September 3, 2006

Transparent Bias

The editorial page of the The Tennessean Sunday offers up an apparently transparent example of the paper's liberal bias, via this editorial about the effort - lead by independent bloggers, not by newspapers such as The Tennessean - to identify which U.S. Senator had placed the secret "hold" blocking action on the proposed Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.

In a shining example of the power of citizen-led networked journalism, bloggers from the Left and Right lead the charge to find out which senator or senators had placed the "hold" on the legislation, which would have the Office of Management and Budget create a user-friendly web site listing details on every grant and contract handed out by the federal government, in order to give the public a detailed view of how the government is spending their money.

Without the journalistic efforts of the bloggers, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act would still be held up in the Senate - the mainstream media wasn't doing its job on this one. When the bloggers' campaign forced two senators - one Republican and one Democrat - to admit to having placed the "hold" on the legislation, the MSM finally took notice.

But today's Tennessean editorial mentions only one - the Republican:

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been outted as the kidnapper of a U.S. Senate bill that would allow taxpayers to see how their money is being spent. ... Although the bill was scheduled to go to the full Senate before the August recess, he anonymously put a hold on the legislation, stalling it indefinitely. Last week, after a combined squeeze by bloggers and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Stevens 'fessed up.

Byrd's admission that he put the "hold" on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act was widely reported and went out on the news wires. The Chicago Tribune named both Stevens and Byrd in its editorial on Friday. So did the Los Angeles Times. So, why did editorial writers at The Tennessean chose only to spotlight the Republican?

Those who believe this is another example of how the paper's anti-Republican bias led it to skew the facts have much evidence on their side, though it is also possible that the editorial was written several days ago, right after Sen. Stevens was outed but before Byrd 'fessed up, and the paper simply doesn't have a process by which such pre-written editorials are updated to reflect the latest information on a given story. Neither option is very attractive - and neither makes the paper look very good especially when measured against the performance of the blogosphere, which did the heavy lifting and produced excellent - and unbiased - results on the "secret hold" story while the mainstream media generally slumbered or watched from the sidelines.