{"id":104455,"date":"2013-05-01T11:40:30","date_gmt":"2013-05-01T15:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=104455"},"modified":"2013-05-01T11:48:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-01T15:48:43","slug":"so-does-la-need-a-conservative-newspaper-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2013\/05\/so-does-la-need-a-conservative-newspaper-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"So, does LA need a ‘conservative’ newspaper or not?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Time for a quick trip into tmatt\u2019s infamous GetReligion file of guilt.<\/p>\n

You just know that plenty of GetReligion readers are going to send us emails about an essay \u2014 in this case, from The Week<\/em><\/a> \u2014 that runs with the following headline:<\/p>\n

Why newspapers need to hire more Christians<\/strong><\/p>\n

For starters, it would help rebut conservative concerns about media bias<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This essay by Matt K. Lewis opened with a reference to the recent death of one of the most talented Christians who has ever worked in the hallowed environment of The New York Times<\/em> \u2014 the great John McCandlish Phillips (click here<\/a> for my recent Scripps Howard column on this reporter-turned-preacher). Here\u2019s the key transition material in the Lewis essay:<\/p>\n

Conservatives have long lamented our East Coast secular media, charging that its worldview bias (even more than its overt political bias) skews America\u2019s information supply. Too often, Christians feel like they\u2019re cast as the type of fringe characters one might associate with the bar scene from Star Wars. \u2026 <\/p>\n

This longstanding lack of diversity in the newsroom is confirmed by the Times\u2019 McCandlish Phillips obituary, which noted that \u201cthere were [no other evangelical Christians working at the Times] when he joined the paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was unfortunate. Media outlets who want to understand America should at least have a few journalists hanging around who share \u2014 or at least, aren\u2019t hostile to \u2014 the Christian faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lewis later deals with the fact that many newsrooms do contain their share of believers, often professionals whose religious views are quite progressive\/liberal who work on the opinion side of the newspaper business. That\u2019s good, but it almost misses the point.<\/p>\n

The key issue being discussed here is actually the need for intellectual and cultural diversity and, quite frankly, tolerance in many major newsrooms when it comes to traditional forms of major religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Here, once again, is a key passage from the highly symbolic \u2014 especially in light of future events (hello Bill Keller<\/a>) \u2014 2005 self-study at The New York Times<\/em> entitled \u201cPreserving Our Readers\u2019 Trust.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Our paper\u2019s commitment to a diversity of gender, race and ethnicity is nonnegotiable. We should pursue the same diversity in other dimensions of life, and for the same reason \u2014 to ensure that a broad range of viewpoints is at the table when we decide what to write about and how to present it. The executive editor should assign this goal to everyone who has a hand in recruiting.<\/p>\n

We should take pains to create a climate in which staff members feel free to propose or criticize coverage from vantage points that lie outside the perceived newsroom consensus (liberal\/conservative, religious\/secular, urban\/suburban\/rural, elitist\/white collar\/blue collar). \u2026<\/p>\n

Too often we label whole groups from a perspective that uncritically accepts a stereotype or unfairly marginalizes them. As one reporter put it, words like moderate or centrist \u201cinevitably incorporate a judgment about which views are sensible and which are extreme.\u201d We often apply \u201creligious fundamentalists,\u201d another loaded term, to political activists who would describe themselves as Christian conservatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, let me stress that longtime GetReligion readers will know that I think, based on my experiences in mainstream newsrooms, that there are fine reporters doing accurate, balanced reporting on religious and cultural issues who are not believers of any kind. That\u2019s not the point of the Times<\/em> review material. The point is that culturally and intellectually diverse newsrooms do a better job covering modern America than newsrooms that are not as diverse.<\/p>\n

At the same time, on the issue of Christians in the newsroom, my position is the same as that of Phillips. Bias issues exist, but it would also help if there were more religious believers who had the skills and the guts to work in elite newsrooms, which are not environments that embrace those with thin skins. We are dealing, as I have said many times, with a blind spot that has two sides. All too often, mainstream journalists do not respect the valid, First Amendment role that religious liberty plays in American life. At the same time, far too many religious believers do not respect the valid, First Amendment role played by the press.<\/p>\n

