Regarding Van Gordon Sauter’s “The ‘Liberal Leaning’ Media Has Passed Its Tipping Point” (op-ed, May 26): The real issue with the media isn’t that it leans in the liberal direction. The problem is that it leans in any direction and that this situation is recognized and accepted.
Mike Kudia
Schaumburg, Ill.
Mr. Sauter demonstrates a remarkable lack of self-awareness. I have not forgotten CBS News’ antics of the precise kind described in his remarks during the tenure of President Ronald Reagan (when the writer was, after all, president of CBS News). In fact, no Republican national officeholder or aspirant has escaped the very same degree of broadcast media contumely, character assassination and withholding of evenhanded treatment since the Eisenhower administration.
What is unique about this media and the Trump administration is President Trump’s refusal to allow himself to be mischaracterized and slandered by these partisan zealots.
Even Republican political figures who strove throughout their careers to attain a favorable relationship with this politicized lynch mob, such as John McCain and Mitt Romney, awoke after the conventions to find that once a Republican “moderate” becomes the presidential nominee of his party, he is to be vilified, mocked, abused and slandered by the same media figures who months before (and forever after losing the election) lavished him with laudatory coverage. I see nothing but “more of the same” coming from these people.
David deForrest
Jacksonville, Fla.
I think what is being confused here are principles versus financial policies. My newspaper experience started more than half a century ago. In those days every single journalist I knew was a liberal activist, but the newspaper proprietors supported the Republican Party. Writers had to be scrupulously accurate for their articles to pass editorial challenge. In the best case there was little or no bias, only a careful disclosure of all the facts, resulting in the kind of unbiased reporting that was universally admired. We were told we couldn’t distort by omission.
Media empires still want to dominate the world and global trade has offered that promise on a tantalizing scale. No wonder the quality of the reporting itself has slipped.
Meryle Secrest
Washington
The left doesn’t believe it is left of center. It believes it is the center. To concede that it is left of center leaves open the possibility that someone other than them, (perhaps the right?) could occupy the center. If one believes the center is, shall we say, fair and balanced, that can never be anybody but them. For the left, there is no left, only the center and the radicals on the right. It is also my observation that many people on the right believe exactly the opposite.
Robert Miller
Delray Beach, Fla.
It isn’t just the media that exudes bias. At dinner I asked my Google assistant two questions: “What are Nancy Pelosi’s accomplishments as speaker of the House?” The robotic voice quickly rattled off three, all of which were during her first term as speaker. I then asked Google what accomplishments Donald Trump has achieved as president. The reply: “Sorry, I don’t have any information on that.”
Flo Tonelli
Littleton, Colo.
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