I think your full of h.s. AntiClinger. Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, and Dan Rather have all admitted that journalism is mostly composed of liberals and it was Cronkite that said this is because most of them are activists at heart. Dan Rather even went so far as to try to pass forged documents off as a news exclusive. This is how some liberals get their message out; by posing as journalists and reporting the news as they see fit.

I don't get cable, but why don't you post a link to this weeks' phony news as presented by Fox News.

Anonymous "people" trading jibes in a chat room. What do your employer, family, friends, etc. call you? Stop trying to be someone else when you respond to comments. If we are to assign any legitimacy to your comments, we HAVE to know who is saying them. Might just be a computer program from an ouutside think tank. Who knows.

I've spoken with some journalists about their political leanings and came away with the impression that they developed their personal leanings by, wait for it.....reading and listening to information from all sides. If their personal beliefs end up being liberal or left leaning maybe that says something about the various arguments and their validity.

I love the "no evidence that Fox News presents faux news" comment. I nominate that one as Best Line of the Week!

@Todd_Larkin

Todd, I have seen you make repeated comments on how people should not use pseudonyms. Some people are in positions that they cannot show a political slant, cannot talk about homosexual/heterosexual stances/ideals, or a variety of other topics because of their jobs, family, co-workers, or friends.

Calling others names and not recognizing that they may have limitations in real life is, at best, ignorant behavior.

Mr. Boyce misses the point. He acts as if journalists don't have opinions and those they do, they can easily put aside in order to be objective. John Stossel (self described libertarian) criticizes journalists that pretend to be objective when they are really pushing an agenda (like him).

Below is a great article by him.

http://townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2009/11/04/the_double_standard_about_journalists_bias?page=full&comments=true

Sorry, recalticant, but I'll call the president whatever I want. Just as you can smear Fox News and others you don't respect. The difference is the president actually bowed to foreign monarchs, whereas, you have no evidence that Fox News presents faux news.

Dr. Krugman earned $50,000 for his pump of Enron. Here is his work:

http://www.pkarchive.org/economy/eman.html

Regarding the Ward-Hunt Ice Shelf: If it's only 3,000 years old what does this infer to you? Possibly, that the earlier shelf also broke off? Or does the world simply not exist for you before 3,000 years. Did you think that the Ward-Hunt Ice Shelf would be around forever? Silly fool.

Also, here's some real news for you: the world's shorelines have been transgressing for more than 11,000 years now. The rate is slowing down, however, don't you think it's still a bad idea to build permanent habitats on barrier islands, eroding shorelines, and collapsing river banks? The only real difference between today and 100 years ago is that the residents of these coastal villages used to be nomadic, whereas now, they are permanent.

What does the resignation of Jones and the removal of Mann from the faculty of their respective institutions of higher research indicate to you?

And no, I don't think the conspiracy to defraud the science community and the world's public as revealed in the hacked UEA e-mails is coincidental at all. I think it's just in the nick of time.

That you can't understand simple English language is your own fault. Go back to school or at least read more.

There, now you're educated a little bit more than you were two minutes ago. Congratulations, I'm rootin' for ya!

"Majority" leftist media bias is undeniable except by those in... "denial" (chuckle)

It's about the same as Marxists and communists in America, often denying that they are communists.

Mostly it's just a matter of perspective whether people like leftists will see or acknowledge bias. Basically if it's your normal frame of mind and you make no effort to skew the information beyond your basic initial perception, then you can't understand where a

"bias" has entered your work/report. But invariably, if I ask a blogger/poster/reporter whether bush was a conservative, they not only say yes but emphatically, "YES"! It immediately shows that they are so far left in their normal thought process, that they can't see how many ways Bush failed at conservative values and even embraced some outright socialist policies. The guy barely qualified as republican, let alone conservative.

So then nothing but a denial can be expected from a leftist media when asked about bias.

