Not who I expected to nail it on media bias, even if he didn't go far enough

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash

Every commentator has a handful of issues near and dear to their heart. One of mine is the subject of media bias. The reason may be me lashing out over believing it didn’t exist until it became too obvious to miss or it may be that I resent the profession I worked hard at being treated this way.

It could be both.

But media bias is a thing.

Which brings me back to newspapers’ refusing to endorse anyone for president this year. I think it’s a good thing. While the editorial page has always been the place for opinions, the fact that there’s almost universal agreement for leftist causes on those pages illustrates a bit of a problem.

One of the papers that has more than a bit of a problem in that regard is the Washington Post, so when they joined the chorus of not endorsing anyone, it was a little surprising.

Jeff Bezos giving his reasons why the paper wasn’t endorsing was even more so.

Likewise with newspapers. We must be accurate, and we must be believed to be accurate. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the media is biased. Anyone who doesn’t see this is paying scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose. Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing fall in credibility (and, therefore, decline in impact), but a victim mentality will not help. Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to control what we can control to increase our credibility.

Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election. No undecided voters in Pennsylvania are going to say, “I’m going with Newspaper A’s endorsement.” None. What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias. A perception of non-independence. Ending them is a principled decision, and it’s the right one. Eugene Meyer, publisher of The Washington Post from 1933 to 1946, thought the same, and he was right. By itself, declining to endorse presidential candidates is not enough to move us very far up the trust scale, but it’s a meaningful step in the right direction. I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it. That was inadequate planning, and not some intentional strategy.

Now, Bezos doesn’t really address the paper’s bias. He likely doesn’t think it exists, though I can suggest a phrase he could search for and find a ton of examples, but at least he recognizes that a lot of people think it does and he’s got to combat it.

And he’s right that endorsements don’t actually sway anyone at all. Not a single person says, “I waiting to see who these papers endorse before deciding who to vote for.” It never happens. At best, it’s a vanity project for newspapers to think they have some role to play in who wins and who loses.

When their endorsement doesn’t lift someone to the presidency, they just brush it aside.

Yet when a paper attacks the winner despite them having endorsed their opponent, it’s kind of hard not to wonder how much of that attack is based on bias. Especially when they engage in some pretty intensive investigative efforts that didn’t seem to exist under the tenure of someone they did endorse.

Of course, one could argue that those others might have been clean, but we don’t know that because the media has lost that trust.

And Bezos, surprisingly enough, understands that.

Lack of credibility isn’t unique to The Post. Our brethren newspapers have the same issue. And it’s a problem not only for media, but also for the nation. Many people are turning to off-the-cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts and other unverified news sources, which can quickly spread misinformation and deepen divisions. The Washington Post and the New York Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to a certain elite. More and more, we talk to ourselves. (It wasn’t always this way — in the 1990s we achieved 80 percent household penetration in the D.C. metro area.)

What he doesn’t note, however, is that there’s more here than just endorsements. I agree that they do more harm than good for a newspaper, but if he wants us to look at the New York Times and the Washington Posts as bastions of quality journalism, then perhaps the next step will be…oh, I don’t know…doing some actual journalism.

Abandon this idea that any allegation made by Trump is “without evidence” unless you’re going to do it for Harris or any other Democrat who utters complete nonsense. I remember Adam Schiff—who, it should be noted, is currently ahead in the polls for his bid to replace Dianne Feinstein—talking a lot about all the Russian collusion and other misdeeds by the Trump administration that he was going to take the then-president down over, all without any actual evidence. He said he had evidence, but that was just his claim.

That got a pass but Trump makes claims for which there is evidence, even if some claim he’s misreading it, and he gets a phrase like that tacked on over and over again. The double standard is obvious and has hurt every news agency that’s used it in such a manner.

What Bezos said nails it, but only so far as things like endorsements go. They also have to take additional steps if they want to restore the trust most had in the media. They have to do something I don’t think any of them want to do.

They have to become trustworthy.

Bezos says he wants to hire more conservative writers. That’s probably a good start. While neutrality might be a challenge, some balance might be close enough. However, he needs to also put some of them in leadership positions so as to make sure the right’s voices are heard.

It’s a good start, though, and I hope he follows through with it. I hope he does it. I’d like to see them step up and actually be what they’ve wanted us to believe they were.

We’ll just have to wait and see how it pans out.

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