Lincolnite

Thanks for link to the original report.  After skimming though that, I found the conclusions section interesting, to say the least:

“Revenue - There was no statistically significant change in the revenue of eating places (full- and limited-service restaurants combined), but revenue fell in Lincoln drinking places

Employment

<b>Most importantly, I can

That’s why I said I can’t think of any good reason.

Dave, I think you should e-mail Matt Olberding and ask him why before you go accusing him of being a biased journalist. That’s a pretty harsh and damning accusation, and it presumes a level of newsroom meddling of which you frankly have no idea.

I don’t know what you do for a living, but I wouldn’t sit here and accuse you of being dishonest and unethical at your job because your output didn’t fit my politics.

I mean for crying out loud, does anyone else see the irony in damning a reporter for a supposed bias and not fully examining the situation by relying on a preconceived bias and refusing to look into the situation?

Thanks for the suggestion to email him.  I just did, and I will let you know if/how he responds.

<b>I don

Please show me a situation where I’ve cast judgment on a person’s character without doing anything to look into the situation and educate myself first.

Do you honestly think that I shelter myself from reality and just make a knee-jerk cartoon whenever somebody I don’t like says something, without making any attempt to look at the big picture? Do you think that, Dave?

I know quite a bit about the job performance of our governor, our mayor, our representatives on the federal level, etc. I spend a great part of my day reading up on those things and doing my best to educate myself. And then I comment on them.

I don’t know a damn thing about Dave Heineman’s abilities as a husband; Jeff Fortenberry’s abilities as a father; Colleen Seng’s abilities on the tennis court. So I don’t comment on them, because I’m not qualified.

You don’t know a damn thing about Matt Olberding’s ethics and professionalism, nor do you know a damn thing about editorial pressure in the Journal Star newsroom. If Olberding e-mails you back and says “I left that out of the story because my editors don’t want people to be angry about the smoking ban!” then I’ll pat you on your self-righteous back.

Until then, criticize the story all you want for its flaws - but you know nothing about the writer and the people who made the decisions that made the story the way it is.

Here’s my best effort at coming up with a good reason why they might not have thought it was worth including.

According to the report, the decline in growth was in full-service restaurants, which happens to also be the same category which experienced no difference in sales. It’s important to note that this is a measure of sales and not profits (where a cutback in employment could explain no drop in profits).

Maybe, had the drop in job growth occurred in the same category as drop in sales, it would seem more like a causal relationship.

And the “modest” description was in comparison to the earlier predictions of 20-40 percent loss.

I don’t know how they define modest either, but if they’re saying an 8% decline is modest compared to a projected loss of 20-40% (or to use your formula, an $8.4 million loss compared to a projected $21-42 million loss), I’d say “modest” is a reasonable term.

Another interesting point raised by the OWH story: all three business owners - including the ones hit hardest by the smoking ban - support a statewide ban. Nothing to do with beliefs on personal freedom, but for the sake of their own businesses and profits.

I didn’t bring up the projected 20-40% loss, because nowhere could I find who supposedly made the projection. Without a citation of some sort, the comparison is a straw man. I suspect the 20-40% figure came from the “the world will end!” types. If so, that would mean that Tobacco Free Lincoln mocked the number prior to the ban, but now they use it as the standard for success. That isn’t kosher. But the source of the figure isn’t all that important. An 8% ding in any industry’s employment, although not a bloodbath, is not modest.

As for your second point, I am literally kicking myself for not mentioning that in my post. I found it funny, in an “it’s funny because it’s sad” sort of way. I can’t really fault the owners for wanting everybody to have to play by the same rules, but man, talk about giving up on your principles.

Neal, my asking what you do in your cartoons was in response to this: “I don

Dave,

I understand why you made your claim. What my response was trying to point out was that I don’t comment on things I have no way of knowing about. You’re right, I do accuse people of being dishonest and unethical, but it’s in realms that I am capable of researching and it’s in realms that I *do* research before making such claims.

So you’re apparently missing my point. All of us are perfectly capable of picking apart that story for all its faults. None of us are capable of climbing inside Matt Olberding’s head and the Journal Star newsroom to know why he wrote what he wrote or didn’t write what he didn’t write.

