One of my favorite pastimes is listening to liberal journalists tell me they aren't liberal. I find it very similar to listening to an alcoholic explain how they are just social drinkers. In the end, the conversation can be closed simply by asking "who did you vote for in the last ten elections?" That goes for the journalist or the drunk, by the way. So it was with great glee that I read editor Cindi Ross Scoppe (You'll never make it in this town with an "i" at the end of your name. Wait, you're in South Carolina, never mind.) open with this denial in her article "Judith Miller and the myth of the 'liberal media establishment'"
Yes, I know some of you still consider me to be a liberal. Trust me: You're in the minority. And youre wrong.
Cindi, it isn't you. It's me. Really. I'm just incapable of trusting journalists. By the way, next time you write an article dispelling the "myth of the liberal media", you might want to leave out this part:
As a group, we tend to be arrogant and nomadic, which too often results in our being quite detached from our communities. And yes, as a group we do tend to be more socially and politically liberal than our communities. And yes, this does show up in our news coverage. As nomadic outsiders, journalists build community among themselves. This leads to the group-think that takes over within any group of people with similar education, similar social status and similar worldviews. This creates huge blind spots that influence and limit our thinking. The blind spot that causes the greatest disconnect these days, of course, relates to religious and social issues, which have become the new litmus test of ideology in our country. Case in point: The concept of a born-again Christian was foreign to the faith traditions in which most journalists grew up (if they grew up in any), and so official journalism is distrustful of anyone who calls himself one.
