Should Newspapers Hire More Rightwingers?
Last week, Washington Post ombudsperson Deborah Howell could be found arguing that the Post needed less intellectual honesty in its opinion pages, noting that the Post centrist columnists had a more favorable attitude to Barack Obama than to John McCain, and that one of its conservatives was cool on McCain. Rather than saying that this configuration of opinions reflected larger trends in American society, she saw it as an example of unfair treatment of the right. This week, Steve Benen finds her arguing that the Post needs affirmative action for conservatives in the newsroom. In addition to the points Steve raises against this proposal, note that as with the right’s notion that there’s a need for affirmative action for non-liberal professors there’s a substantial issue of where all these people are supposed to come from.
After all, I think we understand that most businesspeople are Republicans. In part that’s self-interest and in part that’s self-selection. But Republicans don’t tell their friends they’re “selling out” when they go corporate. They valorize the role of the businessman in society. Of course there are Democrats in the business world, but it’s a minority. Meanwhile, the disproportionate premise of Democrats in the arts, academia, and the media is the mirror image of that phenomenon. Some journalists make it rich, but in general writing for a newspaper is going to be a lot less lucrative than working in corporate PR and similar skillsets are involved. The group of people who prefer newspapering aren’t going to be ideologically identical to the general population. You can see this in part in the fact that the elements of the media that are the most politically relevant are the ones with the most conservatives. If you want to see a bunch of big liberals, forget about political reporters and look at the assembled food writers or movie critics of the United States. Politics is something conservative are interested in, so you see some conservatives in the news pages, more on the op-ed pages, and then total domination on broadcast media.
Arguably this is all bad for America, and if corporate executives were 50-50 liberal-conservative and so were newspaper and magazine writers some good consequences would flow forward. Certainly you could tell a story like that. But you can’t really tell a story about how we would get there.
61 Responses to “Should Newspapers Hire More Rightwingers?”
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November 17th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
in the picture, which one is the newly hired rightwinger? the old guy, right?
November 17th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I think that many large newspapers such as the Washington Post should of course work harder to alienate their few remaining readers & subscribers and fill up their pages with more idiot right wing hacks, since they obviously failed to satisfy their urges to please right-wingers by kissing the Bush Jr administration’s ass and cheer-leading our nation into a useless and destructive war.
Clearly what we needed from the major big budget newspapers was the complete ignoring of the most incompetent lying from the McPalin campaign and a dedication to Bill Ayers / Reverend Wright / ACORN / Community Reinvestment Act / Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac / Democrat Congress coverage on every front page every day for the last year.
With such leadership, they may manage to kill themselves off more rapidly than I had expected.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
“Thank You For Smoking”
It’s not about the truth, it’s all about the argument.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Deborah Howell still hasn’t learned what her fucking job is, because ‘placate whining conservatives’ isn’t it. This is really quite pitiful.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Here’s why it’s pitiful: what happens is the usual wingnut welfare crowd on talk radio and in print whine to their audiences that the WaPo is MADE OF LIBRUL BIAS!1! and said audience whines to Li’l Debbie, even though they don’t read the WaPo and wouldn’t read it if they cloned Krauthammer and put the clones on every desk.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Well said
November 17th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I work in academia, and this is a point I’ve made before during arguments about “liberal bias” in universities. I’d agree that it exists (though not in the same way many think), but that those outside the profession misunderstand the causes. None of the really bright conservative undergrads I’ve taught have ever considered getting a PhD; those interested in postgrad education have gone to law school.
And why shouldn’t they make this choice? Being a lawyer certainly pays better, and after all the time conservatives have spent demonizing the humanities, there’s a real ideological disincentive to spend years mastering the disciplines of English, or History, or Art History.
What I’ve always found fascinating is that almost none of the conservatives I’ve known who’ve complained of liberal bias in academia actually wanted to become professors themselves. They all want some other conservative ideologue to take up the cause. Just my two cents.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Yo, looks like youz been spammed. Anyhow, regarding the post, Obama won the majority of Americans. Should they keep re-doing the election until it’s a fair 50-50 split?
November 17th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Well said
November 17th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Though it boggles the mind to see anyone actually trying to make the argument, what she’s arguing for is actually worse than just ‘affirmative action for conservatives’. It’s affirmative action for conservatives who are further to the right than the editorial staff of the WAPO. Which includes the likes of Krauthammer, Broder, Will, Gerson, and Howell herself.
And her reasoning? It boils down to the bizarre concept that because the conservatives on the WAPO weren’t partisan enough in their opposition to the Democratic candidate, they became de-facto liberals, and somehow lost John McCain the election by failing to make conservatives feel “respected”.
