NYT vs. WSJ: Reader Michael Kurtz responds to last Thursday's comment about the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal:
Since you leave out the WSJ's pet liberal, Al Hunt, it seems disingenuous for you to suggest that because the NYT has a pet conservative it is less biased than the WSJ. In any event the bias charge against the NYT is because of its NEWS writing, not because of its OPINION writing. I have not heard this charge recently against either the WSJ or the WP.
The Al Hunt issue has come up several times. When I chose which columnists to include at the beginning of the year, my approach was to accept each paper's definition of their own political columnists, by evaluating all of the pundits they list on each of their three editorial page web pages. I'm not including Al Hunt at the WSJ (or some others) because they're not on that WSJ page, not because of any judgement on my part.
Then Mr. Kurtz followed up by making clear the difference between the Wall Street Journal and the OpinionJournal.com web page:
I don't want to get into a semantic argument, but you are wrong about the WSJ's "definition of their own political columnists." Al Hunt's column is in exactly the same position in the paper as Robert Bartley's. What is different about Al Hunt is that his column is not given away for free on the OpinionJournal.com web site. Also you include Peggy Noonan, but her column is normally NOT included in the paper version of the WSJ, but only appears in OpinionJournal.com.OpinionJournal.com is not the WSJ, and what you are measuring is OpinionJournal.com, minus the weblogger James Taranto. OpinionJournal.com probably represents well the opinions of the editorial board of the WSJ, but it is much to the right of the actual opinion pages of the WSJ.
I think Mr. Kurtz is exactly right. He's right that Mickey Kaus and others constantly criticize the NYT for bias, but focus mostly on news stories rather than editorials. My point was that the WSJ's set of regular columnists is less politically diverse than that of the NYT, but he correctly makes a distinction between the OpinionJournal.com web site and the actual WSJ. Since there's no way I will pay for a $79 annual subscription to the online WSJ just to get Al Hunt's column, I guess I should adjust my terminology to refer to OpinionJournal.com instead of the WSJ.
WELL, AT LEAST I HAVE MORE FREE TIME: Now that my beloved St. Louis Cardinals are not in the World Series, I won't have any problem tearing myself away from the TV to do other things.
| Author/ Affiliation |
Title/ Date |
words | PI | Partisan References |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Krugman New York Times |
Still Living Dangerously 15 October 2002 |
856 | 100 | 5R-: administration, administration, administration, Richard Perle, administration |
| Thomas J. Bray Wall Street Journal |
GOP: Covering the Spread 15 October 2002 |
1317 | 50 | 2D+: Democratic, Democratic 12D-: Democratic, Democrats, Democrats, Democrats, Democrats, Carl Levin, Levin, Democratic, Democrats, Democrats, Al Gore, Bill Clinton 11R+: GOP, President Bush, Republicans, Republicans, President Bush, Bush, Republicans, Bush, Republicans, Republicans, George W. Bush 2R-: President Bush, Bush administration 1D=, 10R= |
| E. J. Dionne Jr. Washington Post |
Are Moderate Republicans Obsolete? 15 October 2002 |
1170 | 38 | 14D+: Chris Van Hollen, Democrat, Democratic, Van Hollen, Van Hollen, Democrats, Democrats, Democrat, Van Hollen, Van Hollen, Democrats, Democratic, Sumers, Democrat 1D-: Democratic 10R+: Morella, Morella, Morella, Morella, Republicans, Morella, Connie Morella, Roukema, Ronald Reagan, Morella 24R-: Republicans, Connie Morella, Republican, Republican, Morella, Morella, Republican, Republicans, Gingrich, Morella, Morella, Bush, Morella, Republican, Tom DeLay, Republican, DeLay, Republican Party, Roukema, Republican, Garrett, Republican Party, Republicans, Republican 4D=, 18R= |
| Richard Cohen Washington Post |
Nobel Winners And Losers 15 October 2002 |
964 | 17 | 10D+: Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter, Carter 7R+: George W. Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush 1R-: Henry Kissinger 3D=, 2R= |
| Nicholas D. Kristof New York Times |
Saddam, the U.S. Agent 15 October 2002 |
842 | 0 |