More on YearlyKos: columnists, reporters and labels

Isn't Samantha Power an Obama advisor? Maybe you guys should keep active politicos off your columnist pages during the primaries?

To be fair Jay, this is a decent gripe.

Meet the Press is a classic venue for "non-ideological journalists", combined with right wing ideologues. The journalists are supposed to balance out the conservatives.

There also is the topic of balance vs fairness that I would love for you to get into. You know the Candidate A says the moon is made of green cheese, Canddiate B disagrees type of coverage. Too much falsehood is allowed to be spouted under the "both sides" rule. Opinion should be given diverse viewpoints, but not facts. This seems to not be the case.

Subset of this is the bending over backwards not to call people on lying when they are full of it. Alberto Gonzales' story "conflicts", is "at odds with", "contradicts the record".

No. He lied. Under this theory of journalism, liberals rightfully feel that they are getting creamed. You have objective journalists bending over backwards to be "balanced" even when the facts don't warrant them, and even that "nuanced" coverage gets screamed down by the noise machine including Fox News which does some pretty shoddy journalism if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

How could you mention that Samantha Power is joining TIME magazine as a foreign policy columnist without noting that she is Senator Obama's foreign policy advisor? A rather salient fact, I think.

"Karen and I are reporters, not columnists or partisans. If we're doing our jobs as political reporters, attempts to label us as left or right will fail because our stories will be grounded in solid reporting."

True, true. But from what I've seen here, your critics from the left don't usually accuse you of being a right wing shill per se.

Instead, they point out instances when your reporting or agenda-setting habits make you LOOK like a right wing shill (or dupe)--in spite of yourself. (It's inevitable, though, when every word and phrase will face sharp, skeptical scrutiny, so I understand the pressures of this constant surveillance of your activity.)

And it's good to see you acknowledging the distortionary potential of balance.

But when will American reporters get over this obsessive and wrong-headed assumption that objectivity and partisanship necessarily cancel each other out?

"To go back to the sidewalk: Karen and I are reporters, not columnists or partisans. If we're doing our jobs as political reporters, attempts to label us as left or right will fail because our stories will be grounded in solid reporting."

Jay, you are also DC bureau Chief....which means that you have considerable say in what gets covered--- and more crucially, what does not get covered. And THAT is where your attempt to explain away the truth of what you said is revealed for the line of BS that it is.

Why, for instance, are you so obseessed with the "horse race" as jay rosen points out? Why can't you be bothered to report on the FACTS (i.e. read the new FISA law, rather than take part in a conference call where you get told nothing -- and report that you were told nothing)? Why wasn't your blog post not about the loss of civil liberties, but about a "Bush victory"?

And why did you have Karen Tumulty out chasing McCain and Giuliani and other candidates around for the past couple of months with everything that was going on in DC? I mean, if you want to waste Karen's talents on pointless political profiles when Congress is not in session, fine. But why, as the guy IN CHARGE OF DC COVERAGE, more concerned with a presidential election that is 15 months away than what is going on IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA?

And your "its our responsibility not to get labelled" comment explains a lot. TELLING THE TRUTH about this administration would make you appear to be "partisan" in the eyes of conservatives -- so you concentrate on an election that isn't happening for over a year---- and when you DO bother to do reporting on what is going on in DC, its always framed as a "partisan squabble".

Jay Rosen nailed you, I'm afraid.

Well I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that it's nice to hear that you've decided to be a reporter! Please don't be afraid to report the truth from now on... even if the truth has a liberal bias.

"When I said Time would always have conservative columnists, I meant, simply, that as long as there is a stable of columnists at Time, there will be some among them representing conservative political views. The fact that conservative pundits appear in Time does not make the magazine itself conservative. "

Some among them....are conservative? You have conservatives and right leaning centrists, who tend to despise "the left" even more than the conservatives.

All right, so lets look at this from a different angle. If Time will always have conservative columnists, and Time NEVER has any progressive columnists.....THAT makes Time magazine a conservative magazine. Your argument is a straw man. Your last statement would be true if there were ALSO some progressive voices heard in the magazine. There are not.

Is this the same Power or Powers who wrote the memo that Greenwald was discussing today?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/08/powers/index.html

Anyway, on the topic at hand, Jay's explanation on the "right/left" thing seems perfectly reasonable to me, though there obviously is no liberal counterweight to the likes of Kristol and the Krautman (sorry Joe).