Like I said, I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you do for a living, but I’d be willing to guess you have no evidence that the editorial board’s opinions trickle down into how news is covered and reported.

So going back to my original quoted point, let me put it in different terms. I don’t say “Dave, you’re really bad at stapling papers together because you’re a conservative.”

I said “made your claim” when I should have said “asked that question.”

If it had *created* 600 jobs, Mayor (and I use that term loosely) Seng would have already taken the credit for bringing the jobs to Lincoln. Maybe she could hire 600 fire chiefs, take credit for that, then Beutler or Svoboda or Yant (sure) can then fire all 600 because they weren’t their hires.

Maybe we could combine all of our efforts in Lincoln with a new 25-story downtown arena/office tower/jail/school/library with bike paths and a smoking ban, then let the school board decide that the people that live the closest to the building can’t send their kids there, but they should be bused across town even though we got rid of school busing and we could subsidize the empty public transportation buses AND equip them with snow plows (so they can keep the streets clear) and fire equipment (just don’t let EDM get the bid) as they drive around burning Nebraska’s ethanol—all of this while creating fire chief jobs and lowering your property taxes.

FLETCH FOR MAYOR - 2008

O.K.  So if I’m reading this right…The restaraunts had lower growth, but no loss of sales, but bars had no loss of growth, but did lose sales.  If average revenue didn’t change, but fewer jobs were created, might the cause be that the owners chose not to hire because of concern about how the ban would effect them, as opposed to how it actually affected them? 

The report states that, statistically, they cannot attribute any decline in monthly revenue in restaraunts to the smoking ban, so how can a slowing of job growth be attributed to that ban?

Same thoughts I had, Tim. Full-service restaurants are likely to have a larger staff, and thus more freedom to adjust their hiring. It’s possible they scaled back a bit in anticipation that the smoking ban would do more damage than it did. The study did anticipate that the divide between sales and employment would converge over time.

Or it’s possible that the slowed growth in full-service restaurants had nothing to do with the smoking ban.

I think, Tim, the best interpretation of the report is this: The smoking ban is associated with a negative effect on local businesses. I think that’s a fair statement that’s consistent with the data. I’m not sure we can draw any conclusions beyond that—the size of the negative effect, for example—because of the limited data available to the researchers. The biggest problem with the statistics we’ve been shown is that there doesn’t seem to be a model to describe them. Statistics without a model can be interesting, but they really aren’t instructive.

I’m honored to be mentioned by name on here. You guys talk about Deena all the time. And thanks, Neal, for sticking up for my integrity. Anyway, as I explained to Dave in my e-mail, the economic forces, which can be quantified, seemed more important as a focus, than a loss* (*not technically a loss, but slower growth than Omaha)of 600 jobs. I talked to several bar owners, and no one said anything about having to cut jobs, although one did mention cutting back on some hours. As I also explained to Dave, I did not report line by line every fact that was given out Tuesday by the anti-smoking group. New reporting involves making value judgment son which facts are most important or pertinent, and I’m never going to get 100 percent agreement that I chose the right ones.
As for thinking some editor forced me to leave that out because it doesn’t fit our editorial view, you guys should really spend a week in a newsroom. I don’t ever have any idea what an editorial is going to say until I see it in the paper. The World-Herald, which you praised, is much more known for steering the focus of stories to meet its editorial views. Check out any story they’ve ever done on casinos, or stories they did on Omaha’s downtown business improvement district, which the paper opposed because it raises their taxes.
Thanks for listening.

Hi Matt, thanks for checking in.

I talked to several bar owners, and no one said anything about having to cut jobs, although one did mention cutting back on some hours.

There are two problems with that. First, it doesn’t account for the loss of jobs at places that closed “because of” the smoking ban. Bob Ihrig, for one, would have been a good person to interview.

(I don’t personally buy Bob’s argument that his bar/restaurant, Bob’s Gridiron Grill, closed “because of” the smoking ban, but it probably didn’t help. Man I miss their meatloaf…)

Second, job cuts aren’t necessarily expected. As you noted in your comment, the job “losses” are, statistically, gains that should have happened but didn’t. Thus, not only should one ask “Did you have to cut any jobs?”, one should also ask “Did you refrain from creating new jobs you otherwise would have created?”

