How about a little ideological diversity?
In her regular newsletter, Texas media watcher Sherry Sylvester notes that trust in major media has reached historic lows, and suggests that it's not a coincidence that major media outlets across Texas have announced layoffs.
Sylvester argues that major media outlets in this conservative state might want to respond by rethinking the imbalances on their editorial staffs:
This bad business news could be positive for media bias fighters because it means editors and publishers must re-evaluate their product and there's a chance they will focus on the role chronically biased reporting has played in plummeting readership.
We have a number of ideas about ways to stop the hemorrhaging.
First, how about a full-time, Texas-based, conservative opinion writer. Though most state newspapers print outside commentary from conservative writers, the high-profile columnists and opinion writers on staff who focus on state politics and public policy are all liberal – some radically so.
The list includes Molly Ivins and Cragg Hines along with Jan Jarboe Russell, Clay Robison, Alberta Phillips and Democratic collaborator Dave McNeely. No conservative columnist with experience in that big chunk of Texas policy that is conservative has a staff position at a major Texas paper.
[snip]
Nobody begrudges the right of the state’s big papers to take whatever editorial positions they want to take, but some balanced commentary on state issues would reassure Texans that the folks at their local paper aren’t mailing their columns in from another planet.
Emphasis supplied to highlight the Chronicle's two hyperpartisan editorialists, one of whom moonlights as the Austin news bureau chief. Sylvester neglects to mention the Chronicle's featured metro/state columnist Rick Casey, who also comes at things from left-of-center (not to mention he sometimes takes work from other columnists without proper attribution).
Chronicle editor Jeff Cohen had a golden opportunity to hire a conservative columnist when John Williams left the newspaper for Baker Botts. Instead, he promoted staff writer Kristen Mack to Williams' old position. In her very first effort as the new columnist, Mack managed to get in an ideological dig that turned out to require a correction. Even worse, the correction itself wasn't accurate.
Until Cohen begins to address the real problems at the newspaper -- and by that we don't mean retooling the typefaces and renaming entire sections to symbols -- he should expect the criticism (and the decline in revenues) to continue.
(See also: Staff restructurings and layoffs at the Chronicle)
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/07/04 08:50 PM | Print | Comments (0)
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