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Sure. It's not like I don't provide evidence, but up til now, I was not happy with what I had. So last year, Jim Kuypers, a Dartmouth journalism prof, who has written on media bias, and John Lott, who wrote one of the most impressive studies of concealed carry laws ever, and is now at American Enterprise Institute, agreed to a "sub-study" within my chapter.

We are in the process of looking at five papers: NY Times, LA Times, At. Constitution, Cleveland Plain Dealer, WaPo, for 12 years---two editorials per month, randomly chosen, but one each on foreign and domestic affairs. That will give us something like 700 observations. Kuypers, who specializes in "word slanting" and "loaded language," will provide a model for analyzing the editorials; and Lott will help with the econometric regressions. We expect to see a change in the editorial coverage, not only by what subjects they supported and opposed, but in the overall lanugage and tone of the papers, and I expect (don't know, cause I haven't gotten this far) to find the major change coming before 1968, not after. Probably 1965.

...and I expect (don't know, cause I haven't gotten this far) to find the major change coming before 1968, not after. Probably 1965.

You're satisfied the lurch to the left by the media didn't occur til the 60's? Fair enough.

To me it seems the media has always been a little off. But I didn't really start paying much attention to the "news" until around the early 70's. I found the evening news broadcasts were sprinkled with oddities that I couldn't explain; counter-intuititive little trinkets that made me scratch my head in wonderment. It became worse. But I digress.

In any case, would you mind pinging me to any future discussion(s) regarding your work.

Regards,

FGS

LS writes: "For a lot of reasons, by the 1880s, MOST papers were no longer "partisan" but were "fact-based" and tried to keep "editorial" and "news" separate. Codes of ethics were drawn up that prohibited rampant politicization of news. There were exceptions (the "Yellow Press") but this was the norm until about 1960 when it started to change again."

Dear LS:

I applaud your research and look forward most eagerly to seeing its final results.

If you'll pardon a word of unsolicited advice, you may want to keep an open mind regarding certain elements of the hypothesis you have laid out here, and not become too attached to them. In particular, I am skeptical of the claim that journalism was less "partisan" during the 1880-1960 period than it is today.

This claim presupposes that "partisan" journalism and "fact-based" or "objective" journalism are mutually exclusive (or at least fundamentally different in kind) — an assumption which may not be correct.

"News" writing is stylistically distinct from "op-ed" writing, but no less subject to editorial bias. Both genres present facts, and both present those facts selectively, in accordance with the underlying biases of writers, editors and publishers. News writers are trained to mask these biases beneath a veneer of flat and clinical-sounding language. But simply because something has been concealed does not mean it has ceased to exist.

While it may be true that the 1880-1960 period saw a growing degree of concern about getting one's facts right — which is to say, a growing concern about basic professional standards — how those facts were arranged and presented is another question.

The very act of selecting which facts to highlight and which facts to ignore imparts an unavoidable bias to every news report. I don't see how this can be avoided.

If indeed journalists of the 1880-1960 period claimed that their newly-adopted codes of ethics succeeded in cleansing their work of "rampant" political bias, one can only marvel at their hubris.