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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: To tim sevener re media bias
Message-ID: <350@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Feb-85 13:00:48 EST
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.350
Posted: Thu Feb 28 13:00:48 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Mar-85 20:25:22 EST
Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
Lines: 32

Ken Arndt writes:
>Now that you've convinced yourself that there's no bias, why won't anyone
>ELSE believe you???   (Yes, yes LIBERAL bias, I mean)

I disagree with Ken Arndt with some trepidation, but anyone who
believes that the US media lean to the left should carefully compare
their coverage of the Nicaraguan elections last fall with their
coverage of the Salvadoran elections in 1982.  Neither of these
elections could be termed democratic except by seriously stretching
the meaning of the term, and if anything, the Salvadoran elections
were more of a sham.  Yet although we heard all about the
undemocratic aspects of the Nicaraguan elections from the media, we
heard little about the Salvadoran elections to suggest that they were
not thoroughly democratic and legitimate (the peasants were lining up
by the thousands to vote, etc.).  As a result of this type of news
coverage, many Americans believe that El Salvador has been taking
"steps toward democracy" due to the enlightened policies of RR & Co.
Just ask Raymond Bonner, recently transferred from his duties as
correspondent in El Salvador for the NYT.  Or read his book *Weakness
and Deceit* for some of the news on El Salvador that the NYT, or at
least many lesser newspapers, didn't think was fit to print (I don't
know whether Bonner claims that the NYT suppressed stories he filed.)

I'm well aware that there are a good many articles and TV features
that tend to provide support for liberal and left positions.  (One of
the charming things about the WSJ is the way the front page, the
nation's best in my opinion, often rains on the editorial page's
parade.)  But to prove a bias you have to demonstrate a systematic
distortion of the truth, and this is not an easy task, whether you
believe the slant is to the left or to the right.

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes