Which Example of L.A. Times Bias Has Outraged You the Most?
I have not been invited by the L.A. Times to bash the L.A. Times in the new “Outside the Tent” column. But one thing is certain: either they’re going to invite me, or I’ll write in this space what I would have written if they had invited me. (Eventually, that is — I’m quite busy these days.)
Towards that end, I’m asking readers to vote in the comments for your own favorite example of L.A. Times bias, as reported on these pages. The best place to look for examples is in my year-end reviews of the newspaper for 2003 and 2004 (in two parts).
I’m also interested in feedback regarding what you think a good theme would be. Some possibilities:
- A suggestion that the newspaper pay more attention to blogs as a source of information.
- A general attack on the paper for liberal bias. I think this may be too ambitious for a few hundred words — not to mention too hackneyed.
- A more focused attack using a theme developed on the web site. Kevin Murphy has suggested the paper’s treatment of conservative judges, or its support for Proposition 66 (something about which I have specialized knowledge).
- A column about the need to prominently and fairly disclose material facts that go against the story line. As a prosecutor, I must disclose to the defense any exculpatory information, even though it goes against the story line of the defendant’s guilt. One of CBS’s main transgressions was in not disclosing to its viewers information it already had, which cast doubt on the authenticity and content of the forged documents.
- A suggestion that the paper hire and/or place conservatives in positions of power, to create a diversity of viewpoints within the newsroom.
- A suggestion that, when the paper makes a fundamental error that undermines the basic point of an article, it should issue a correction that is at least as prominent as the original article itself.
Any other ideas?
Call it another experiment in open-source column-writing.
I suggest you amuse yourself with generous use of slanted-
journalism techniques. For example, “Robert Writer, a
‘journalist’ at the L. A. Times, smirked as he wrote…”
Why should the L. A. Times have all the fun - let them see
how it feels. Your riposte to Barbara Boxer’s remarks was a
good start.
Comment by dchamil — 1/20/2005 @ 7:35 am
I would focus on the factual misstatements, e.g., federal law poses “no bar” to Californians purchasing “assault” weapons in other states, Carolyn Kuhl petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to “outlaw abortion,” etc. Recommend firing Jamie Gold and replacing her with someone who will at least try to represent the readers rather than make tired excuses for the paper’s excesses.
Comment by Xrlq — 1/20/2005 @ 8:53 am
The last three items are great. How could any serious, professional newspaper disagree? Never mind; just a rhetorical question.
Comment by Tom Carter — 1/20/2005 @ 9:47 am
Count how many times an edition (do not include opinion page) speculates on what will happen and who the speculation will help.
This includes opinion polls, economic forcasts, job/unemployment figures, global warming etc). In this analysis we can the include what information has been left out.
Comment by Tim Gannon — 1/20/2005 @ 9:59 am
I like the fourth. If they were to take that one to heart, a lot of the otehrs would cease to be an issue.
Comment by Dan S — 1/20/2005 @ 10:01 am
Let me say first that if Patterico is not one of the first 10 guest writers for this experiment we can safely say that the experiment has failed.
If the “conservative in the newsroom” suggestion is considered to be within the realm of possibility, we might as well suggest:
Hire an outside editor, give this editor the front page stories and two hours to write up all of the bias and bad journalistic practices in these pieces for same-day, front page placement.
Comment by motionview — 1/20/2005 @ 11:02 am
An example of misinforming by omission happened just today. In a small article titled “A Social Security ‘Disaster’ Predicted” on page 19 picked up from AP, the final paragraph states, “Administration officials have told allies they are considering a plan that would give future retirees lower benefits than they are now promised.” No mention at all in the article that lower benefits from the government will be more than offset by private accounts.
Comment by Jackie Warner — 1/20/2005 @ 12:23 pm
I would suggest the ‘conservative view.’ That is the difference with Fox News and it’s popularity. It is not that it is totally rightwing since it has plenty of left wing pundits, but that it actually does have conservative viewpoints. That is really all that is needed. Conservatives have never been afraid of debate, we just wanted the debate.