I understand that you did not (and could not) report everything that appeared in the report, so I don’t blame you for choosing to leave out certain of the report’s findings. I do, however, disagree with your decision to choose the 600 jobs figure as one to leave out. Even with the figure’s shortcomings, it still represents compelling evidence that the smoking ban had a 7-figure economic impact on Lincoln. In a city our size, that’s not inconsequential.

As an aside, for fun you could have included a quote from an economist who could quantify the lifetime healthcare savings for Lincolnites due to the decreased exposure to second-hand smoke. I don’t know where you would have found that economist, but I’m sure s/he’s out there, and I bet the number is a doozy.

I can accept your explanation of why the job information was omitted from your article.  However, I have to believe that if “gain”, “600”, and “jobs” were found in the same sentence anywhere in that report, that it would have been front page, above-fold.  This is not a personal attack on you, Matt.  Until Neal mentioned your name here, I had no idea who wrote the article.  It’s not something I pay attention to unless I’m looking for a particular author.

As you can tell, I’m quite critical and skeptical of the operation they’re running over there.  Since they pass Bush-hate “analysis” pieces as news, among many other things, it’s sometimes hard to take them seriously.  So my reasons for why certain information may be left out of a story are developed with the lens through which I see the operation.

Dave:

You should call and talk to Kathy Rutledge, our editor, and I bet she could talk to you for hours about all the people who think we are farther to the right than Rush Limbaugh. And don’t forget we’ve endorsed Bush twice, as well as Fortenberry.

Considering some of the comments on the website, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many readers who think the LJS is a conservative propaganda tool.  That’s not so much a testament to the content of the Journal Star, but rather to the people who are vocal towards the LJS’ news coverage.  Sometimes I get the feeling that I’m on MoveOn.org when glancing through the comments.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the ones who think the LJS conservative are the same ones walking around with Che Guevara t-shirts.

As for the endorsements, the 2004 endorsement of Bush gave 100 reasons why he’s a bad president but said he deserves another term anyways.  I can’t recall the Fortenberry endorsement right now, but that one seemed like a no-brainer for anyone. 😉

See that, Matt? If people think the LJS has a conservative slant, it’s because they’re such extremist liberals. And if people think the LJS has a liberal slant, it’s because the LJS has a liberal slant.

Case closed.

Mr Wilson,
You’re right - that doesn’t account for the lost jobs from the bars that closed. So considering bars did not show a decline in job growth overall, there must have been an actual increase in job growth beyond what was expected in order to counteract the lost jobs.
Good point.

You newspaper types are touchy. Geez.

Neal, do you think the LJS has any ideological slant?

Nope, I don’t think it does at all.

Matt touched on it a bit, in that there is such a disconnect between the different levels of putting together a newspaper. People who have never worked in news have this idea that newspapers or TV networks are these big single-minded blobs that get together and figure out how to push their agenda, which is so ridiculous (and insulting to the individuals, which is why I get so ‘touchy’).

There are so many stages a story goes through before it gets printed. There are so many changes made that have absolutely nothing to do with the content. Stories are cut for space; they might get re-located due to the sale of an advertisement. These are decisions that are never run past the writer or editor in chief or publisher; they’re just made because so many people have so many jobs and a certain amount of authority.

Then the readers pick up the paper, notice a story that insults their favorite politician is above the fold, and declare the paper must be biased against that person. Or they see a story that reflects positively on their favorite politician on page 2 or 3, and assume the paper must be biased, or why else would they bury the story?

Maybe a photo fell through; maybe another story had a color photo so it got moved to page 1. Maybe it was just a bad judgment. You don’t know until you ask.

People looking for bias will find it. Simple as that. And the accusation of bias is such circular logic. I can prove the Journal Star is biased, because look at these examples. These examples were written this way because of the paper’s bias. Get real.

Individual reporters obviously have their own perspectives, but any good reporter works so cautiously to not let those opinions infect the story that they often over-compensate to give the other side more say. I’ve talked to so many reporters who regretted writing stories the way they did, because they thought it unfairly benefited one side (as opposed to reporting perspectives equally), but they knew that if they didn’t do it that way, there’d be a thousand Dave K’s lined up to accuse them of bias.

There’s also the ridiculous post-Fox News idea of what constitutes fair and balanced coverage. If Politician A screws up, a fair reporter makes sure they cover all angles of the screw-up. In the post-Fox News world, if Politician A screws up (and if he’s a Republican), then a fair reporter should let Politician A insult a Democrat or also report on how a Democrat did something similar.

Simply by nature of space limitations and who is available for comment by deadline, it’s probably impossible to write a story that’s completely impartial. But to presume that there’s some sort of conspiracy to advance a political agenda shows a profound ignorance of how the media works and also a desire to ignore news that doesn’t fit one’s worldview.

It’s so easy to dismiss what you don’t like when you can just write it off as the media’s bias. If you disagree with coverage, disagree with the reporting, the facts, the quotes, stuff like that. Write a letter. But when you sit around and call people names and ignore news you don’t like because you’ve decided the source is biased, you do nothing to contribute to discourse or society.

I think it’s probably worth pointing out that I am not an employee the Journal Star. I’m a freelancer and they run my cartoons. I usually deal with one person, and that’s the opinion editor. I don’t work in their offices.

I’ve had a few friends who’ve worked there over the past few years, but I’ve never met Matt Olberding and wouldn’t know him if I saw him on the street.

Neal, I appreciate your thoughts and opinions on the issue. I think you stated your position very eloquently.

As a reader, and longtime (like 17 year) subscriber, I do think there is clear bias, at least from an editorial standpoint. I sat in a focus group for LJS when the paper was redesigned a few years ago, and I do agree that if you ask a hard-leftie, they would say the paper is too conservative, and if you ask a far-rightie, they’d say it’s too liberal.

However, I would bet that if you could find the voting registrations and records of the people that write the stories and editorial content, 80-90% are democrats. There’s no way that somewhere those views won’t infiltrate the story writing at times, especially on the op-ed page. There are way more jabs at the right then there are at the left, and all of the political writers seem to wear their feelings on their sleeves. It’s less noticable in the sports area, and very noticable in the ground-zero and lifestyle stuff.

If I put it on the spectrum, I would say it tilts at about 60-65-70% to the left, not 100% to the left. I don’t think you’d get an honest answer from someone that is politically in the middle of the road that it leans harshly to the right. Even the national columnists from the left outway the ones from the right.

Of course there is nothing wrong with any of what I just said, other than for someone to state that it’s right down the middle, IMHO, would be disingenuous. If a far-rightie or hard-leftie hates it, they should cancel just like they should turn off Rush or Air America or Fox News or CNN.

Just my opinion. Sorry for the remark about being touchy, I am not one for blatent personal attacks.

But Fletch, you can’t use the Journal Star’s editorial writers and columnists to argue that a paper has a bias. Those are OPINION pieces. They’re on the OPINION page. An OPINION writer isn’t biased; they’re writing based upon their opinions. Molly Ivins is no more biased than George Will; they both have opinions and they selectively use examples to back up those opinions. That’s not bias - that’s simply editorial writing. That’s why it’s on the opinion page.

Of course you’re going to find opinions in the opinion section; likewise in Ground Zero, because most of that is opinion writing. When someone is writing a review or a column, they are writing from their perspective.

I wouldn’t disagree with you that most of the staff editorials would fall left of center. Maybe it’s presumptuous of newspaper insiders to think that readers can tell where the news content ends and the Opinion content begins.

But saying that the Journal Star’s opinion content leans left (which again, I wouldn’t completely disagree with) is vastly different than saying that the Journal Star’s news coverage has a liberal bias.

One claim simply says that the OPINION page sports OPINIONS; the other claim suggests that the reporters and editors are inept at best and dishonest and unethical at worst.

I am saying that, from where I sit, the editorial AND the news content do lean further to the left. Balance would be having 6 columnists on the op-ed page, 3 from the left and 3 from the right. Leaning left, to me, is 5 out of 6 leaning left, and claiming “but we have that sixth columnist, so we are fair and balanced.” Does anyone on the left think Fox News is fair and balanced? No. It’s Alan Colmes and all those righties.

