The appearance of bias
Posted on July 24th, 2004 by Brian Corbino
Media Bias. Ask a journalist about it, and they’ll claim it only exists in the minds of partisan critics who disagree with their editorial positions. Read what they write, and you get a different story.
Which brings me to tonight’s topic - not bias itself, but the appearance of bias. After 9/11, when some journalists started wearing flag pins on their lapels, we heard cries from the heavy hitters (Dan Rather et. al.) about how they won’t wear a flag pin because “it would compromise our neutrality, as we will appear to have taken sides”.
Why then are reporters allowed to give money to political candidates (regardless of party)? Does that not compromise their neutrality?