NEW YORK TIMES:

Biased or Partisan

By: Brandon Boynton

There are many newspapers in this country and some people tend
to think that some of those newspapers are overwhelmingly biased
towards one side of the political spectrum. They tend to think that
certain newspapers sway their political ideologies onto their readers
in hopes of swaying their vote in such elections such as the latest
presidential election. One of those newspapers is The New York
Times. Even though The New York Times and the rest of the media try
to hide their political agendas they sometimes do a bad job of doing
so. Even though The New York Times tries to appear bipartisan they
tend to lean towards the more liberal side of the political spectrum.
For example on October 26 CBS acknowledged that it had planned to air
a story critical of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraqi
munitions on October 31 on 60 minutes. “CBS opted to allow
its “reporting partner”, the New York Times, to run the story on
October 25. The New York Times along with CBS released the
information that night in order to avoid competition. According to
the New York Times article they reported “that the Iraqi government
has told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that 380 tons
of plastic explosives, one pound of which can bring down a jet
aircraft, went missing during postwar looting(New York Times, James
Glanz, Section A, Page1, Column 5). ” But according to the Pentagon
and a NBC news reporter the U.S. forces arrived on the site with it
already being looted by no later than April 10. As a result of the
false report, John Kerry used it as a political weapon to fire at
President Bush and his Administration. Like CBS, the New York Times
didn’t seem to be to concerned with the authenticity of the
information presented to them but rather if it would hurt Presidents
Bush’s chances at reelection. In response to the New York Times
article Richard Lessner is quoted in the Washington Times “calling the
story a cheap, baseless and partisan hit job on President Bush.,
adding that neither the New York Times nor CBS has much interest in
reporting the facts (Washington Times, Jennifer Harper).”
If reporting false news stories doesn’t seem bias to you than
articles such as James Bennet’s article “Inspired Band of Worried
Citizens in Pennsylvania Rises to a New Level of Activism” in The New
York Times November 3, 2004 issued may convince you other wise. The
article is littered with quotes of people bashing Bush and everything
he stands for. Quotes such as “I’ve never felt sick about the
possibility, my man might lose the election, like I do this time (The
New York Times, Bennet P4)”, talking about John Kerry losing to Bush.
Throughout the whole article you don’t see one person or one mention
of a Bush supporter but rather all Kerry support. The author also
talked about how this local area in which he was reporting from had
recorded the highest democratic turn out in history. It doesn’t
bother me to read articles such as this one that clearly support John
Kerry because I am reasonably smart and realize that there are other
articles out there that support George Bush. It’s not surprising to
see a newspaper clearly support one side or even lean towards one side
such as the New York Times. But after reading the New York Times and
trying to get a feeling for were they stand I have realized that its
harder to gage where they stand than it is when it comes to newspapers
such as the Washington Times which is clearly conservative and for me
its easy to spot out that because I generally vote republican.

THE TOLEDO BLADE

By: Stephanie Brown

The Toledo Blade is a national newspaper that is centered on Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.  It is a paper that has been a strong voice in the area’s political and social structure.  We have decided to examine The Blade in order to determine if it has any bias in regards to political information and the results of that bias in accordance to local elections.

            After examining a variety of articles both before and after the November 2nd election, our group has come to the conclusion that The Toledo Blade does carry some political bias.  Our research has shown us that the Toledo Blade has a blatant tendency to support Democratic candidates for a variety of different elections, regardless of their beliefs or political stances.  Contributing factors to this research include article subject selection, layout decisions, and negative wording in regards to article titles.

            The Toledo Blade supports Democratic candidates in a variety of different ways.  On September 28th, 2004 The Blade ran a series of articles on the upcoming elections.  We found that The Blade showcased the Democratic candidates who were running in both national and local elections.  The front- page article was one that highlighted Senator John Kerry’s campaign.  The article received front-page billing and large, bold type.  A smaller article appeared on the 3rd page of The Blade that gave details on President Bush’s campaign.  This article was not on the center of the page, and did not have the bold type that was found in the Kerry article.  Also, the front page of The Blade had a series of smaller articles that focused on Democratic candidates for other local elections.  There were minimal references to the Republican candidates of local elections, and they did not receive favorable titles for the articles or bold print (9-28-04). 

            After the November 2nd election, The Toledo Blade ran a front- page article that had the title “Bush ahead with a slim lead.” (11-03-04).  This title has a veiled negative connotation that implies that the paper was not happy with the election results.  However, after researching further we found that in 1996, when President Bill Clinton was elected into his second term the front-page article of The Blade read “Clinton Wins!” in 2-inch, bold letters (11-04-1996).  This is a blatant example of The Blade’s tendency to support Democratic candidates.

            While it is important to know just where the local papers stand in regards to political issues, it is also vital to examine the effectiveness of their attempts to sway readers to the Democratic side.  Research indicated that voters in Lucas County, in which Toledo is located, voted primarily for Kerry.  Also, a wide range of Democratic candidates won the local elections.  The same was true for southeast Michigan, which is a large percentage of The Blade’s reading area.  According to this research, The Blade’s Democratic support may very well have been a contributing factor to the voting outcome in the area.  This is an excellent supporting factor of the argument that media bias is relevant and can be detrimental or helpful to a candidate.