Maryland Business

By: admin

When I wrote a series of articles covering the Baltimore Sun’s staff and budget cuts this summer, I received a handful of e-mails from readers who said they thought the “Sunpaper” had already gone downhill because it had a liberal bias and wasn’t fully reporting both sides of the story anyway.

But an article on the Project for the Excellence of Journalism’s Web site Friday pointed out that the perceived liberal bias of the media is only a recent phenomenon.

“The criticism has not always come from the political right,” the article notes. “During the Vietnam War, Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon alike condemned the press for what they saw as undermining of their war efforts. Bill Clinton’s relationship with the press, never good, soured further during the scandal over Monica Lewinsky, and variously included complaints about both liberalism and a right-wing media machine.”

This week The Sun has run Associated Press articles titled, “Alaska lawmakers meet secretly on Palin ethics report” (Oct. 10), “VP candidate Sarah Palin wrongly suggests that Congress has imposed ban on US oil exports” (Oct. 9), “Cindy McCain accuses Obama of ‘dirtiest campaign’ in history, raps him on troop funding vote” (Oct.9) and “Palin takes questions from reporters after weeks of limited contact with the news media” (Oct. 7).

Leaving alone the fact that these are all AP stories and not written by The Sun staff, do you think Baltimore’s biggest daily newspaper has a liberal slant? Or is it just running what the other papers are to stay competitive?

LIZ FARMER, Business Writer