Also, IMHO, presumptious or not, there are times when the opinion begins when the story should be a content piece. It’s not all confined to the opinion pages.  Follow the coverage of the mayor—in the news pages. She nearly always gets a pass on things. A few months ago, there was a Sunday feature (I think) all about Colleen—they listed a dozen positive things and hardly mentioned a negative thing about her tenure. That doesn’t seem to jive with public opinion, or the fact that it seems that members of her party didn’t want her to run for mayor any more than the opponents want to see her remain in office. Opinion, there, was clearly mixed in with content, and never was it maked as opinion.

Anyway, nice spirited conversation. Good to hear your side of things. Take care.

Well, I guess I just completely disagree. I don’t think there are 5 liberal columnists and 1 conservative and the ratio’s not even close to that. I don’t think the mayor gets a free pass. You might not see the questions asked that you want asked, but she hardly gets a free pass.

I constantly read stories about Fortenberry and Smith and want to yell questions at the paper when their ridiculous statements go unchallenged. That doesn’t mean the LJS has a conservative bias. It means the questions I wanted asked weren’t asked. It doesn’t mean the reporter wants Fort or Smith to look good. It is what it is.

I don’t know Deena Winter at all either, but I think she’s an amazing city reporter. She tends to dig deep into things and ask good questions. She has not spared the mayor or anyone in her office in the coverage of the Verizon mess, the firetruck mess, the Hy-Vee mess, etc. You’re going to have to try harder if you want to prove the LJS has a liberal bias based upon her reporting.

If I know the story you’re referring to, it was a Q & A with the mayor about what she’s accomplished in office. If that’s what the story is about, “fairness” doesn’t mean filling the story with a 1:1 ratio of success to failure. Nor is “fairness” and lack of bias at all related to what public opinion is at the time.

If you’re up for it, what do you say we read the paper over the next week, and you - as someone who sees a liberal bias - take note of where you see that bias. I don’t think the paper has a conservative bias, but I will definitely play the other side and be able to make note of cases where I think the story goes easy on Republicans. Want to give it a shot?

I don’t have a problem with opinion, if it stays on the opinion pages.  The thing LJS does that bothers me the most is when they have their “Analysis” pieces written into the coverage of regular news stories.  The analysis is naturally ideologically biased, and most often they’re of the liberal variety.  For example, immediately following Bush’s announcement of his planned troop surge, LJS had a headline on their website along these lines: “Analysis: Troop surge will be devastating”.  Last I checked, predictions and presumptions were not news.

Neal, I think we’ve had a similar conversation in the past, and we had a specific story that you had asked how it could possibly be reported with a slant.  To show you how, I re-wrote it with what I would consider a conservative or opposite bias.  The point was that you may digest and be involved in the production of so much news that you may be blind to the bias.  It’s also possible, maybe even likely, that it’s unintentionally done. 

It’s great that you bring Deena Winter up.  She’s an example of a great reporter, reporting the way it should be done.

I’m in for your idea about doing our own analysis of the paper.  I don’t see a print version unless I make an effort, so I hope to get to it since that’s where most of the best stuff is.

I am in agreeance about Deena Winter. I get the feeling she’s trying to tell it like it is. I really look forward to reading her stuff and her reports from city hall. If I were to guess, I would guess she votes Dem more often than not, but I don’t see it in her stuff at all, and that’s how I think it should be.  Many others could learn from her.

In terms of tracking the newspaper for a week, I just don’t see the point of taking up that much time, as it’s clear we can read the same thing and come away with 2 different viewpoints.

I don’t really want to make this a total referendum on the LJS—there are 50 other things I’d criticize it for more than the fact that I think it tilts slightly to the left. I expect that going in, and it doesn’t really bother me at all—I just wish people would fess up and not try to say it’s all even and fair.

To me, that’s the least of their problems. If I hated it, I would spend my money elsewhere. I rarely even read the national news stuff, because I am a heavy net user and it’s all old news by the time i get the paper in the morning.

Yes Dave, I remember going through this before, when you accused the LJS of being liberally biased because a story said the Iraq war was costing a lot of money. I remember going through this plenty of times when you accuse the paper of bias when you saw something you didn’t like.