Another thing:

It would be good if reporters felt more strongly that they have an obligation to THE PUBLIC, and not to some outmoded metaphysical notion of truth and objectivity (as if reporting on social action could model itself after the scientific observation of brute facts).

Case in point: Michael Moore and the health care debate.

Journalists' obsessive fact-checking of Moore has the effect of overshadowing his efforts to draw attention to widespread public concerns.

As a result, your professional desire to "look objective" ends up canceling out the public's need to have policy makers change our health care system.

Same thing could be said about reporting on the war.

So is it better to adhere to some bogus scientific standard of professional activity, or to be a truthful spokesperson on the public's behalf--especially when it's the majority of the public?

Carnie: "To go back to the sidewalk: Karen and I are reporters, not columnists or partisans. If we're doing our jobs as political reporters, attempts to label us as left or right will fail because our stories will be grounded in solid reporting."

---------------------

What a sad attempt at a dodge. The problem is less what you report, and even how you report it (although there are certainly problems there), than what you don't report, what you choose to shut up about in the interest of protecting your almighty careers. The more savvy critics aren't trying to label you "left or right," but "honest or dishonest," "competent or incompetent." Who cares about your notional biases, if you are, at core, doing a lousy job of reporting?

If quality rises, how did Mike Allen, Kit Seelye, Roger Simon, and Ceci Connolly get the jobs they have today? Just saying...

Speaking for myself, I've been appreciative and sympathetic with the Swampland Gang of Four Minus One's appearance and efforts at YearlyKos. I hope, y'all had a good time.

Glenn's point on the panel, as I think he made clear, is not that Time Mag has conservative columnists. It's that the spectrum of opinions they present is lacking a very large part of the spectrum of mainstream political thinking. Joe Klein, representing the center right in the classical sense, through extremeists Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, the extreme rightward slant of your columnists, matter, Jay, in how your pub is perceived. But nobody blames *you* for that.

But as far as your reporting, we are asking for you to do better. I wonder if you know what that is. Take this, for instance, linked from Matthew Yglesias (link in the handle):

~~
Facts? In the Lede? Shocking!
08 Aug 2007 10:26 am

Via Brian Beutler, the AFP tries a revolutionary experiment in writing their story in such a way as to make readers better informed about the issue at hand rather than more familiar with the president's propaganda. Here's the lede:

(block
US President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons -- an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran.
(endblock)
~~

If you can't understand why people in the blogging world find that lede unusual and welcome, then I think you aren't really understanding the argument.

You wouldn't get this grief if Time published ONE liberal columnist to try to balance your entire dugout.

And NO: JOE DOESN'T COUNT.

I guess this is the week where every Swampland poster calls me out, though not by name this time.

Jay, you did a fairly half-assed job of obfuscating my point. Yes, I have made a big deal of you saying "There will always be conservative columnists at Time" but only in the context that you had no following statement as to whether there would be progressive columnists at Time. You were specifically answering a question as to a lack of progressive columnists here, and in that context, your silence could only be taken as tacit admission of Time as a center-right publication IMO. At this time I stand by that assertion. It's like when the cookies are missing and you ask your kid if he ate them and he says "I cleaned up my room", you can pretty much do the math right? The non-answer is the answer.

I read Samantha Power's book review as a primer, and I found it well written and intelligent.

www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/books/review/Power-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=98ff793898d11c96&ex=1186718400

She does seem like a good hire, but, as noted previously maybe having someone who is actively working w/ a presidential candidate is probably not so great, but I guess beggars can't be choosers. I mean just based on this one article I can see she runs circles around Kristol et al. We shall see. It might make the wingers happy that Chomsky doesn't seem to like her much.

That does beg the question-- are you doing a good job reporting the truth? Or in your attempt not to be seen as "left" (as you say, it was the rightwing's continued insistence that the MSM is "liberal" that you've been trying to counteract), have you gone too far and actually avoided the truth?

I don't know. But anything that makes a reporter and an editor stop and think about potential bias in word choice and especially story choice and approach is good. I'd be happy with true objectivity-- the problem is, we don't see a lot of that, or haven't until you guys have been taken to the woodshed by liberal bloggers a few times.

