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| Jane and Lorraine, 1983** |
This morning's
New York Times carries the
last column of Arthur S. Brisbane as The Public Editor,* who comments weekly about the paper's coverage, good and bad. In it, I found this
nugget:
"I also noted two years ago that I had taken up the public
editor duties believing 'there is no conspiracy' and that The Times’s
output was too vast and complex to be dictated by any Wizard of Oz-like
individual or cabal. I still believe that, but also see that the hive on
Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds — a
phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than
from within.
When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found
that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing
fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the
paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and
cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview
virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.(Emphasis added.)