Maybe to you guys, you’re lobbing accusations at a faceless entity, but you are ignoring the fact that you are accusing real people of ethical faults or an inability to do their job. But rather than finding fault with their output (which would involve disagreeing with the actual content of what’s reported), you cast aspersions on the reporter. What is it about not shooting the messenger when the deliver something you don’t want to hear?

I think it’s interesting that you think my exposure to news blinds me to the bias. What is it, then, that qualifies you to see it? That you *don’t* read as much news?

And Fletch, your desire for people to “fess up” and admit that it’s not all even and fair implies that those of us who disagree with you in public secretly agree with you, and we’re just not willing to admit it. Your example of liberal bias was in regards to reporting on the mayor, yet even Dave says that Deena Winter is a good reporter.

All I’m saying is I’m going to be able to find just as many examples that favor conservatives and conservative issues, and I don’t for a second think that means the LJS has a conservative bias.

News reported in a finite space will always be lacking a complete story. It will always lack something a certain audience wants to see. That’s not bias.

And Dave, this might be the first time in my memory that someone suggested their relative ignorance of a situation made them more qualified to assess it.

Just as many examples? No way in hell. Not if you are being honest. Sorry. If that makes you feel better about the paper, or whatever, then I applaud you, but it’s just not the case. I also said that Deena Winter is great.

You are so far embeded in a sea of liberalism, you can’t see the forest through the trees. Much like someone who’s a college professor, or something like that. It’s all you know, it’s ingrained, it’s all around you, and you are numb to it. From here, it’s easy to see. Either you can’t or won’t see it, but it’s there. Go ask 50 people on the street in an unbiased way. You’ll hear it, and this is not the most conservative city in the world. It’s just reality, so why fight it? Just let it be.

Well Fletch, the only example you can bother giving is Deena Winter material, which you yourself endorse. You make up a ratio of conservative to liberal columnists. You resist my challenge to come up with more examples. Instead, you rest on your determination that you are capable of diagnosing the illness.

Whatever makes you feel better, indeed.

I’m a former newspaper editor and I admire Neal’s willingness to stick up for the personal attacks on reporter competence/ethics, etc…

I haven’t worked for a newspaper for years, but I was always surprised at how, depending on who you spoke with, the paper was always accused of a liberal or conservative slant.

I chuckle a little to myself when I see letters to the editor and read comments like the ones here.  I thought when we moved to Lincoln, the bigger paper and city would be above such things.  Turns out that one of the national pastimes is to bitch about your local newspaper, regardless of how cosmopolitan you think your city or your newspaper may be.

I did, unfortunately, work for a newspaper for one year where the news product was forced to reflect the editorial positions on the opinion pages.  This was the one and only place I’ve ever seen that and I left after one year.  Not a healthy environment for news reporting (or anything for that matter).  The revolving door continues to swing at that paper too.

Newspapers do strive to provide balanced coverage but by virtue of story assignments or personal experience, a certain level of bias will peek through from time to time.  But any reporter is able to write above any personal bias, otherwise they wouldn’t be employed for very long.

Some people seem to think that because they read a story three times and spent a day digesting the information that the newspaper must have mulled over every word with the same gusto.  They would probably be dismayed to know that somebody may have spent 30 seconds writing a headline to fit the story and the reporter knocked the whole thing out in 40 minutes.  Then they start on something for the next day’s newspaper.  It’s a miracle a paper gets delivered every day.

I never said I’m more qualified to assess the ideological tendencies of the paper than you.  But for you to imply that my opinion is bogus because I don’t work in the news industry is wrong.  That’s the same logic used to argue that only people who have been to war can comment on it.

I’m not accusing anyone of being unethical.  If you consider an ideological bias to be unethical, then that’s for you to deal with.  A newspaper can report whatever it likes, and if news entities admitted to being liberally biased (like the head of ABC News admitted to), I’d have no problem.  It’s the effect on the public when they believe they’re getting fair coverage, as they’re told they’re getting.  How would you feel if Rush Limbaugh claimed he was absent of conservative bias?

I concur, nearly word for word, with Dave K.

I tried to say, that if you put the LJS on a spectrum, where all the way to the left is 0, and all the way to the right is 100 (only cause it’s left to right, don’t read more into that), that IMHO, it sits about about 30-35-40 on the spectrum.