That's where bloggers really can help you, though I bet it doesn't feel like it when they do! Ut was bloggers who pointed out how MSM reporters uncritically and immediately started using "Al Qaeda" just as the administration did as a cause of some if not most of the violence in Iraq. And that supposition that you all had easily been led, once again, by Rove's talking points, got picked up by the Times's public editor, and finally Time and other news sources were referring at least to "AQ in Iraq" rather than Al Qaeda the Bin Laden group. Heck, some MSM reporters even did stories that showed the distinction between the two and even alluded to the administration deception that AQ of any kind was responsible for much violence there.

That uncritical acceptance of administration talking points boggles us-- I mean, really, how many times do you guys have to be lied to,huh? But at least you know now that you're on notice-- that you might not recognize it, but if you don't, bloggers will be sure to point it out. Eventually, I hope, you guys will think BEFORE you write a story based without much independent critical thought on something some "senior administration official" called to whisper to you.

You're getting there... it's just hard to understand why it's taken so long.

I don't worry much about conservative journalists and pundits. They are easy enough to identify, and we can call them on their bullshit and hypocrisy. IMHO, the bigger problem is just how far Right the definition of "centrist" has been pushed in recent decades. That is the more insidious, and hence more dangerous aspect of our current media culture.

Jay Carney:

Thanks for the laugh, which occured as I read this bit: "We should and must call "b.s." when a claim made by a politician or government official is provably false."

That's especially funny for me since I follow immigration matters quite closely and most of the statements politicians make in that area are highly misleading, or they fail to note the massive potential downsides of their policies, or they're just false. Except for Tancredo, Hunter, and Paul, all the presidential candidates are extraordinarily weak on this issue, and asking them a series of questions about their policies would reveal that they're unable to think things through.

Since that would be so easy, one wonders why the MSM hasn't done it. I'm thinking of a four-letter word that also means "tired old horse" and, no, it's not "jade".

Why would Time hire Obama's advisor as a columnist? It seems to me that it undermines Time's credibility as it relates to covering the 2008 election?

"I was asked about columnists like Bill Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, the fact that they were terribly wrong on Iraq (and, to this audience, wrong in general on most subjects) and why Time continued to publish their columns. When I said Time would always have conservative columnists, I meant, simply, that as long as there is a stable of columnists at Time, there will be some among them representing conservative political views. The fact that conservative pundits appear in Time does not make the magazine itself conservative."

What a pathetically sad testament.

Time continues to publish intellectual dishonesty by Kristol and Krauthammer is to sell magazines. OK. It believe there is more money in the conservative mob; so be it. But given that background, don't think you have convinced me for second that "Time has always been more about its reporting than its columnists."

BTW, this is what reporting looks like:

"WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons -- an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran. ...

Asked to provide examples of Tehran openly declaring that it seeks atomic weapons, White House officials contacted by AFP said that Bush was referring to Iran's defiance of international calls to freeze sensitive nuclear work.

They explained that he was referring to Tehran's uranium enrichment -- a process that can yield nuclear bomb material -- and resulting worries by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070806/pl_afp/usirannuclearbush_070806211859

I cann't find reporting like that anywhere in Time.

To pull together some thoughts expressed here by others Jay:
Do you see a difference in the attitudes of the MSM in the way they covered 'Sicko' as compared to the everyday reporting from the MSM? Does one seem much more stringently pre-occupied w/ the veracity of statements from the subject?

Moore once challenged Matt Lauer by saying he wished the MSM had been as hard charging when it came to the run up to the war, as it is in regard to his movies. Its a challenge that is still valid today. Maybe your making baby steps...its hard to tell, but if you are making progress, your doing so only because you are being challenged to do so and not of your own volition. So take your medicine and stop accusing me of having a Gonzalez moment. BTW, what does your use of Gonzalez as epithet mean? Has he done something wrong? Tell us all about it, I don't believe I've read much about it in your magazine. Something you want to get off your chest?

These are all good examples of how, no matter how careful you are, there's always somebody ready, willing, and able to take your words out of context or willfully misconstrue them. THEY of course never have to explain where they came up with their nonsense; no, it's everyone else's job to explain, explain, explain.

sean s.

Jay,

Overall (at least to this reader), these are generally good responses to your audiences' concerns. Your explanation to the "conservative columnists" questions, however, begs a different set of questions (which have been raised before).

Where is the editorial balance for the Left point of view? Color this sacrilege, but I see value in reading the opinions of columnists on all sides of an issue, but that is sorely lacking at TIME. The Right has Krauthammer; the Left has ? The Right has Kristol; the Left has ? The Right has Halperin; the Left has ?

