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To: goldstategop
The point, Keller wrote, "is not that we should begin recruiting reporters and editors for their political outlook; it is part of our professional code that we keep our political views out of the paper.
. . . and the fact that you think you possibly could - never mind think that you actually do - " keep our political views out of the paper" is sufficient to assure that you in fact project insufferably selfrighteous leftism.

O'Sullivan's Law

John O'Sullivan, columnist and former editor of National Review offers this proposed Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right wing will over time become left wing."
The point is that we want a range of experience. We have a recruiting committee that tracks promising outside candidates, and that committee has already begun to consider ways to enrich the variety of backgrounds of our reporters and editors.
But that fails to work in practice, for the simple reason that you are recruiting "good" journalists - and your idea of a good journalist is the root of the problem, recruit them in whatever city and of whatever color you will. Journalism is superficial because of its deadlines, negative because of its imperative to attract attention, and arrogant because it believes in its own virtue ("objectivity").

Arrogant, superficial negativity is cynicism. When you are cynical yourself, and you are trying to hire good cynics, it's remarkably unilikely that you will hire people who are not leftists.

Keller Says 'N.Y. Times' Must Look Beyond Its Urban, Liberal Base
Editor and Publisher ^ | 06/26/05 | E&P Staff

873 posted on 06/26/2005 3:07:09 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: ForGod'sSake
Do you think [O'Sullivan's] simplistic reasoning sufficiently explains the phenomenon?
IMHO:
Free commercial journalism, under competitive pressure, will bully society at large.
Journalism is superficial because of its deadlines, negative for the same reason that the boy cried "wolf" - and in love with its PR power. Each individual journalist both loves his own PR power and fears the PR power of journalism as a whole.

That is why journalists are bullies - and why it requires courage to take the positive, long-range perspective of conservatism. Organizations for conservative purposes will therefore be bullied - and given dismissive labels such as "right wing" - by journalism.

Organizations which do not have explicitly conservative purposes will therefore distance themselves from conservative organizations to gain access to the protection of the cowardly, bullying herd of journalists and fellow travelers. Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right wing will over time become left wing" follows.


874 posted on 06/27/2005 1:20:00 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
O’Sullivan’s First Law
National Review Online ^ | June 26, 2003, | John O’Sullivan

876 posted on 06/30/2005 5:20:49 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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