That’s not meant to be a criticism, or an indictment of any person or entity, or to claim any of the above. I am not calling anyone’s ethics into question. I truly don’t think it’s dead center, but it leans to the left a little like the Tower of Pisa. If an individual, using my spectrum, is a “5”, then the paper seems very conservative. If the individual is an “80”, then it seems hard left.

In full disclosure, I worked for nearly 3 years for a newspaper that’s not based in Lincoln. I am not in the news business today, but I am also not a football player and I can pretty accurately tell you what a good play looks like and a bad play looks like.

There was no personal attack intended toward anyone at the LJS, so don’t read so much into things.

Nope Dave, that sure isn’t the same thing.

I’m not saying you can’t disagree with a story, find fault with a story, find fault with coverage, think a newspaper is not worth buying, or any of those things. The only credentials someone needs to have those opinions is that they read the story.

(Although, I feel a lot more credible talking about war after speaking with veterans and not selectively ignoring any perspective that I didn’t like)

What I am saying is that it’s unfair for you to see an end result and presume that you know how it got that way when you simply don’t know.

Earlier in these sequence of comments, you referenced a headline you disagreed with. The unfortunate reality of headlines, as foxspit alluded to, is that often, they’re hastily written to meet an outputting deadline. And rather than being able to think “What words best sell this story?” a copy editor or designer often has to think “What words reflect this story and fit into the space I have to work with?”

It’s an unfortunate side-effect and just one tiny example of the physical limits of the medium. And maybe the copy editor or designer’s personal bias can affect what headline is written. That doesn’t mean that there’s an institutional bias. And please don’t pretend that you haven’t made that claim.

What you accused the paper of, way back up at the top, was deliberately conforming their news content to fit their editorial views. I do see that as as an accusation of being unethical, particularly when they are claiming to be reporting news.

And do you actually think that the Journal Star’s news coverage is analogous to Rush Limbaugh’s program? If Rush Limbaugh claimed he was absent of conservative bias, I’d feel the same way I’d feel if a newspaper’s opinion page was labeled “More News.”

It’s refreshing to see foxspit admitting that news can be driven towards ideological bias.

Neal, my point in our previous (or one of our previous) conversation about media bias is that it’s so entrenched and so implicit that it is difficult to see.  The story I cited had, in my opinion, a liberal slant to it.  I wrote a conservatively-slanted lead for that article, which demonstrated that it is possible to slant the news.  You can dismiss that as me simply being paranoid about the news, but the evidence is difficult to ignore. 

This is nothing other than a fundamental difference in point of view.

Wow, that’s all you got out of foxspit’s post?

Dave, I know what you did yet I fail to see how that proves your point. I don’t think anyone ever said that it’s impossible for news to be slanted.

Please restate for me what evidence is difficult to ignore - both the evidence and the case that the evidence proves.

I also got the admission that it’s possible to report the news with personal bias, so I’m sorry for not mentioning that.

If I recall correctly (and I would go back and check if I knew exactly where it was), you asked how a simple story reporting news could be slanted, specifically that one.  To show you how that can happen, I slanted the story in a conservative way.  I don’t recall what your response or rebuttal was.

The case to be proven is that 1) it is possible to slant the news, and 2) that the news is slanted.  The evidence has been shown here and elsewhere, so I’m not sure what else you want to see before you disagree again. 

Going back to what started this all: do I really think Matt Olberding is a bad guy? No.  Do I think that if the economic report had said the smoking ban created 600 new jobs that that information would have been excluded, regardless of how the statistics were up for interpretation? No.

Well Dave,
Read it again.

http://lincolnite.com/blog/entries/tilt/

Never have I said that a news story can’t be slanted. What I have repeatedly said is that it’s ridiculous to accuse a news organization of having an institutional bias simply by seeing news you don’t like.

I see in those comments that you infer that I think it’s impossible to write a news story with a slant; I’m still not sure where you get that.

Nobody here is pretending that stories can’t be slanted. But again, try as you might to run from it, you accused the LJS of having an institutional bias that is forcefully manifested in their news coverage.

Foxspit said it’s possible for that kind of situation to happen. I know it is too. And if you had the first bit of evidence that it’s happening at the Journal Star, you’d have a little more credibility in this case.