Now, I said all of that to note this recent article at The Daily Beast<\/em> about the potential sale of The Los Angeles Times<\/em> to everybody\u2019s favorite billionaire libertarian brothers, David and Charles Koch. I\u2019m talking about the one that ran under the headline, \u201cCould There Be A Conservative LA Times?<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Megan McArdle opens by noting:<\/p>\n

David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who fund a number of libertarian causes, are rumored to be interested in buying the Tribune Group, which includes the LA Times. (Full disclosure: my husband received a one-year fellowship from the Charles Koch Foundation, and works for Reason Magazine, which I believe receives some funding from David Koch.) As you can imagine, this has stirred up quite a bit of anxiety in some quarters. Steve Pearlstein, the Washington Post\u2019s liberal business columnist, has suggested<\/a> that perhaps the LA Times staff should threaten to quit if the Kochs buy the paper.<\/p>\n

But regardless of labor action, my former colleague, Garance Franke-Ruta, writes that the Kochs effort is doomed. Newspapers are liberal because their audience is liberal, she says. And they\u2019re staffed by the people who live in cities, who are also liberal.<\/p>\n

A friend who is (1) not liberal and (2) not in the news business asks me what I think of this. Is it really impossible to imagine a conservative newspaper?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, there are conservative newspapers, she adds. At least, there are newspapers that have conservative editorial pages.<\/p>\n

But even then \u2014 as the liberal writer Eric Alterman noted in his classic \u201cWhat Liberal Media?<\/a> The Truth About Bias and the News\u201d \u2014 the most divisive issues in news coverage are often not linked to politics, strictly defined. The hot-button issues in newsrooms are linked to culture and, yes, religion. That\u2019s where the vast majority of journalists skew hard left.<\/p>\n

And the Koch brothers? McArdle adds:<\/p>\n

\u2026 While the urban demographic does skew liberal, the bright red line for most of that demographic is social conservatism, not free-marketeers. And the Kochs are not, as far as I know, much interested in social conservatism. You certainly don\u2019t fund a magazine like Reason if you\u2019re against gay marriage and for the War on Drugs.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: most urbanites are liberalish on government spending, too. But they\u2019re not offended by it, the way they are by, say, vocal pro-lifers. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, GetReligion readers, isn\u2019t this the theme that emerges over and over in controversies about journalism these days? When discussing whether today\u2019s mainstream press is capable of providing accurate, fair, balanced coverage, don\u2019t the debates usually center on precisely these kinds of issues?<\/p>\n

The bottom line, for me, is that traditional religious views on doctrine and morality are not, in an of themselves, beliefs that can easily be labeled \u2014 in POLITICAL<\/em> terms \u2014 \u201cliberal\u201d and \u201cconservative.\u201d Once upon a time, there were plenty of pro-life Democrats, even politically liberal ones, in American life and in Congress. Is it possible to pin an accurate political label on the views of the Catholic Church? Of Global South Anglicans? Of Orthodox Jews? Of African-American Baptists? Of Latino Pentecostals?<\/p>\n

The issue isn\u2019t whether American needs \u201cconservative\u201d newspapers. The issue is whether America needs, yea deserves, newspapers that are committed to attempting accurate, fair, balanced coverage of life in this very diverse nation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time for a quick trip into tmatt\u2019s infamous GetReligion file of guilt. You just know that plenty of GetReligion readers are going to send us emails about an essay \u2014 in this case, from The Week \u2014 that runs with the following headline: Why newspapers need to hire more Christians For starters, it would help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3,12,71,49,4],"tags":[91,363,1477,242,1478,253,525,1476],"class_list":["post-104455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","category-politics","category-religion","category-same-sex-marriage","category-sex","category-social-issues","tag-abortion","tag-conservatism","tag-david-and-charles-koch","tag-gay-rights","tag-libertarians","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-media-bias","tag-tribune-co"],"yoast_head":"\nSo, does LA need a 'conservative' newspaper or not?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Time for a quick trip into tmatt's infamous GetReligion file of guilt. 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