Your argument that reporters, through solid fact-based reporting, should be able to avoid the slings and arrows of outrageous partisan labeling is quite salient. That being said, shouldn't TIME strive for the same? With the current stable of editorial columnists, does it, in your mind, accomplish that?

arch, It's great to see the real you!

baby steps, hell yeah. When this blog first started we were reading all about rose law firm records and Clinton's polls mired in the 30's, Klein's wild accusations against imaginary left wing extremists, the Pelosi airplane rumor. I don't think we see stuff like that here any more. And Jay's sharpening his snarkability. Gonzales moment, I thought that was a good one.... I hope you don't mind if I use that one, Jay.

Well, this is exaactly what I want every journalist to do, so I hope you live by this. I must admit, I've read Time, but wouldn't know what you have or have not reported, so I don't know if you are one of the worst offenders. The ones I am most familiar with, such as pooh-poohing the attorney firings, you backed off from, which would hint at a reality-based approach.

It also reflects a tendency to follow conventional wisdom. Such as your dust-up characterization of Clinton as unpopular. This kind of reflexive pack reporting has to stop. Listening to your critics, as you do, will help.

I thought your sidewalk interview was fine, by the way, though the statement did concern me. I, too, feared it spoke to a source of a lot of bad reporting. You've allayed my concerns. You did not allay my concerns that you would not "always have a liberal columnist."

But here's a disturbing hypothetical: what do you do if, after correcting many factual mistakes in the Republican debate, as FactCheck did, and then after the Democratic debate you find no major errors of fact? Do you do what FactCheck did, and call it an error in fact to say Bush "ruined" the country? Or do you encourage this by reporting that there were no major errors of fact? Saying Republicans lied and Democrats told the truth, though true, would make you look like a partisan stooge, wouldn't it? Most reporters would rather pull something out of their @ss, as FactCheck did.

Would you be willing to print the truth in this case?

Jay Carney:

Let me try to be more specific. Consider this question for Hillary: youtube.com/watch?v=WZkvEmSy1vk

Since a reading of the bill - together with 2nd grade-level math - will show that the statements made on the video are correct, and since those statements point out major problems in a bill that Hillary supports (as well as most likely the other Dem candidates), why don't you ask one of those candidates about that bill?

No, seriously, why not?

You could even do it in dodge-fashion: "KrisKobach says..." so that way you wouldn't be the one raising the objections.

No, seriously, why not? You're a "real" reporter, right?

thanx James, though I'm not sure I am the real me. I don't see any references to gerbils or impeachment though, so I'm pretty sure it IS me.

Jay saying I had a Gonzalez moment after all the obfuscation of Gonzo's conduct here at Time is richly ironic no?

I just did the Glenn link to the Samantha memo.

Oops, great premise about 'business as usual', but claiming that Obama is 'turning the page' is well, just plain wrong.

When Obama's plan hit the media, I said OUCH. We've been there. And that didn't work. I heard Hil and the others bring that point up in Chicago. The incident that I used as an example in my comments was Damadola, Pakistan, Jan. 13, 2006.

Turning the page to the same page is not the answer. In case Glenn is tuned in here, I think he needs to do some deeper thinking on the power of Samantha for the good.

Now, I don't know if this is part of 'The Informations Road Map' or factual reporting but it should be considered.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1651014,00.html

I'm just trying to put Samantha's future work in context. Is she or has she left Harvard Yard?

From my point of view I am agreeing with many of the above comments. I see that what is covered or not covered and the 'vocabulary' used to be a significant determination of slant in news articles.

Yeah, well, when the big boss says that he is "sooooooooooo uninterested" in anything about the US Attorney purge, well, what's a Washington Bureau Chief gonna do? Or have I gone too soft on the gang?

Great comments to this post!

What James LA said, what arch stanton said, what p_lukasiak said, what Jake Gittes aaid, what lister said...

Jay,

I'm again asking you why Time is basically siding with the Obama campaign by giving Samantha Power a column? Or have to offered columnist gigs to advisers at the other campaigns? Maybe Dennis Kucinich has some people who would like to write a column?

Power is coming on as a foreign affairs columnist, not a political columnist, so as long as Time discloses the tie I don't see where the difficulty lies. She's a great catch for Time, actually (I may have a bit of a crush, but show me how many Pulitzers the rest of the roster have). Unfortunately, if she's not coming until she finishes her book on Sergio Vieira de Mello she's not coming, because she's been working on that thing forever.