I want to see examples of actual BIAS, Dave. I don’t want to see more news that you don’t like and have you parade that around as bias. There’s been absolutely no evidence of an institutional bias.

Evidence of that would be things like internal memos saying “Stop writing those nice things about the Governor!” or an LJS employee saying “They kept meddling with my stories because they made the mayor look bad!”

Let me tell you something I often get ruffled about in news coverage, but I don’t consider it bias (although Mr Wilson refers to a bias of exclusion in his comments on the linked post, which may apply here):

Very often, politicians are allowed to make claims that go unchallenged in the news stories. This happens for both Democrats and Republicans.

A recent case I can think of including Dave Heineman claiming we need to lower income taxes because Nebraska’s taxes are in the top 6 in the country. This is not only untrue but misleading, because Nebraska’s income taxes are average at highest and it’s the property taxes that are relatively high.

The only time I saw that clarification making it into print was in a reference from a senator buried in the end of one story, yet Heineman’s claim has been repeated throughout many news stories.

Is that bias?

Can you prove all news is slanted?  I don’t think so.  It will also be difficult, at best, to prove that it is possible to slant the news.

I would argue that personal bias is impossible to completely eliminate in any writing, depending on how you define bias.  The difference is that good journalists are trained to write above that bias and present as balanced a story as possible.

Tough to argue your point about the creation of 600 jobs: that’s your guess.  I don’t blame Olberding for focusing the article the way he did.  It’s painfully obvious that the “lost” 600 jobs is a debate on statistics that wouldn’t appeal to the bulk of newspaper readers.  Might merit some follow-up coverage though.

You said this: “First off, where exactly is the bias in writing a story about how budget cuts are going to affect local agencies?”

Which, in my opinion, is asking how an article about budget cuts can be slanted.  Sure, that’s different from saying the news can’t be slanted, but in this case you’re suggesting that this particular article isn’t/can’t be slanted.

As for evidence of an institutional bias: My first post here was just that.  Even though you dismissed the evidence, it is evidence, right?  You stated yourself that you wouldn’t know Matt Olberding if you saw him on the street, and don’t work in the LJS offices.  So how do you know he wasn’t pressured to exclude the information about the jobs?

Dave,

I can kind of see how you got that from what I said, but I was addressing how Mr Wilson seemed to be implying that a story about how budget cuts affect local agencies was inherently biased on its own.

And no Dave, that’s not evidence. You deciding that a story is the way it is because of an editorial is not evidence, and I’m really surprised you’re trying to pass it off as that.

I’m just shocked, really, that you think your opinion that I have nothing to prove Olberding WASN’T pressured (except his word, which you are somehow qualified to invalidate) is somehow evidence that he was.

I don’t even know how to respond to that. You have found two events, which the evidence has shown are unrelated, yet based solely upon your steadfast belief, you’re determined they must have a causal relationship.

I think your argument is about as illustrative as we are ever going to get when it comes to exposing the vast liberal media bias.

* TWEEEEEET! *

This referee is calling a timeout. I’m impressed with your persistence, but you boys need a rest. I hereby order you all to go give TriAd a shot. No coming back here ‘til you’ve played the game. Capiche?

Just for the record, I’m a registered Independent and always have been (you can check).

Also for the record, I was not pressured to drop the jobs mention. I did so on my own because A. I thought a $4 million-plus drop in keno and $2 million loss in sales were more tangible indicators of what economic effect the ban had on bars, and B. the drop wasn’t a “drop” at all, just a slow increase, and it also didn’t apply to bars.

Dave, I don’t know you, but it seems like you have your mind made up about the LJS, so I don’t think anything I can say will satisfy you.

Hi Matt,

Props to you for coming here to state your line of thinking. I really have no qualms about it at all. Like I said above, I have my opinion about the leanings, but I have been a subscriber for over 17 years, and a reader since about 1985. I guess that says it all. Very cool of you to come here and share some information with us.

I swore I left a comment early this morning but apparently not. Anyway, I think Neal’s point is spot on:

<i>News reported in a finite space will always be lacking a complete story. It will always lack something a certain audience wants to see. That