In "What Liberal Media?", critic Eric Alterman describes how conservatives "work the refs" by accusing media of having a liberal bias. In one of his "Think Again" columns, Alterman recaps the strategy:
For the past five decades, Republican politicians, writers, television pundits and think tanks have been remarkably successful at convincing the American people of a "liberal bias" in the media. Using the very same media outlets that they complain don't give their cause a fair shake to lodge their complaints, they know that slamming the other side is little more than a way to get their own ideas across, while drowning out opposing voices. Some have even admitted as much. During the 1992 presidential race, Rich Bond, then chair of the Republican Party, outlined the right's game plan, saying that "There is some strategy to it [bashing the 'liberal' media]. If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack on the next one."
In a review of Alterman's book, we learn that the strategy is often used to explain conservative losses at the polls:
Alterman quotes William Kristol of The Weekly Standard saying, "I admit it. The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
Cue the conservatives in the First, who are now writing letters to the editor complaining of liberal bias in the Mankato Free Press:
During this past election, I felt The Free Press’ reporting was biased against conservatives.
Your editorial board seems one-sided toward the liberal view. This election, all candidates endorsed by The Free Press were all one party, the DFL.
One wonders how the paper can be objective when it seems so lopsided towards one party.
I wish I would have seen more equalness between the two parties in reportings and letters and I hope to see that in the future.
Elizabeth Piepho
Mankato
This is a classic example of "working the refs."
Piepho first claims that the reporting was biased against conservatives, then notes that the editorial board only endorsed DFLers. Unfortunately for Piepho, the reporters and editorial board are not one and the same, as we shall see.
Note how the writer doesn't point to any specific examples of bias in the paper's news reporting, nor does she offer a content analysis of news coverage in the Free Press. Piepho is, BTW, daughter of losing Republican state senate candidate Mark Piepho.
Conservatives tried "working the refs" with the Free Press throughout the election. Managing editor Joe Spear responded to accusations of bias on October 25:
The blanket statement often thrown out by these line counters is that everyone who works at The Free Press or in journalism in general is so liberal they always back the liberal point of view in news stories. Of course, these folks say this without having one shred of evidence of the political leanings of anyone who works at The Free Press. They’ve never spoken to them or checked their voting record or wallet to see if they have an ACLU card.
Many reporters at The Free Press have dozens of years of experience and are well-respected by all sides of the political spectrum. Their charge when writing a story for the finite space is to include information that they feel is interesting, useful and relevant to our customers and our readers, at the same time holding to our standards of accuracy, fairness and balance.
We’re not writing public relations for the political campaigns. It is not our job to regurgitate everything a candidate says. We’re performing our function as an independent press in a democracy. That means we may appear to be unfair sometimes. All arguments don’t have equal weight. It’s not our job to reprocess the misleading facts and innuendo many of these campaigns throw out.
In my opinion, we’re more polite than we should be to many politicians who won’t directly answer simple questions. In essence, our job to our readers is to cut through the B.S. and get readers as close to the real deal as possible.
Endorsements
Many a conspiracy theorist will conclude that The Free Press news coverage is somehow connected to The Free Press political endorsements. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reporters don’t know who the editorial board is going to endorse and the one reporter who sits on our editorial board is restricted from writing editorials on any candidate he has to cover. He doesn’t usually cover politics at all, but sometimes helps with county board races and legislative races.
But Piepho's complaint is not alone on the Free Press's letter page. There's another one, this time some up-close-and-personal complaining about post-election coverage:
On the day following the election, I was curious about the status of the Minnesota gubernatorial race. I saw that your headline for that day said the race was a “dead heat.”
I called The Free Press at 1:15 p.m. to see if anyone there could tell me who the new governor was. The woman I spoke to either did not know the answer to my question or was just reluctant to tell me. She gave me the number to call to talk to the political writer at the paper, but said he wasn’t there and to try and call later.She did say I could go to their Web site for more current information.
The next day, two days after the election, I picked up the paper to read about the analysis of the governor’s race. I looked for several minutes but the only reference I found to the race was a short phrase at the bottom of the front page. Likewise, on day three post election, I searched for an article regarding the above mentioned race but again could find no information.
