Well, What Do You Know...

Howell Raines, February 20, 2003:

“Our greatest accomplishment as a profession is the development since World War II of a news reporting craft that is truly non-partisan, and non-ideological, and that strives to be independent of undue commercial or governmental influence….But we don’t wear the political collar of our owners or the government or any political party. It is that legacy we must protect with our diligent stewardship. To do so means we must be aware of the energetic effort that is now underway to convince our readers that we are ideologues. It is an exercise of, in disinformation, of alarming proportions, this attempt to convince the audience of the world’s most ideology-free newspapers that they’re being subjected to agenda-driven news reflecting a liberal bias.”

Daniel Okrent, July 25, 2004:

Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?Of course it is.

Gee, that only took 70 years to admit. Back in February, we ran a list of journalists who were willing to admit that they and/or their employers leaned to the left. Obviously this admission by Okrent goes to the top of the list.

To pick up on something we wrote yesterday, discussing the Times’ recent and dramatic stock slide:

(As Bernard Goldberg writes in Arrogance, the Times’ reporting influences not just what you read in other papers, but what you see on TV as well. Many, many TV news stories begin as Times articles, which TV networks simply hand to their reporters and say, “craft a TV story out of this”.)

Which means that Okrent’s admission has repercussions throughout virtually all of America’s media. For example, the New York Times finally admits it’s liberal, but still carries the motto, “All the news that’s fit to print”.What does that do to the folks who claim that because Fox sometimes tilts to the right (don’t tell Geraldo and Greta, though) that they shouldn’t be using “fair and balanced”?

Welcome to the post-Bias world, indeed.

(Via Allahpundit.)