Even Boyce, (God bless him for printing the column) admits in the above article that he 'had to explain himself to friends (online) and received comments like "Really...?" upon becoming a fan/friend of some alleged conservative (though i can't think of nearly any "conservatives" in elected office). This indicates that A: his real friends or the people comfortable enough to post on his site dislike the right and would then likely be leftists and B: he felt compelled to explain to the leftists that posted him.

Was he equally noticed and then compelled to reply to posters who noticed his "fan" status of Begich?

Anyhow, denial of bias is expected, evidence to the contrary is abundant and even quantified in many cases.

O.K. so I'm still waiting for some brave posters to actually use real names. Although i don't think it takes any bravery at all.

C'mon, don't be sissies!

Best all,

Todd

So tell me, Rod, are you a "fan" of Luke Hopkins or just a "friend"?

Invictus - is it possible for you to NOT make up stupid juvenile names for the President?

Regarding the "coverage of ClimateGate" - I read about it in the WAPO and NYT. I would suspect that you, once again, don't know the whole story. Do you REALLY think it's a coincidence that weeks before the UN climate talks in Copenhagen and just as the Cap and Trade bill is coming up for the senate vote, "somebody" hacked into the email files of some obscure scientists at the University of East Anglia, and released to the world questionable emails that seem to indicate that these scientists, who are studying the effects of global warming, were fudging the data? REALLY? I've read the emails, and since I'm not a scientist, I honestly didn't understand what they were saying. This separates me from the "journalists" over at Faux News, who claim, of course, to know that they're talking about... Right.

Do you also believe that it's just a coincidence that the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, which has been around for 3,000 years, began to crack in 2000, splitting all the way through in 2002, and is now breaking into pieces? And is it a coincidence that the town of Esook on the arctic coast, a hundred-year-old trading post, is now underwater?

And no, I didn't see Paul Krugman "apologize" on "This Week" - I saw him make a statement similar to mine. What's so weird about saying that people in this field of science speak a language I'm not familiar with - I'm sure they wouldn't understand the language my colleagues and I speak. And please, educate yourself. Krugman did 4 DAYS of consulting work for Enron - is that enough to be called a "consultant"? Not in my book - maybe yours - but let me also point out that it was Krugman who made the connection between the deregulation of the energy companies in California that led to manipulation of the energy market there by Enron.

Please quit calling people "liars" - you're sounding more and more like your leaders, Beck and Limbaugh.

Thanks, redpoll, for sharing your experiences and opinions.

recalcicant -- Really!

Example: where is the coverage of ClimateGate in the mainstream U.S. media? NYT covered it (then excused it), but CNN, FP, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, et al, have not. They're running cover for Obowman before the Copenhagen folly. Thank goodness for Fox News, WSJ, and Rush for exposing the biggest hoax since Piltdown Man.

If you watched ABC's This Week, you would have seen Paul Krugman apologize for Mann, Jones and the other conspirators by saying that they speak a language that the common man doesn't understand. The former Enron advisor, "Dr." Krugman, is a bold-faced liar!

Different story, same commenters.

There you go again, Poo. Gotta fit that Obama slam in there somewhere, don't you? Only this time in particular - it doesn't fit.

And Redpole: "The leftist bias of the media, as a group, is not arguable." Really? REALLY???

I have just 6 words for you: Fox News and the Washington Times. There are others, but those are the most flagrant left-wing foulers of non-biased news. I agree that most good journalists are liberal in the sense that they are open-minded and not prone to expositions of rhetoric that come from either the left or right side of the political spectrum.

Walter Cronkite explains the difference between being "liberal" and being "left of center":

"I think being a liberal, in the true sense, is being nondoctrinaire, nondogmatic, non-committed to a cause - but examining each case on its merits. Being left of center is another thing; it's a political position. I think most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal; if they're not liberal, by my definition of it, then they can hardly be good newspapermen. If they're preordained dogmatists for a cause, then they can't be very good journalists; that is, if they carry it into their journalism."