Please forgive me if I missed your printed analysis of the governor’s election. My point in writing this letter is that Tim Walz was featured with an article and large picture on the front page of your paper for two days in a row. That was not the only election. I have a suspicion that if I had looked at The Free Press building last week, it would have definitely been leaning left.
My local weekly paper, which I read on Nov. 9, covered more of the election in a factual and concise manner than your daily did.
Lil Gronewold
Madelia
Doggone those left-leaning receptionists, withholding news from Gronewold.
We can't speak to the election coverage in the Madelia Times-Messenger, since the paper isn't online and we don't have a subscription. Suffice to say that when the weekly was put to bed on Wednesday, all the statewide races were settled.
Yep, the Mankato Free Press slighted coverage of statewide races to focus on the local news angle--that of the election of a long shot candidate, Mankato resident Tim Walz.
When the dead tree edition of the Free Press went to bed, probably early Wednesday morning, the governor's race was a dead heat, but the U.S. Senate race was settled. The Free Press reported on both races, but only reported on the congressional race two days later in print and online.
Gronewald's perception of bias extends only to the congressional and governor's race. What about the down-ticket victories by Mark Ritchie, Otto and Lori Swanson? The online edition of the paper includes no mention of these DFL victories. Had there been left-leaning bias, as opposed to a preference for focusing coverage of local issues, the Free Press would likely have been touting the wins by DFLers Ritchie, Otto and Lori Swanson.
The paper might have done a better job of covering the Pawlenty, Ritchie, Otto, and Swanson wins, but its failure to do so can not be construed as liberal bias--rather, as evidence of the local focus most small town dailies follow.
We don't have to speculate much about the existence of this local focus at the Free Press. The paper's managing editor Joe Spear explained that its campaign coverage would focus on local races on October 3.
How liberal is the Mankato Free Press, and how given is it to squelching conservative voices?
One reality check is to look at the mix of national columnists in Free Press's oped section. The commies at the Free Press online most recently served up National Review editor-at-large Jonah Goldberg. That old liberal bias at work once again, ya betcha.
Congratulations to Elizabeth Piepho for solving the mysteries of how to improve our society… and she’s done it at AGE 10 ! If only the editorial writers at The Free Press could see it “Right”. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe a few months ago, Mark Piepho was cited in The Free Press Forum Discussion since the editors didn’t print one of his letters prior to the 2004 election. Now, little Elizabeth is crying the same tune.
Elizabeth was prominently featured in radio advertisement for her father … but apparently that does not have the influence of a FP editorial endorsement … as her father was nipped by just under 5,000 votes (19,040-v-14,073).
It’s funny but I always considered a newspaper that featured Cal Thomas and George Will on their editorial page as leaning “Right”.
Regarding the FP’s editorials, I detected a theme. They looked for experience and performance – although having either did not guarantee their endorsement. In fact, they held incumbents to a higher standard … did they perform? Pawlenty, Kennedy, Gutknecht, State Rep. Tony Cornish -- all didn’t get the FP endorsements because of performance. I suspect that young Elizabeth’s complaint was related to her father’s State Senate race and Mankato district State House race. Both were open seats. In both, the FP endorsed people who had spent time in the trenches as they endorsed candidates that spent time on the local school board. Funny, I always think back to Molly Ivans comment on George Bush’s candidacy for Governor of Texas … she wondered why guys have to always shoot for the top job or nothing … what’s wrong with learning how to work at group compromise by starting at the local school board or city council? Mark Piepho was previously elected as a State Rep back in the early ‘80s … running on a anti-abortion platform handing out radical flyers at all the churches … later he was a one-term mayor of a small hamlet called Skyline … people knew Mark Piepho … people also knew his competitor … the FP editorial did not change people’s minds … the people spoke (and when you lose by 5,000 votes AND also less than the previous Republican received in the last State Senate election,) I think we can say spoke quite loudly.
Posted by: MinnesotaCentral | November 28, 2006 at 09:32 AM