This obviously had the disastrous effect of making ‘real conservatives’ – those who voted GOP in 2008 – a minority in the country. So it’s a national priority for the WAPO to give unqualified McCain supporters jobs as journalists as part of an affimative action inititive to increase the number of people working for the WAPO who consider themselves partisan Republicans.
Thus achieving ‘balance’.
You could not make it up. This is a really strong contender for the Wingnut of the Year Award.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
The supposedly lost 900 subscribers. Let’s see how happy they are reading the Moonie rag instead.
November 17th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
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November 17th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I’ve tried to ask myself just exactly what the role of ombudsman is to her position, but it can’t possibly be David Broderism, could it?
November 17th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Looks like my little hellspawn needs a spankin’!
November 17th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
First, I’d like to thank my white brothers and sisters for their intelligent comments. (What is race but extended family?)
Second, the Post needs to hire real conservatives — not the neocon goons from National Review or Weekly Standard.
————
SIGNATURE:
The white patriot’s Coat of Arms: gens alba conservanda est (the white race must be saved)
—-
T.S. Eliot: “white trash” is a white person who fornicates with a non-white.
—-
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S DECLARATION OF WAR AGAINST EUROPEAN AMERICANS.
Obama has supported:
(A) Reparations. Redistributing money from European Americans (whites) to blacks, mestizos, and Asians.
(B) Criminalizing white parents who refuse to let their children practice miscegenation.
(C) Using “hate crime” laws to silence any criticism from European Americans.
(D) Using Third World immigration to overwhelm European American majorities.
(E) Maintaining anti-white affirmative action programs
(F) Creating a mandatory “America Serves” community-service program to indoctrinate and deracinate young European Americans
—-
From evolutionary philosophy email list: “Children of mixed, white-black, marriages identify 99% of the time as black and detest European Americans (whites). Why? They almost always look black (eye color, hair texture, nose shape, lips, skin color, etc.). Obama wrote: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s white race.”"
November 17th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
There goes the neighborhood.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Memo to Matt Yglesias: Do you EVER pay ANY attention to what is going on on your comment threads?
You really, really need to apply a few judicious whacks with the Banhammer, soon, or this place is going to empty out before you know what happened.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
It’s a good post, but it’s easy in arguing back to overlook a real problem. Indeed, the tendency to assert the obvious in a blog is part of the problem. I know I’ve basically posted this comment before in another recent thread, but what’s going on isn’t seeing the concerted right-wing pressure on the mainstream media and how it’s affecting them.
It’s seeing only the content of the columnists, not the practical targeting of the ombudsman that we’re seeing here and with Hoyt at the Times. We can be glad to have conscientious alternatives to the mainstream media like Matt’s blogs, but it still isn’t a strategy for countering a serious power disadvantage.
November 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Is that one of Sailer’s friends?
November 17th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Washington & NYC are pretty liberal cities. To the extent that the Post and the Times serve a local audience, why shouldn’t they have a liberal bias? I bet the Dallas Morning News has a conservative bias, or at least it should.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Should Newspapers Hire More Rightwingers?
Eh. Yes? Whatever? Who cares? Sure, let the dead tree publishers of rapidly waning relevance hire the dead-end politicos of rapidly waning relevance, and then they can all diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Earlier today, I mentioned Howell’s proposal for ideological affirmative action in newsrooms to the first editor I answered to in my newspapering days. For the record, here’s his response: “If I had asked you about your political leanings, I hope you’d have told me, ‘None of your f—ing business.’ ” That also would have been his response to a pollster’s query about his political leanings.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Sure. Put more rightwingers in the newsrooms, but then support Obama packing the Supreme Court with leftwingers. Okay?
November 18th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
You write:
Is this true? Small Business? Big Business? At all levels or “executives”? I have been a long time senior executive at a very successful public company in SIlicon Valley. The vast majority of our senior executive team are Democrats. I believe the same is true for middle management at my firm (obviously we don’t poll folks, but I know of lot of these people and political donations are public info.). I am sure things are different in different regions or small business, but I’d love to know how true that stereotype (”Businessperson=Republican”) really is with some more fine grained analysis by region and type/size of business. Much to my surprise when I entered the business world approx 20 years ago, most people I know in Tech industry at least are progressives.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
This is an argument that I’ve been making regarding journalism and academia for years. There are only a handful of Ross Douthats out there. Rod Dreher writes for my local daily, and I often imagine him as an affirmative action hire.
Of my completely anecdotal experience, as a Texan who went to college in the Midwest and with mostly high-achieving friends, 95 percent of conservatives seek salary-maximizing jobs, and about half of liberals do.
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