Comment by Rightwingsparkle — 1/20/2005 @ 12:27 pm
I suggest you explore the deeply held belief that as someone in a position of authority at a newspaper they can do no wrong simply because they are ‘enlightened’. This attitude leads them to the casual dismissal of accusations of bias as misguided or simply differences of opinion. In fact, the newspaper cannot even participate in that debate because of the civil rights lessons learned in the 60’s that, “The oppressor never feels the pain of oppression, the master never feels the sting of the whip.” They cannot participate in the debate because they are blind to their own prejudice. What is needed is a shift in belief from assuming your own innocence, to embracing your own guilt. Admit it, look for it, accept it and only THEN will you be able to change it.
Comment by Jim D. — 1/20/2005 @ 1:49 pm
How about just plain honesty. The rigged polls on the recall were so bad that like Rathergate they were pointed out as lies in less than a day. I expect bigotry from the MSM but fabricated polls and fake documents are too much!
Rod Stanton
Cerriots
Comment by Rod Stanton — 1/20/2005 @ 3:00 pm
Pat do not pull your punches.
Comment by Rod Stanton — 1/20/2005 @ 3:08 pm
Is it possible to obtain bottom line finacials. How has the DogTrainer done financially? I know that they had to fire 140 reporters as a result of poor advertizing sales; probably caused by liberal bias.
Is the DogTrainer proud of the fact they backed Gray Davis and were they impressed by the results of backing him?
Comment by Don Nickles — 1/20/2005 @ 3:49 pm
Dear Pat;
Hah, I’ve got one from the memory hole that I’ll bet you don’t even recall!
Back in 1994, two leftist feminist reporters at the Wall Street Journal, Jill Abramson and Jane Mayer, published a wretched book titled Strange Justice, whose only purpose was to bash and belittle Clarence Thomas. The book itself was execrable — unsourced, riddled with errors, and so biased it’s literally hilarious (pronounced the way George Will pronounces it: HIGH-larious).
Naturally, the L.A.Times ran a review praising the book to the skies. The review was written by (ahem) NPR commentator Nina Totenberg.
The Times, however, sort of forgot to mention in the blurb at the bottom that Ms. Totenberg was not only a player in the confirmation itself… she was, in fact, a principal source for the book!
The book is built around the interviews of several anti-Thomas women; although Totenberg is not one of these listed women, she is quoted and cited extensively throughout the volume; the authors treat her as a veritable saint for bravely leading the fight against Clarence Thomas’s confirmation… but none of this did the Times think important to mention when they ran Totenberg’s “review.” They did not bother telling their readers that the reviewer had a personal interest in the book doing well, as it would be free advertising for Totenberg and help her career and credibility.
Go back and reread the review. I’m not willing to pay the Times their lousy $2.95 to buy the full text, but here is the
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/59564411.html?did=59564411&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Nov+13%2C+1994&author=Nina+Totenberg&desc=A+Question+That+Won%27t+Go+Away+STRANGE+JUSTICE%3A+The+Selling+of+Clarence+Thomas+By+Jane+Mayer+and+Jill+Abramson+(Houghton+Mifflin%3A+%2424.95%3B+406+pp.)+RESURRECTION%3A+The+Confirmation+of+Clarence+Thomas+By+John+C.+Danforth+(Viking%3A+%2419.95%3B+225+pp.)
(I haven’t looked at the archived version, so for all I know, they changed the blurb; but I assure you that as published, there was not a word about Totenberg’s status both in the events described in the book and in the book itself.)
To my mind, this is the synecdoche of the mindset of the Los Angeles Times, whose motto should be a line from Citizen Kane: “the people will think what [we] tell them to think.”
Dafydd
Comment by Dafydd — 1/20/2005 @ 4:38 pm
I think an essay on the power of the jump, with several specific LATimes examples, might be useful. Although you’ve got several ideas here that might lend themselves better to a column-length piece.
Comment by See-Dubya — 1/20/2005 @ 11:31 pm
Just want to thank you so much for this looonnngg overdue subject matter.
A few suggestions: When they write their corrections for the record, the correction should be coherent enough to stand on it’s own, rather than requiring the reader to go back to the original wrong article to figure out what they are correcting. In other words, rather than “we should have stated that the suspect was a 39 year old white male”, the correcion should say “the suspect was a 29 year old white male, not the 80 year old frail black woman we stated in the original article”. Of course they don’t want to do this as it’s too easy for the reader to figure out how bad the reporters are.