So the net effect of the right wingers calling you biased has been the destruction of the objectivity of reporting and the abandonment of truth. As an example, if big-wig Republican or unnamed White House source lies to the nation, and the lie is obvious because there are a number of data points that prove this is the case, why not report that so-and-so lied? Big story huh? That would be reporting 101.
And as to Kristol or Krauthammer, it is one thing to be conservative, it is another to constantly make profound errors of judgement and/or ignore the basic news facts of the publication you are working for.
This speaks less to a political view, and more to sheer incompetence. This also is what is maddening to people like me, who's bonuses and raises are determined by how good of a job I am doing. By saying these guys can be neither prescient nor predictive nor profound for years on end, when that seems to be the basic job they were hired for, suggests they were hired less to do a good job and more so for more petty and ominous reasons. Reasons that detract from everyone involved with them's credibility.

Jay, you were a good sport as I said, at YK (even if you dodged my question about Republican ownership of Time and other media), but you write

"When I said Time would always have conservative columnists, I meant, simply, that as long as there is a stable of columnists at Time, there will be some among them representing conservative political views."

Then why are there no liberal columnists? There are none. Zero. If there are conservative columnists -- and always will be, apparently -- why are there no liberal ones?

I know you get sick of this question and I know yo have no control over the situation, but how can you pretend that it's not strange that you have no liberal columnists? Seriously, come on.

"If quality rises, how did Mike Allen, Kit Seelye, Roger Simon, and Ceci Connolly get the jobs they have today?"

Mike Allen is a good reporter.

Who are the columnists at Time that represent the far left? You say that Time has always have conservative columnists but you point to someone who will be hired some time in the future as the person at Time that represents the other point of view. Are you that dumb or do you think we are? Will you respond to this question or just move on to another subject?

We do not want to hear anything on this site other than the news and views that may be found on the KOS or moveon.org or other liberal media. If we wanted non liberal views we would go to GOPUSA or some other neocon site.

"Mike Allen is a good reporter."

If by "good" you mean a stenographic tard for Karl Rove.

I once saw an interview with Allen where his analysis of the issue consisted of trying to compare the issue to scenes from the movie Talladega Nights. I kid you not on that one.

Yeah, James, Jay does kinda seem stuck in the middle sometimes, but he cashes the checks, so he gets the abuse. If Jay wants respect, at this point it looks like he'll have quit his job, if indeed his superiors have placed a leash on him, and start his own blog. Of course, he'd have to rebuild his journalistic rep from scratch and do so by doing the kind of work people like Greenwald and Josh Marshall do, and I'm not sure Jay has it in him at this point. He had the look of someone very comfortable w/ the status quo at this point in his life...unless we make it uncomfortable.

PS. When do we get a story about Anthony Cordesman's report on the Iraq situation?

And if a reporters job is not to be labeled "left" or "right", why do we kept getting told that a Sunday Morning discussion panel pitting 2 right wing op/ed writers vs. two non-labeled reporters is not slated toward a right-wing bias?

Mr. Jay, your point is taken, you are or try to be a n objective managing editor. But the Kristol thing is a deal-breaker. The guy has been plain wrong on so many issues of importance, is so blatantly partisan, and so cynical about his own place in the current Iraq mess that it will be seen as a historic blunder to have brought him along to TIME. His intent has never been debate, and shame on you for not seeing through that. Would his contacts with Likud not raise questions were it not any other country involved? Not even a political party/ideology in Britain, Canada, Mexico, or Japan, each a much more important country to the USA, could get away with doing in the USA what the Likud has done to the USA through the likes of Kristol.
Poach George Will or hire Pat Buchanan if you need a conservative. But be responsible to your readers and your country.

Jay,
Nice try...but I think most of us are taking you to task for your definition of what is a "reporter"? We seem to feel that a reporter "digs deep" to get at the "truth" you profess to hold dear.
To whit: just this spring, you wrote a stirring mea culpa for not having believed that there was more to the US Attorneys' story than the koolaid served up by this administration. You "reported" this story. TPM *REPORTED* this story. Who was right?
Sure, conservatives didn't like the muckraking that was going on, but that does NOT mean that the story is biased.
Your consistent omission of this insight is why a 5:11PM post generates 30+ comments in a couple of hours. Quit "reporting" and REPORT.

