It’s very nice that Raines and Boyd have stepped down from the Times, where the entire paper had become an extended editorial rant on Raines’ obsession du jour, ranging from rich white Southern golfer ladies to imaginary Bush criticism from the likes of Henry Kissinger, but it doesn’t do much for the cause of media diversity. The Times was losing circulation and credibility under Raines, and had he stayed on the job for another year, it would have been regarded as just another paper. Now they’ll be able to pretend to reform while doing pretty much the same as always. As Ben Domenech points out, the Times’ credibility recession began under acting exec editor Lelyveld.
I never did like sacrifical lambs, but I also don’t like biased media that pretend to be impartial. If the Times were really serious about reforming itself, it would have been Maureen Dowd’s head on the block alongside Raines, not Boyd’s.
I challenge anyone to name one newspaper that is not impartial or biased in any way.
The news coverage in the Washington Post is impartial, and that’s all we ask. They can go nuts on the editorial page all they want as long as they keep their opinions out of the news.
Who are the “we” in “all we ask” ?
As I’m sure you know, there are many people who disagree with you on supposed bias in the Wash Post:
http://www.discriminations.us/storage/001397.html
http://theconservativeguy.com/washington_post_gives_another.htm
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/Washington_Post_Bias_-_Again.asp
I really do think that no matter how you slice it, if there is media that covers current events, then the writing can be interpreted as to have bias, directly porportional to the amount of the critic’s zeal. It’s been said that even AP wire stories have bias.