In your Thursday critique of Justice Scalia, I agree that he should spend more time clarifying his legal views so as to minimize mischaracterizations. (“Scalia’s superficial view sells Americans short.”) I also agree that reporting on legal issues is hard work.
However, the press isn’t without fault. Bias is a problem in your field, legal coverage included. For example, the legal writer for Slate online magazine, Dahlia Lithwick, said the following in an Alliance for Justice video:
“What would happen if Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia got their way? What is their vision for America? And if you say to people what their vision is: Say goodbye to worker’s rights. Say goodbye to environmental protection. Say goodbye to women’s rights. Say goodbye to the rights of the disabled. Say goodbye to all the progress we’ve made in terms of race and gender in this country, and privacy.”
If I were Scalia, I wouldn’t expect fair coverage from her, and this is but one example. Two years ago, Pew Research surveyed the media, finding that only 7 percent of the national press called themselves conservative and 34 percent self-identified as liberal, an almost 5-to-1 ratio. By comparison, the general public was 33 percent conservative. When 93 percent of the national press corps is monolithically unconservative, the door is opened to bias and misreporting.
When editing, you serve as a second set of eyes because you can more readily spot “holes” than if the reporter self-edited. By the same token, a second set of ideological eyes could serve a similar purpose. I’m not recommending an affirmative action program for conservatives in newsrooms. I’m suggesting that when you report on conservative issues, you need to work harder to understand the other side. Not only would it result in better reporting, it may just expand a substantial segment of your readership rather than alienate it.
Charles Bird
Everett
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