I've been executive editor of the Star-Telegram for more than 15 years, and the question I get asked most often is, "In one of the most conservative areas of the country, why is your paper so liberal?"
The question comes up a lot more during presidential election years.Last Sunday, the Star-Telegram Editorial Board recommended Mitt Romney. In the post-war period, the board has recommended only three Democrats for president: Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton (twice) and Barack Obama in '08.Sometimes, readers mean they consider the paper's editorials too liberal, but more often than not they're also talking about the news stories.Although we go to great lengths to separate news from opinion and to label opinion as such, some readers see a point of view in everything we do. To them, it's a clear signal that we want readers to think a certain way.As executive editor, I'm in charge of all the news, sports and feature sections and the reporters whose stories appear there. Our intent is to provide news stories that are accurate, balanced and without a point of view.That's hard to accomplish 100 percent of the time. Stories are written by humans, and they bring their preconceived notions and biases, conscious and unconscious, to their writing. The editing process is meant to help correct that.By the time a story gets published, it has likely been read by two or three editors, sometimes more. Yet we still make mistakes and don't recognize that we've presented stories that appear biased to some readers.We don't have an agenda in our newsroom other than to present things in a factual, fair way. We just want to tell good, compelling, accurate stories.Call me naïve, but in my nearly 40 years in journalism, I've yet to work with a reporter who I felt had an agenda and deliberately slanted the facts to present the picture he or she wanted to portray. We've gotten facts wrong, fired reporters for plagiarism, failed to add perspective to stories or given too much weight to some sources and not enough to others, but I believe we try to make sure that every story we run on the news pages is chosen because we think it's something readers need to know, not because we want readers to believe a certain way.The opinion pages give the Editorial Board's best thinking on the issues of the day in unsigned editorials. Those do have a point of view. And our columnists are paid to have an opinion and to defend it. We label what they write "opinion" to distinguish it from news.Anything Bob Ray Sanders, Bud Kennedy or Randy Galloway writes is his opinion. They have no obligation to present "the other side of the story."Just like debaters, they can choose to use only the facts that suit their argument. Of course, their argument is stronger if they can address key objections.In England, some papers are admittedly conservative or liberal even on their news pages and proud of it. They preach to the converted, people who don't want their viewpoint challenged. That's not the way we do it here.Peter Bhatia, who used to work at the Dallas Times Herald and is now editor of the Portland Oregonian, has a much different problem than ours. In one of the most liberal areas of the country, his paper often is castigated for being "too conservative."And nothing he says is going to change that perception among some readers. Maybe that's the way they'd run the paper if they were editor, so they assume that's the way it's done.Jim Witt is executive editor of the Star-Telegram.817-390-7704Twitter: @jimelvisHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
