The Wall Street Journal op-ed by two Stanford scholars yesterday on the Senator labeling disparity came under attack in the Romenesko letters section after Jim posted a link.
New York Times economics reporter David Cay Johnston jumped in to play apples-and-oranges games with the piece. He noted that a Nexis search showed Times reporters used “conservative icon” as much as “liberal icon.” The Stanford duo did not suggest that the term “conservative icon” was never used, only that “liberal icon” was used for Sen. Ted Kennedy. (“Conservative icon” was in fact used for Sen. Jesse Helms, according to Nexis, in between the harsh terms.) To show that bias nit-picking can go on and on, several of the pieces using “conservative icon,” like the Helms note, were still noticeably unhappy with conservatives.
I suggested Johnston go back to his Nexis with the following assignment: find a Democratic senator referred to in the Times during the Brady-Ma study period as a “hard-core liberal,” a “hard-charging liberal,” an “unyielding liberal,” a “fierce liberal,” a “highly partisan liberal,” or even “aggressively liberal.” He won’t find one, although Rep. Charlie Rangel is described as “aggressively liberal” once.
Johnston seemed intent on insulting away the primary statistical charge: that when you isolate the ten most liberal senators and the ten most conservative senators, the Times is more reluctant to use labels on liberals by a noticeable margin. And when the liberal labels come, they routinely arrive in gently positive puffs.