Aw man! I went to that sushi bar party and got thrown out onto the sidewalk because we hadn't RSVP'd!! And the esteemed media apologist Jay Carney was going to mosey on out to the sidewalk anyway?? I would have stayed if I had known that! Not fair!

A "Gonzalez moment?" Now that's the kind of reporting I like to read. But why is Fredo still in office?? A full-blown jeremiad from Mr. Carney about the utter incompetence and constant lying and stonewalling by the Attorney General of the United States (which D.C. reporters now fully recognize) would be far better journalism than defensive blather about how the MSM, which cheer-led the unprovoked military invasion and semi-permanent occupation of Mesopotamia based on baldfaced WMD lies, is really, really, really seeking truth.

By the way, wasn't Whitaker Chambers a Time reporter/pundit/columnist?? I'm pretty sure we could tell he was either left or right - Mr. Carney should be a bit more careful with his historical references because they don't all support his thesis.

Jay, you were a great sport during our conversation at the very gracious (and fun) TIME party, when you and I argued many of things discussed here. I won't bother to go over them.

My own theory after our discussion is that you are caught up in what I might all the "Beltway Paradigm" of fear. You claimed that the leaders of Iran were far more irrational than were the leaders of the old Soviet Union; I claimed "leaders" of just about anything are far too enamored with their power to be suicidal, as I wondered aloud what ever happened to Mutual Assured Destruction.

We want a lie called a lie, a reasonable disagreement reported by facts that support both sides, and a journalism community that is more skeptical and less enamored of their own power and access.

It isn't all that complicated. If the facts make you "left" or "right," so be it. We have been overwhelmed by the presentation of either as possibly true, even when basic logic shows they can't be. It's tiresome, and it gave birth to "us."

Thanks again for your time and open opinionating. I really enjoyed talking to you...it was like...access! How your ilk could not see the cumulative effects of this sense of insiderness is bewildering.

Having two conservative columnists does not make Time conservative. It is definetely liberal in the reporting. The slant is so bad that you get raked by others here if you even appear to be balanced. Now you are adding one of Obama's advisors? I'm sure that will be unbised reporting. People here believe what they want to believe. They get offended if someone suggests they might be wrong. The do not want the truth. They want us to accept their opinions as truth even if it is totally illogical.

Voice of Raisin...examples of liberal slant here at Time?

"I once saw an interview with Allen where his analysis of the issue consisted of trying to compare the issue to scenes from the movie Talladega Nights. I kid you not on that one."

Still, he should not be compared with Kit Seelye, Roger Simon, and Ceci Connolly. Josh Marshall speaks highly of him.

Question: In the last fifty years, how many so-called "objective" self-described "reporters" at Time magazine have voted for the Republican nominee for president? Answer: Zero. To be fair, in the last fifty years, at most, there could only (possibly) be two or three so-called "objective" self-described "reporters" from Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, the New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, MSDNC, NPR, et al., who voted for the Republican nominee for president. Of course, their identical ideologies would never affect their "reporting". They are much too professional to allow that to happen. Yawn.

You couldn't possibly know who *any* reporter voted for. That statement is preposterous.

Aside from that, nobody gives a flying fork who any journo votes for. The question is, do they ask tough questions, do they ask appropriate and probing followups, do they write fact-based stories. Do they go beyond what their anonymous official government sources tell them, do they connect the dots, do they report when these sources are lying or misleading or in error or refuse to answer? You don't have to know how someone voted, or if they voted, to make a judgment on the quality of their work.

If that's all you're looking for, I have some "news" sources for you. Fox News. Washington Times. Politico. Go for it.

Jay Carney,

I would argue that Time does not have any conservative columnists. Time has several NEOconservative columnists, a different breed altogether.

The problem with Time is that you don't have genuine liberals to balance the foaming at the mouth partisan neoconservatives.

Posted by John O
August 8, 2007

My own theory after our discussion is that you are caught up in what I might all the "Beltway Paradigm" of fear. You claimed that the leaders of Iran were far more irrational than were the leaders of the old Soviet Union; I claimed "leaders" of just about anything are far too enamored with their power to be suicidal, as I wondered aloud what ever happened to Mutual Assured Destruction.

--------------------

My own theory is that people believe what they think it is in their interests to believe.

