New York Times “bleeds” progressivism, says its public editor

Arthur Brisbane is stepping down from his job as public editor of the New York Times. In his final column, Brisbane addresses the issue of political and cultural bias at the Times (the emphasis is mine):

I. . .noted two years ago that I had taken up the public editor duties believing “there is no conspiracy” and that The Times’s output was too vast and complex to be dictated by any Wizard of Oz-like individual or cabal. I still believe that, but also see that the hive on Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds — a phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than from within.

When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.

As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.

Brisbane also notes that a just-released Pew Research Center survey found that The Times’s “believability rating” has dropped drastically among Republicans compared with Democrats, and is an almost-perfect mirror opposite of Fox News’s rating. He asks, “Can that be good?”

Not for Fox News.

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