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Are we too liberal or too conservative?
By LOIS CLERMONT
News Editor
The other day someone told me the Press-Republican is a very liberal, anti-Bush newspaper.
I had to smile to myself because we had just heard from some liberals that we are too conservative and pro-Bush.
I started thinking about what people see that makes them think a newspaper is liberal or conservative.
Here in the newsroom, we think of ourselves as a fairly moderate newspaper. Although a few people are registered as either Republican or Democrat, most of us aren’t registered with a particular political party.
Our newsroom staff comprises a wide range of opinions and ages (from early 20s to early 60s) and a good mix of North Country natives and transplants. Several newsroom employees have military service in their background, and some have children or friends serving in Iraq.
And all of us care a great deal about the Press-Republican being an unbiased newspaper.
The essence of our paper is in the local news. That is our heart and what we think we do best. Those are the stories we create from scratch and what we can best be judged on. On the war issue, for example, we have covered the anti-war protests and have interviewed many soldiers upon their return from Iraq, who talked about the good they felt they were doing.
Our editorials are a reflection of the newspaper’s opinion, as decided by members of the Editorial Board. That’s another place to look if you are wondering if we have any slant. Our editorials, however, almost always focus on local, not national, issues. We have not taken a stand on the war in Iraq.
Most people who think we are liberal or conservative judge us on the national stories we run, and we don’t have anything to do with how they are written. They come from the Associated Press, a worldwide (and, I must add, much-respected) news service to which we subscribe.
I read AP articles with a critical eye, as I do anything, and I have to say that the reporters often make mention of challenges faced by President Bush. Is it biased, for example, to point out that he faces opposition to the war at home or to mention the “spiraling costs” of health-care programs or to focus on war spending when his proposed budget would reduce overall spending? Or is that just fully reporting the situation? Each reader will have to decide that.
But we don’t have time to rewrite the AP stories and wouldn’t anyway; the national reporters who cover the president know more about those issues than we do.
We do have some influence about what stories are chosen for Page A1 and elsewhere in the paper.
We gets hundreds of articles every day to choose from under the headings of International, National and State. We are guided to some degree, at our daily Page 1 meeting, by an AP news budget that comes out several times a day, listing the top stories, in their editors’ view, under each of those categories. Sometimes we follow their suggestions; usually we pick one or two from the top five and some from farther down the list.
The number of national or international stories on A1 depends on how many local stories will be on the page. Local news gets the priority; then we decide how many wire stories we have room for. Seven or eight people usually take part in the Page 1 meeting, and all can make suggestions.
Most days, we have one to three non-local stories on A1; all the other AP stories appear either in the small space on the weather page or back behind the Community, Editorial and Feature pages, the next spot available for non-local news.
We have had some complaints over the years about why we choose to put certain stories on A1 or farther back in the paper. We take every complaint seriously and talk about whether we made good decisions. Sometimes, we realize we messed up and underplayed a national story that should have been on A1.
But I can tell you this, no one here decides to put a certain story on A1 because it makes Bush look either good or bad. We care too much about the paper’s reputation to purposely manipulate the news that way.
Comments
Thank you for addressing this most important issue and Welcome to the Neighborhood!
I'm super pleased to see this and will look forward to great things.
Posted by: TourPro | February 21, 2007 8:16 AM
Ha, the Press-"Republican" is the most "Republican" paper in the state, especially with right wing hit man Joe Lotemplio.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 21, 2007 8:17 AM
Hi Lois.
I liked your first day. I will be looking at it often.
Nick Pope
Ft.Myers and Loon Lake, NY
Posted by: Nicholas a. POPE | February 21, 2007 10:04 AM
Hi Lois!
Thanks to the P-R, I am able to keep in touch with my old hometown.
Love the "On The Sly" blog, too. Foxy keeps my links to the Johnson Avenue/Fox Hill crowd open.
I know this will be a great success for you.
Give my best to all the P-R gang!
Lynda
Posted by: Lynda (Bouyea) Bevins | February 21, 2007 6:08 PM
Dear Lois...good to see you've joined the blog era...you are now a "Blogger"...I've always had my own definition of a "conservative" and a "Liberal"...but have never anyone explain what the major differences between the two. I'd imagine most of us fall somewhere in between... I'd be very interested in hearing from others on what the true definition of both are?
Posted by: the carver | February 22, 2007 7:36 AM
I've been reading the Press-Republican since I was old enough to read. Of course, in the early days it was to check the standings of my Brooklyn Dodgers. But it is our one true source in the North Country for LOCAL news, and I'm happy that's the slant the editorial staff prefers. I like opening the newspaper and finding the top local stories on the front page. Your blog points out the process by which you arrive at these decisions and I found that interesting. I'll be a regular blog reader!
Posted by: Foxy | February 22, 2007 7:59 AM
From seeing whats being run today versus what was run even a year ago, I'd have to say that the press editorial staff has taken on a liberal bent.