One of the (many) things that is fascinating about Beltwayitis is *why* they come to believe the things they do. People speculate about "corporatist media," or their inflated salaries, or the inbred culture of D.C. and the political-media complex, but it still doesn't answer *why* so many of them came to embrace (and so many of the rest were entirely silent about) something like the invasion of Iraq, which very few people, inside or outside Washington, had a direct stake in, beyond drumming up interest in media product. And yet the "tilt" from the whole establishment was very clearly in favor of the war. Why did they adopt that particular position so eagerly? Why are they so hostile to people like Michael Moore, who stand for many of the same things they themselves (privately and sometimes not so privately) claim to stand for? Why were they so hostile to Gore, and Clinton, and why are they pounding on Edwards so hard? Is there a unifying thread here, something that can be figured out and dealt with, or is it just randomness, and tomorrow the conventional wisdom and attitudes coming out of Washington will be totally different than they are now?

"Time happens to be bringing on board a new foreign affairs columnist, Samantha Power"

This is typical phony balance for the corporate media. Samantha Power is not a balance to Krauthammers and Kristols. She is an academic. Krauthammers and Kristols are neocon movement jihadists. They are embedded with the GOP. Footsoldiers for the neocon agenda. They are also overrepresented in the media. Turn on the TV and there is a good chance they are on some gasbag show.

Jay, it's great to see you engaging with Jay Rosen. And point taken that you were speaking off the cuff on the sidewalk.

But have you read Rosen's work arguing against the prevalence of horse race journalism? It can get pretty extreme. The most absurd case was Diane Sawyer's interview with Al Gore, who ironically was supposed to discuss a book he had just written lamenting the absurdities of our political discourse.

But even if you were speaking off the cuff, semi-intentionally blurting something out, as Jay put it, you played right into the arguments Rosen's been making on his site in various forms for quite some time.

One of my favorites was his post about how the press failed miserably to follow up on Ron Suskind's reporting. He lists various ways the press could have followed up on Suskind's very solid work (which was essentially echoed by other journalistic voices such as Chris Mooney's and Paul Krugman's), and then asks:

****"Why didn’t the press do these things? Part of it is the reluctance to appear partisan. Of course if Suskind’s reporting was correct, the people to whom this news would matter most were reality-based Republicans, members of the military who cannot afford to have any other “base” but reality, and intellectually honest conservatives who believed in Bush and wanted to see him succeed. There’s a lot of truth in what Atrios says about Washington pundits, “They’d rather be wrong than agree with the dirty f*****g hippies.”"****

(It's in the "Erasing people" section of this post:

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2006/12/18/suskind_empiricism.html )

Are you sure the fear of not appearing centrist (as the DC establishment defines it at any one time) never impacts what you choose to report, pursue, or disclose?

For instance, how about in the case of the Scooter Libby trial? Why didn't we get a full reporting of the backstory of the Niger Forgeries? Why, as Eric Boehlert put it, did the press "race *away* from the Bush scandal, a collective retreat that's likely unprecedented in modern-day Beltway journalism"? Where are the stories about Michael Ledeen in Italy? And why were Time's "editors... concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year"?

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200702060006

Why do you guys come down so frequently in favor of the Bush administration? You can't tell me you don't. Why did it have to take FAIR to report that Gore won the vote in Florida (he did. I invite you to check it out. It was a joint study by major newspapers). Is the reason why you didn't report this because, back then, anyone fact checking your work was at the bottom of the political pecking order? I think it is.

I don't expect the left to get special treatment by the MSM. I don't want this to be reduced to "working the refs." I just want fair treatment, and some reasonably respectful treatment of important issues facing the country. In a lot of cases we haven't had this.

Yo, I'm not in love w/ Time's reporting a lot of the time, but I completely understood your comment in the video clip & it didn't seem outlandish to me.

I think a lot of frustration w/ the MSM stems from the fact that this administration lies cavalierly to the MSM with full knowledge that -- for any number of reasons -- they won't be called on it.

Whether or not it's *your* job to point this out is a fair topic for argument, although I see this more as the Administration constantly gaming the system.

Props to Time for keeping the comment section here open.

From "Selling the War":

****WALTER PINCUS: More and more, in the media, become, I think, common carriers of administration statements, and critics of the administration. And we've sort of given up being independent on our own.

ANNOUNCER: (3/6/1981) Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States.

