What photographs will accompany the stories? How will the photo captions read? Will there be follow-up?
In answering each of these value-laden questions, news staffs at The Courier-Journal and its ilk consistently carry out the same liberal mission as the editorial staffs. This does not come as news to anyone in Louisville, of course. Even the most casual readers of The Courier-Journal know and often laugh about it.
Amazingly, executives like Garson, convinced since they were cubs of the nobility and purity of the journalistic enterprise, seem to honestly believe the long and self-perpetuated myth of their own superhuman impartiality. The rest of us are supposed to accept their neutrality on faith simply because they say it is so.
The irony is overwhelming. The Courier-Journal in particular, and the mainstream media in general, rarely if ever assume the good faith or take the word of anyone they cover. The newspaper tenaciously demands all the documents, facts, records, and rumors required to expose every relevant relationship and question every motive — except its own, of course.
Instead of just pronouncing its objectivity from on high, The Courier-Journal should focus some of its famously withering scrutiny inward by disclosing more facts about its people and processes so readers can decide for themselves whether the paper's news coverage is actually apolitical.
For example, what is the party registration of every editor and reporter? For whom have they voted? Why not post the raw versions of reporters' notes, interviews, and submitted news stories on the Web site? How about live-streaming what goes on in the editors' offices and newsroom? Is there any reason not to list the story ideas and articles that the editors reject?
Sanctimoniously chanting mantras of openness and sunshine, The Courier-Journal has waged many memorable court battles to compel production of information others wanted to keep secret. Since the press regards itself as a quasi-public trust enjoying special legal status, it should subject itself to the same standards of disclosure that it so aggressively applies to others in the public arena.
To offer apolitical news coverage is an admirable, if unattainable, ideal for a newspaper. Some, such as Garson, are evidently convinced that they and their staffs are actually achieving it. Publishers at some other papers surely realize it is a risible ruse.
One reason that the industry is gravely ill, however, is that readers instinctively understand what is really going on. They resent the sanctimonious hypocrisy and double standard that newspapers so often apply to themselves. Many modern consumers have thus concluded that it is preferable to get their information from sources that at least admit their biases than from one that denies and, consciously or subconsciously, conceals them.
Newspapers like The Courier-Journal can either come clean about the fact that their news coverage is permeated with liberal bias or they can continue to lose readers to alternative information sources, like blogs and on-line journals that harbor no ambitions or illusions about being impartial purveyors of information the public needs to know.
So the Garsons of this world had better get real and do so quickly. Soon the very notion of apolitical news coverage could disappear forever along with the rest of the rapidly shrinking old-fashioned newspaper business.
John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney who writes a political column from time to time in Forum. He is the author of “Republican Leader: A Political Biography of Senator Mitch McConnell.” His views are his own, not those of the law firm in which he practices. Read him on-line at www.courier-journal.com; e-mail: jddyche@yahoo.com.
Editor's comment: David Hawpe, where are you? It's your turn.
By John David Dyche
In his piece “The politics of a newspaper” in last Sunday's Forum, Arnold Garson, president and publisher of The Courier-Journal , assured readers that it is “an apolitical newspaper if you're talking about its news coverage.”
This, he explains, is because “our goal in the news pages is to let the facts tell the story without injecting opinion at all, and to select for publication the major stories of the day without regard to how they fall politically.”
With all due respect to Mr. Garson, “Baloney!” There is every bit as much liberal opinion in The Courier-Journal's news pages as in its editorials. The liberal bias is merely implicit and subtle in the former while it is open and notorious in the latter. In this, The Courier-Journal is not much different from most other big city dailies.
News editors and reporters carry out their newspapers' political agendas differently than editorial writers do. Cloaked in virtual anonymity, editors infuse news pages with leftist tint with almost every decision they make.
What stories will the paper cover? What resources will the paper devote to which stories? What reporters will cover what stories? What parts of their stories will survive into print? On what page and where on the page will the stories run? What will the headlines say? What photographs will accompany the stories? How will the photo captions read? Will there be follow-up?
In answering each of these value-laden questions, news staffs at The Courier-Journal and its ilk consistently carry out the same liberal mission as the editorial staffs. This does not come as news to anyone in Louisville, of course. Even the most casual readers of The Courier-Journal know and often laugh about it.
Amazingly, executives like Garson, convinced since they were cubs of the nobility and purity of the journalistic enterprise, seem to honestly believe the long and self-perpetuated myth of their own superhuman impartiality. The rest of us are supposed to accept their neutrality on faith simply because they say it is so.
The irony is overwhelming. The Courier-Journal in particular, and the mainstream media in general, rarely if ever assume the good faith or take the word of anyone they cover. The newspaper tenaciously demands all the documents, facts, records, and rumors required to expose every relevant relationship and question every motive — except its own, of course.
Instead of just pronouncing its objectivity from on high, The Courier-Journal should focus some of its famously withering scrutiny inward by disclosing more facts about its people and processes so readers can decide for themselves whether the paper's news coverage is actually apolitical.
For example, what is the party registration of every editor and reporter? For whom have they voted? Why not post the raw versions of reporters' notes, interviews, and submitted news stories on the Web site? How about live-streaming what goes on in the editors' offices and newsroom? Is there any reason not to list the story ideas and articles that the editors reject?
Sanctimoniously chanting mantras of openness and sunshine, The Courier-Journal has waged many memorable court battles to compel production of information others wanted to keep secret. Since the press regards itself as a quasi-public trust enjoying special legal status, it should subject itself to the same standards of disclosure that it so aggressively applies to others in the public arena.
To offer apolitical news coverage is an admirable, if unattainable, ideal for a newspaper. Some, such as Garson, are evidently convinced that they and their staffs are actually achieving it. Publishers at some other papers surely realize it is a risible ruse.
One reason that the industry is gravely ill, however, is that readers instinctively understand what is really going on. They resent the sanctimonious hypocrisy and double standard that newspapers so often apply to themselves. Many modern consumers have thus concluded that it is preferable to get their information from sources that at least admit their biases than from one that denies and, consciously or subconsciously, conceals them.
Newspapers like The Courier-Journal can either come clean about the fact that their news coverage is permeated with liberal bias or they can continue to lose readers to alternative information sources, like blogs and on-line journals that harbor no ambitions or illusions about being impartial purveyors of information the public needs to know.
So the Garsons of this world had better get real and do so quickly. Soon the very notion of apolitical news coverage could disappear forever along with the rest of the rapidly shrinking old-fashioned newspaper business.
John David Dyche is a Louisville attorney who writes a political column from time to time in Forum. He is the author of “Republican Leader: A Political Biography of Senator Mitch McConnell.” His views are his own, not those of the law firm in which he practices. Read him on-line at www.courier-journal.com; e-mail: jddyche@yahoo.com.
Editor's comment: David Hawpe, where are you? It's your turn.
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 1:01 PM
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