The ABCs of Bias

John Green, executive producer of the weekend edition of Good Morning America is reportedly “mortified” over an email he sent in which he wrote that “Bush makes me sick“, according to Matt Drudge:

A friend of Green’s at ABC says Green is mortified by the email. “John feels so badly about this email. He is a straight shooter and great producer who is always fair. That said, he deeply regrets the sentiment expressed in the email and the embarrassment it causes ABC News.”

Why? It’s merely inline with the bias others at ABC have recently expressed. And, as Roger L. Simon wrote today, “In fact, it’s good viewers of ABC are informed of the opinions of those producing the network’s shows. It gives those viewers much more ability to evaluate what they are seeing.”

I agree. Besides, doesn’t Green know that it’s OK to express your bias these days (as indeed, others at ABC have already done?) Or that the need to claim impartiality is merely a temporary holdover of a relatively brief phase from the mid-20th century, when the mass media needed to justify news being disseminated by three networks (originally radio, and later TV) and one or two big newspapers per city?

Update: Mark Steyn tells Hugh Hewitt that Green’s email reveals the groupthink that dominates ABC (with the possibly sole exception of John Stossel–who, as a libertarian, has his own differences with President Bush, but very different ones than the rest of the gang at his network):

you know, a lot of people make me nauseous, but I wouldn’t put it on an e-mail, because I wouldn’t assume that everyone who saw that e-mail agreed with me. What is reveals is that what the media think of as their impartiality is in fact rather a bland assumption that they all think the same way. And that’s what’s revealing about this, that he knew he could send that e-mail to all his chums at ABC, and that they would all agree that Bush makes them puke. And the difference is, you know what I think, and I know what you think. And why doesn’t…I’m happy that this has come clean, that Bush makes him puke.

HH: Yup.

MS: That’s great. Now if he can only say where ABC, where the network thinks Bush makes us puke, that would be one step to a kind of greater honestly and straightforwardness in dealing with the public.

Exactly.