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Comment by gwking | Hacker News Reader

I went to this event two nights ago: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/experts-debate-solution-...

One interesting comment during the debate was that many (liberal) journalists use Twitter as a side platform on which they feel comfortable voicing more personal views. While it is an acceptable practice in their circles, conservative readers often point to those tweets as evidence of liberal bias in the industry. Regardless of the professional ethical consensus, it may be a cause of distrust, and suggests a general problem of liberal journalists preaching to the choir.

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Eh, I'm kind of in the Colbert (although far more to the left) view of "reality has a well known liberal bias". It was a great joke, and I think got to the heart of the screeching about "bias" from "conservatives" (reactionaries). I find the idea that there is a neutral impartial view laughable, honestly. But then, I'm a commie, so shrug.

A final thought as well, I think, whatever your politics, that much of the liberal bias talk from the right, especially the now unmasked far right, was simply language policing. It was an attempt to set the terms of the debate and pull the frame as far right as possible, which seemed to have been largely successful in my opinion. Thanks for the link and the comment, I'll check it out!

I get the idea behind the "reality has a well known liberal bias" shibboleth. I think, however, that a more accurate and less self-serving formulation is that reality is non-partisan. Reality doesn't care about anyone's cherished political views.

It's certainly contributed to the irreparable ending of the relationship between conservatives and the MSM (to the detriment of both, and society itself). But conservative journalists and pundits are no less shy about spouting off, provided they work for a conservative outlet. I think what you don't see is journalists at mainstream (read: liberal) outlets who happen to be conservative, instead of token conservative pundits like @DouthatNYT, expressing their views publicly.

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