LIFE IN THE POST-BIAS WORLD:

LIFE IN THE POST-BIAS WORLD: Overall daily newspaper circulation is down according to The American Thinker, which notes:

Only two major papers, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post–both commonly identified as conservative in their editorial policies–reported robust circulation growth.

And they admit to their biases, unlike many of the newspapers whose circulations are down. As John Podhoretz noted about The New York Post and another conservative publication, The Washington Times he’s worked for:

One of the primary qualities that has distinguished these two papers from most others in the country is that they do not pretend to be something they’re not. They are run by conservatives. Readers know it, and are given the opportunity to read them and judge for themselves whether the information in them is improperly colored by the ideological views of the owners and managers.

In the world of professional journalists, this lack of pretense is considered a black mark against these institutions. They are criticized and held in lesser regard precisely because they have the integrity to be honest with their readers about what they are. Howell Raines, back when he was Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, refused to acknowledge that the Washington Times was even a newspaper. He called it a “journalistic entity” – which, I have to say, is far more than he is right now.

The American Thinker noted that even in the post-Raines-era, “The New York Times reported a mere 0.27% circulation growth, to 1,133,763, virtually a rounding error”.