Also, to expand on the 4th post, when they speculate on what will happen, they should then print what actually happens. They should keep a scorecard!
Comment by Mary Herman — 1/21/2005 @ 4:44 pm
My vote for the clearest example of LADT bias would be the “der Gropenfeur”* hit pieces they ran about Arnold fully six days before the recall election.
Aside from the timing, it later came out that the LADT had spiked a similar article about roughly comparable bad behavior Jill Stewart had written about Grey Davis back in 1997, on the grounds that her story relied too much on anonymous accusers (just like the LADT hit piece on Arnold did). And was I the only one to notice that the organization “Code Pink”, which was formed to protest Arnie, got an awful lot of traction awfully quick. Its almost like they knew what was coming or something.
* And of course, “der Gropenfeur” was the charming little name the LADT’s own Steve Lopez came up with to brand Arnie the minute the LADT raised the groping allegatioons and rehashed the “son of a nazi” smear.
Comment by Sean — 1/21/2005 @ 5:37 pm
LA Times Watch
Patterico reflects on what one story he would bring up in criticizing the LA Times. Read the responses….
Trackback by Local Liberty — 1/21/2005 @ 8:48 pm
I’d like to see a comprehensive analysis of the contents of one section of the paper for, say 21 days. Say, look at what Kinsley’s editorial pages do in three weeks. How many lefties, how many non-lefties. How many factual errors. How many factually challenged letters, etc. The goal here is to get real quantifiable data and strong examples, something that clearly shows a pattern at the paper, in a way few can dispute.
Comment by PrestoPundit — 1/22/2005 @ 12:16 am
I’d like to see a comprehensive analysis of the contents of one section of the paper for, say 21 days. Say, look at what Kinsley’s editorial pages do in three weeks. How many lefties, how many non-lefties. How many factual errors. How many factually challenged letters, etc. The goal here is to get real quantifiable data and strong examples, something that clearly shows a pattern at the paper, in a way few can dispute.
Comment by PrestoPundit — 1/22/2005 @ 12:17 am
Believe it or not, I think the op-ed page could be worse. Genuine, passionate, articulate voices from the right do occasionally emerge. The editorials are virtually always pap, but there is some effort at balance on the right side of the page.
Comment by Patterico — 1/22/2005 @ 12:35 am
Bias in the LA Times. My worst gripe with them goes back to the 2000 Florida problems.
A consortium of big media, including the LA Times, was formed to see if Gore or Bush would have won a total hand recount. The conclusion: Bush won.
Several vote counting scenarios were tested. Bush won all except one. Even the Times admitted that scenario was farfetched and unrealistic.
The Times buried the consortium’s report in about four paragraphs somewhere around page 23. It is never mentioned by MSM.
For the next four years they implied that Bush stole the election in Florida.
Comment by Ken — 1/22/2005 @ 11:05 pm
Despite its now East-of-everything ownership The Los Angeles Times claims to be a West Coast paper, specifically a regional/community newspaper that represents and reflects the ‘community’ of Los Angeles. Which means, then, it should be an inclusive newspaper instead of what it is: Exclusive. It excludes, every day, opinion and perceptions of those who do not support its anti-American agenda.
So perhaps you should write about why it is no longer a community oriented newspaper.
Comment by James C. Hess — 1/23/2005 @ 7:58 am
What’s the term used in the military? Target rich environment. Clearly, any effective, coherent piece would have to ignore multiple targets of opportunity and concentrate on an area that might actually penetrate the gray matter of a minority of readers and even staffers. For the readers, my favorite would be #5, on the need for a truly diverse staff. Of course I somehow doubt the typical LAT employee will greet this idea with open arms, so maybe a pointed rewrite of some of their news articles to reflect the opposite point of view might be helpful.
Also, before I forget, you simply must check out the misnamed “Fire Jim Tracy” blog for the superb, Patterico like takedowns on the truly embarassing Bill Plaschke and TJ Simers, the current heirs to Jim Murray inhabiting the sports columns at our favorite bird cage bottom.
http://firejimtracy.blogspot.com/
Between the various sections its a race to the bottom I say.
Comment by Lloyd — 1/24/2005 @ 10:20 am