You decry the "advocacy" of journalists, but then relate a story in which your advocacy was clear. Your assignment (I assume that you were assigned the story) was to follow up on the claim, not to investigate the claimant. Your story became a tool for the Republicans - was that your intent? If you were truly non-biased, you would have 1) investigated the claim, and finding it not true, 2) contacted the caller to tell him or her that the information was incorrect, that children were not going to starve, and invite the person to write a letter to the editor expressing his or her feelings. The story should have died a natural death. By writing the story you wrote, you became that which you detest - an "advocate".

The journalists I have known during my quarter century in the business take great care to avoid political engagement. In fact, there aren’t too many professions out there in which people willingly give up a practice enjoyed by millions of Americans: open political association and active political participation. We don’t participate in campaign rallies, we don’t put candidate signs in our yards, we don’t wear buttons, we don’t give money to candidates.

_____________________

Rod - did you follow the Obama election by the media? Naive or stupid. Take your pick.

>>>The journalists I have known during my quarter century in the business take great care to avoid political engagement. In fact, there aren’t too many professions out there in which people willingly give up a practice enjoyed by millions of Americans: open political association and active political participation. We don’t participate in campaign rallies, we don’t put candidate signs in our yards, we don’t wear buttons, we don’t give money to candidates.<<<

Rod, I respect what you're trying to say here. For much of my adult life, until I was in my early 40s, I worked in the print media. Those editors and reporters I worked with who expressed your kind of ethic were some of the best folks I ever worked alongside.

When I was a fledgling reporter way back in the Carter years, I used to carry in my wallet a quote from Horace Greeley stating that the newspaper should be "the perfect mirror for the community it serves." I always liked that quote.

Here's the sad news, though. As my career advanced, the focus of my colleagues changed, too. More and more came out of journalism school as advocates, not dispassionate observers. That advocacy was almost always what we would call in our country "liberal," although it wasn't the classical liberalism of John Stuart Mill. The advocacy was more properly labeled "leftist." That might not be the situation in Fairbanks, but it was my observation of several newsrooms along the West Coast and in Alaska.

While it might be true that many journalists don't openly take part in political campaigns, political discussion inside the newsroom was a daily exercise. Reporters chose favorites, usually Democrats; I can recall loud disdain for Reagan, both Bushes, Don Young. By the time I left the business, I saw a pattern which might be called the "government-media" complex, in which reporters went to work as flaks and spokespersons for government agencies and politicians. In fact, I've followed the pattern myself. After spending 20 years without a pension, it's amazing how attractive a generous benefit package looks. Since political work is by definition advocacy, the years spent as an advocate in the media are good training for later government service.

I believe you when you write that your newsroom takes care to avoid "political engagement." It's not the norm in the business. I can give you an example from my own experience at an Alaskan newspaper from back in the day.

I received a call from a cafeteria worker in the school district telling me that Republicans are going to starve children by taking away federal funding for school lunches. The worker is a union rep, I discover. The accusation is fraud and based on talking points from the opposition party. I gather the facts and write an article about school district employees acting as shills for the Democrats and spreading disinformation.

The readers loved it. The union went unglued; tough for them. However, my editor pulled me into the office, read me the riot act about "acting like Rush Limbaugh," and told me the story about the loss of school lunches should have been my focus. In other words, I should have gone ahead and reported the talking points, even if it was a fraud.

The leftist bias of the media, as a group, is not arguable. It's been measured and written about ad nauseum. Just look for the reviews of conservative books at the New York Times website - even if those books reach number one, they won't get covered. Maybe those biases don't survive the trip to Fairbanks, though; good for you. In fact, as both a former print guy and a lover of newspapers, if your words are as good as they sound, the News-Miner will continue to stand long after papers like the Old Gray Lady are slipped into that cold Earth.

Speaking as a reader, I want to see any issue from as many sides as the issue can be presented, preferably with the original documents, and only then will I make up my mind. It's not much to ask. Rough and rowdy opinions on the opinion page are fun. Above all, please reflect the community - which in the case of Fairbanks and interior Alaska means diverse political outlooks and worldviews.

Be well and thanks for your column.