The liberal media

The 13 June 2008 episode of On The Media has an interview with Frank Scandale, who, as editor of The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, launched a six month "self-examination" after the paper was accused by its readers of being too liberal. The interview itself is interesting, but this quote in particular caught my attention, as it provides a great explanation as to why people tend to think of the media as being "liberal":

BROOKE GLADSTONE: You know, it's been argued that the values of journalism naturally line up with the values of liberalism, in that journalists question authority – at least they're supposed to do that when they're doing their job – that they challenge institutions, that they dig deep into places where they're not supposed to go, that this is sort of part and parcel of the craft.

FRANK SCANDALE: I totally agree. Two points to make is I've written a column basically espousing what you just said, that we tend to be those kinds of people.

I have a letter here from a fellow who said he used to be a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist, and he said, yep, you guys have a liberal paper, albeit one I have never read. How can I know this? Well, and I say this with tongue in cheek, it would never occur to a conservative paper to engage in such introspection.

The short version of this, of course, is Stephen Colbert's quip at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."