People accuse me of being biased. Of course, the label usually sticks to those with whom I might disagree on a subject. People never level the “bias” charge when they agree with you, right?
But then I get notes like the one that came in today. The writer — who has written to us several times over the years — took columnist Leonard Pitts to task. But along with his letter to the editor, he sent along a cover note that accuses the paper of being too liberal in its political slant. Hmmm. Interesting, given that our editorial policy remains conservative. I reminded this person that most of our columnists tilt to the right. We do have a few liberals who comment on our page. Well, he isn’t entirely satisfied with that answer.
His rant is amazing. Why? I have contributors on the other end of the spectrum who accuse this page of tilting too far the right, that we’re too conservative. One of our regular left-leaning contributors came to mind. He accuses us constantly of being toadies for the Republicans. In fact, he cannot submit a letter to the editor without tossing a barb at us for being so biased in favor of conservatives.
What’s up with that?
I talked this morning with one of my colleagues about this and reminded him of the time I interviewed evangelist Franklin Graham, in 2000 when Graham came to Amarillo to preach to the throngs at Dick Bivins Stadium. I asked Graham, “How can the Revs. Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson read the same Bible and come to such vastly different conclusions about what it says?” Graham’s answer was that Jackson is more of a politican than Falwell.
I don’t intend to compare the Globe-News with the Bible, but it does amaze that two readers of this paper can draw such vastly different conclusions about the Globe-News political slant.
Both men say we’re biased. One says we tilt too far one way; the other guy says we tilt too far the other way.
The way I see it, bias — like beauty — is in the eyes of the beholder.
One of these days I’m going to bring Mr. Lefty and Mr. Righty together to persuade each other why the paper is biased against their point of view.