THINKing

Media Bias?

OK, by now you know that I believe the media is biased beyond belief and that is a primary reason that print journalism is in the tank from a circulation perspective. The last time I brought this up, the liberals came out of the woodwork to skewer me. That’s OK. I’m a big boy. But don’t just take it from me.

Let’s hear from Michael Malone, a reporter who has been in the business for 30 years. He is one of the nation’s best-known technology writers. He has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than 25 years, beginning with the San Jose Mercury News as the nation’s first daily high-tech reporter. His articles and editorials have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Fortune, and for two years he was a columnist for The New York Times. He was editor of Forbes ASAP, the world’s largest-circulation business-tech magazine, at the height of the dot-com boom. Malone is the author or co-author of a dozen books, notably the best-selling “Virtual Corporation.” Malone has also hosted three public television interview series, and most recently co-produced the celebrated PBS miniseries on social entrepreneurs, “The New Heroes.” He has been the ABCNews.com “Silicon Insider” columnist since 2000.

Writes Malone in a column for ABC News,

The traditional media are playing a very, very dangerous game — with their readers, with the Constitution and with their own fates. The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling.

Malone, a fourth generation newspaperman, says that he now is too embarrassed to tell people what he does for a living. Like me, Malone understands that humans are biased. But in journalism school we were taught to try to rise above it. We were taught to ask the same kinds of tough questions of Democrats and Republicans, businessmen and workers no matter your opinion. Ask tough questions, present the facts and let the reader decide.

Malone says that we have moved far from that ideal.

No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side — or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.

Put aside any knee jerk reactions, read Malone’s article and then let me know what you think.