What, Me Biased?

In the StarTribune's "Op/Ex" section of yesterday's (Sunday) paper, they had a column by the "Reader's Representative" attempting to show whether the paper has a left-wing bias by publishing letters from the readers.

By my count there were 3 from people who thought it was too far left, one from a guy who thinks that it's too far right, one that attacks right-wingers for attacking the media and one that really has nothing to do with the subject.

However, the more important point was made in a little feature called "By the Numbers" that was directly below that column. This feature attempts to describe what's going on around the world by using numbers (percentages, ratios, etc.).

Out of 11 little snippets, at least 9 of them were far to the left, mostly attacking the Bush administration for environmental policies, religious people and the Pope, etc.

Kind of ironic that they'd have that directly below a column about media bias.

And then you turn the page to the 'letters to the editor' section and 5 of the 10 are attacking Governor Pawlenty's former Commisioner of Education, Cheri Yecke, who was thoroughly Borked out of her job by (who else) the StarTribune and the Left of this state.

She's been out of government for over a year, and these people still so despise her that they can't stop attacking her! The paper will publish any letter written to them no matter how stupid, as long as it attacks her.

Of the other 5 letters, maybe 2 could be considered anything close to the Right.

Then, on the same page, you look at the editorial cartoons: every one of them is anti-Bush. Every one!

You doubt me? Take a look at these cartoons. Out of fifteen, 9 of them are anti-Bush and one is anti-Pawlenty (our republican Governor). Of the other 5, one is making fun of Jesse jackson (but not of Democrats), and the other 4 have nothing to do with politics. In other words, not one cartoon in the past 15 weeks has had anything negative to say about Democrats. But 2/3 of them are anti-Conservative.

But that's really not surprising. Although I rarely read the rag anymore, I can't remember any cartoons and very, very few columns saying anything negative about Democrats.

But they're not biased! Heck, they just ran a column saying that they're not biased! They couldn't do that if it weren't true (I actually had one moron try that line on me. The sad thing is, he believed it).

And I'm sure that this rag is no different than the vast majority of them in this country. The fact that they can deny it is just incredible to me. But then, it's no different than a kid standing next to a broken window with a bat in his hand and denying that he broke it.

-The Exile