Right-Wing Bias of PBS

[bobov (imported)]

I was at Columbia from '68 to '72, so I'm familiar with the biased reporting of the Times. But it's not right-wing. The Times is establishmentarian. (The first time in my life I've been able to use that word!)

In Thackeray's novel, Barry Lyndon, Barry consults an aristocrat about who he should associate with to rise in society. The aristocrat explains that there is a social set of the "best" people - not the smartest, most talented, best looking, richest, etc. - just the "best." The Times is like that about ideas. It doesn't strive to be consistently left or right, but always to be the "best," that is, it reflects the thinking of those with established power. In the 1960s, this meant it disapproved of the SDS. In 2005, this means it looks to liberal Democrats. Where the Times has gone wrong is in failing to see that there is no longer a united elite which runs things. Authority has become more broadly distributed than ever before, so in cleaving to one group, the Times makes itself seem narrow and partisan in a way it never did when there truly was a "best" opinion.

[A-1 (imported)]

bobov says that...

The Times is establishmentarian.

bobov is nice.

I am not.

What he is saying is that they are spineless bastards who are so scared of offending a certain group that they will roll in that groups' feces and urine to avoid it.

The difference is that in the 1960's the shit was conservative and in the new millenium it is liberal.

However, shit is still shit and piss is still piss.

So, do they have some sort of Freudian fixation at this place or do they just long to smell like a over-worked sewage treatment plant?



A-1

[Blaise (imported)]

I was at Columbia from '68 to '72, so I'm familiar with the biased reporting of the Times. But it's not right-wing. The Times is establishmentarian. (The first time in my life I've been able to use that word!)

[End quote]

Nice word. Good response. Thanks.

In seminary, I sufficiently disliked (not hated) The New YorkTimes to read The Wall Street Journal instead.I recognize that both did a good job. I lived in Indiana and had awful local newspapers in part of 1967-68. Of course, the former newspaper mailed me a copy every business day, the later was hard to find.

Where the Times has gone wrong is in failing to see that there is no longer a united elite which runs things. Authority has become more broadly distributed than ever before, so in cleaving to one group, the Times makes itself seem narrow and partisan in a way it never did when there truly was a "best" opinion.

[End quote]

That is a fine analysis. Authority is an interesting concept. It is a necessary force in life. I lke your notion of a best. In that sense, The New York Times is the best, though Herbert Block once made The Washington Post close to the best.

[bobov (imported)]

Here's a joke I heard, but it's the truth: The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the world. The New York Times is read by the people who think they ought to run the world. The Washington Post is read by the people who think they do run the world. The Daily News is read by the people who aren't sure who runs the world, but they hope they get a seat on the train.

I was so offended by the gross bias of the Times during the two years leading up to the presidential election, that I've made the WSJ my daily paper. I still look at the NYT, on-line and with distaste, because of its extraordinary breadth of coverage - many interesting stories appear no where else. But a careful reading of the WSJ will tell you everything you need to know about life in America.

[Blaise (imported)]

I was so offended by the gross bias of the Times during the two years leading up to the presidential election, that I've made the WSJ my daily paper. I still look at the NYT, on-line and with distaste, because of its extraordinary breadth of coverage - many interesting stories appear no where else. But a careful reading of the WSJ will tell you everything you need to know about life in America.

I felt that way during the sixties and seventies. During the eighties, every business day, I bought and read each paper. I almost never read editorials in either paper, though I did admire Vermont Royster of the WSJ. I did read opinion pieces in the papers. Of course, most of the opinion pieces that I do read are from The Nation I like for my bias to find voice in what I read.

[bobov (imported)]

We share similar tastes in newspapers. I too read the WSJ and NYT, deleting the editorials. (The opinions of the editors are neither better informed nor better reasoned than my own or other people's. The time is long past when citizens must be told what to think by journalists.) Like you, I enjoy op-ed and opinion pieces from people unaffiliated with the papers. I also enjoyed Vermont Royster, whose name made me think of the Rolex Oyster.

[Blaise (imported)]

We share similar tastes in newspapers. I too read the WSJ and NYT, deleting the editorials. (The opinions of the editors are neither better informed nor better reasoned than my own or other people's. The time is long past when citizens must be told what to think by journalists.) Like you, I enjoy op-ed and opinion pieces from people unaffiliated with the papers. I also enjoyed Vermont Royster, whose name made me think of the Rolex Oyster.

Mr. Royster was from North Carolina--I think.

[bobov (imported)]

While the Misses Oyster were from Wonderland (Alice's Adventures in). Is it not better to be the Walrus than the Carpenter? If you had to be one or the other? That's why I read the WSJ.

[Blaise (imported)]

While the Misses Oyster were from Wonderland (Alice's Adventures in). Is it not better to be the Walrus than the Carpenter? If you had to be one or the other? That's why I read the WSJ.

Suddenly, all I could think about were killer whales. I had an oyster poboy for lunch--it took a 45 minute wait.

[Dave (imported)]

The Oyster Poboy took a 45 wait before it let you eat lunch?

Did it walk around or did it read a book?