I used to enjoy from the right/left columns, but a short while ago they vanished in favor of that spitzer stooge chartock, who could very likely tell us what the new gov had for lunch simply by sniffing the....air.
Posted by: Steve | February 22, 2007 3:41 PM
[quote]Ha, the Press-"Republican" is the most "Republican" paper in the state, especially with right wing hit man Joe Lotemplio.[/quote]
If I were to make a comment like that, I'd at least leave my name.
Posted by: Steve | February 22, 2007 3:44 PM
Whether one is a conservative or liberal, Joe Lotemplio has upset people on both sides over the years!
Posted by: The Donald | February 22, 2007 10:41 PM
Calling Joe Lo a right winger is like calling the Donald a shill for the fire department. Remember a few years ago when Joe took it upon himself to help Clyde get the Lt Gov nomination. I'd bet Joe carries around wallet size pictures of his political hereos. Clyde, Hillary, Teddy K, and James Carville,
Posted by: Rick K | February 24, 2007 8:07 AM
Hi Lois,
As someone who used to run a newsroom myself, I always enjoyed it when I got calls from both sides of a story, complaining that I was biased toward the other side. It probably meant I had done my job very well that day.
I think a lot of people think the press in general have a liberal bias because all of the conservative talk shows have drilled that into their audience's collective head for years. Even with satellilte radio and the huge variety of talk hosts now available, all of the conservative shows have one thing in common - complaining about a "liberal" bias in the press. They all do it, which, makes me think it's more tactic than truth.
You guys do a great job with local news. If anything, there is a bias toward incumbancy - those in power/office get more credibility than those who are challenging them. You don't do endorsements, which, deprives a potential challenger of a very important vehicle for gaining credibility. But I don't think that's unusual to the Press Republican. Most news operations have to be careful that they don't get too cozy with the people they cover. You only have to look at the first few years of the Bush Whitehouse and the Scooter Libby trial to figure out why.
Posted by: Tim Dodd | February 26, 2007 10:08 AM
Thanks to everyone who responded to this blog. I think a couple of the entries substantiate the idea that people read into the paper whatever political bent they want.
Our political reporter, Joe LoTemplio, was called a "right-wing hit man" by one blogger, while another one said Joe helped Democrat Clyde Rabideau get the nod for lieutenant governor.
Our former Tri-Lakes reporter, Ned Rauch, now an editor at Adirondack Life, e-mailed to tell me something that had happened to him a couple of years ago.
Some visitors, seeing the Press-Republican sign on our Lake Placid office, stopped in to ask for GOP bumper stickers and handouts. He explained that we were "more Press than Republican" and told them how to get to GOP headquarters.
I should note that our newspaper's name, which has prompted all kinds of accusations over the years, came from the merger, many years ago, of two newspapers: The Plattsburgh Press and The Republican.
Posted by: Lois Clermont | March 2, 2007 10:55 AM
Lois, since you asked the question, I think you do a fairly credible effort to maintain balance between the political left and the right on the op-ed page. (Although there is the daily Doonesbury cartoon which is hopelessly liberal)
What I think is lacking is a credible effort for objective reporting of facts without a left or right bias. This is more a problem with your national news reporting. I think your local reporters do a credible job of reporting, although sometimes they overlook obvious questions that go unanswered.
As to the Associated Press: The AP has been notorious for years for having a liberal bias. This was obvious to me in the 1960's when I worked for them.
To cite an example: On today's front page, you had an AP story about the weekend rally in Selma, attended by both Barack Obama and the Clintons. Nowhere was there another story about the weekend meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC, which weighs in on the Republican candidates, and which had 6000 attendees. I'm assuming you didn't print a report because the AP didn't cover it and it was not in your AP news budget.
Your comment: "But we don’t have time to rewrite the AP stories and wouldn’t anyway; the national reporters who cover the president know more about those issues than we do." You don't have time to rewrite the stories, understood, but you do have time to edit for misleading statements. You are the final gatekeeper on what news gets published.
I recall reading one such AP statement: "Most Americans oppose the war in Iraq." That was it, a pretty bald and bold statement with no explanation or facts to back it up. Well, that statement may be true or false. Was it based on polls? What was the sampling? Was the poll taken in San Francisco or Oklahoma City? What was the question asked? You know full well how polls and subsequent statements like that can be misleading.
I think you're selling yourselves short as journalists to say that national reporters know more about the issues than you do. Maybe, maybe not. But you do know, or should know, how issues play in the community you serve. Rather than doing a cursory 'man in the street' survey of college students or whoever, try polling community leaders.
I'll disagree with Tim Dodd, I think you're correct for not endorsing political candidates.
Thanks for making this blog available, it is interesting to read.
Don Craig
Saranac, NY
Posted by: Don Craig | March 5, 2007 9:45 AM