WALTER PINCUS: We used to do at the Post something called truth squading. --President would make a speech. We used to do it with Ronald Reagan the first five or six months because he would make so many-- factual errors, particularly in his press conference.

PRESIDENT REAGAN: (3/6/1981) From 10 thousand to 60 thousand dollars a year...

WALTER PINCUS: And after-- two or three weeks of it-- the public at large, would say, "Why don't you leave the man alone? He's trying to be honest. He makes mistakes. So what?" and we stopped doing it.

BILL MOYERS: You stopped being the truth squad.

WALTER PINCUS: We stopped truth squading every sort of press conference, or truth squading. And we left it then-- to the democrats. In other words, it's up to the democrats to catch people, not us.

BILL MOYERS: So if the democrats challenged-- a statement from the president, you could-- quote both sides.

WALTER PINCUS: We then quote-- both sides. Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: Now, that's called objectivity by many standards isn't it?

WALTER PINCUS: Well, that's-- objectivity if you think there are only two sides. and if you're not interested in-- the facts. And the facts are separate from, you know, what one side says about the other.****

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/transcript1.html

"Time will always have conservative columnists."

Must they continue to be Kristol & Krauthammer? Why not find some new conservative columnists since those guys are always wrong, if not sociopathic...

Haha.

The list of Time columnists says it all. Even if by some miracle they decide have Atrios and Yglesias as liberals on board, their masthead will not be balanced if it still has the propagandists and right wing apologists and warmongers like Kurthammer and Kristol on the roster.

Methinks Jay protests too much.

Dear Jay,

You say that your responsibilty as a reporter is to print the truth, yet if you seriously applied this principle to reporting on Washington politics, your career in the main stream media would be snuffed out in one election cycle.

Sometimes the lies become so monumental that the only remedy to uncover the truth is for one brave
main stream journalist to exhaust his sources
for the good of the reading public at large.

There you go Jay, your career or your country...

"BTW, what does your use of Gonzalez as epithet mean? Has he done something wrong? Tell us all about it, I don't believe I've read much about it in your magazine. Something you want to get off your chest?"

Clap, Clap, Clap

If you just do the reporting about the holocaust, you can get one side to say it happened and also report that the other side said it didn't happen.

You might actually have to do some work however, if you want anyone to know which side was telling the truth.

You guys won't do that.

What a waste. In fact, it's that crappy reporting that lets you not appear to take the side of the truth (letting us figure out who has more credibility) that has pretty much made your magazine bird cage liner for me.

Actually reporting means that when it comes to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, you can say that some say they were there, some say they weren't, but many more say they weren't and the people that do say they existed have no facts or evidence to back them up --in other words, yes, you can say either they are lying or they are wrong.

Until you do that kind of reporting and I get word that you are actually doing it, forget your stupid magazine. It's a waste. And thanks for not taking sides with the truth in the lead up to the Iraq War, thanks to your hands off approach to the truth, we have a nice little war that has turned out to be a big disaster. This is something you could have warned us about, but yet again, that hands off approach to the truth left you and the mainstream media reporting he said, she said and balanced the articles so well, that one couldn't tell which side was right.

Heckuva job Timey.

The truth is that we were lied about the reasons for going to the Iraq war. I wonder if Jay can point to any of his writing or of any other Time reporter reporting this simple truth.

Thanks for continuing to engage in discussions with us.

As to reporting, all you need to do is watch the Moyers documentary quoted above to see the problems with that. Quoting both sides might not be giving you anything remotely like the truth. And that's what every single media organization except McClatchy did.

As to punditry, the false balance in all forms of media between centrists, like Klein, vs. movement jihadis like Krauthammer is indisputable.

Then there was the "investigating is partisan and boring" incident, and the "Hillary is fundraising ha ha!" one, which no one would care about were they not reflective of the media's double standard. Joe Klein has roughly 500 "the Democrats must cave, regardless of the merits!" columns under his belt; how many going the other way does he have?

Well, this is a rather scattershot post on my part. But your point that journalism demands objectivity rather than balance is 100% true, and a description of journalism as practiced in some parallel universe.

Anyway, there's a lot of pent-up frustration, which I think you see is for valid reasons, and you take more than your fair share because you're willing to open yourself up in this forum. People make that point from time to time, but it's always worth remembering. Thanks for being willing to engage your critics.

I personally think the real problem here is that more people named Doctor Biobrain aren't being hired as columnists by Time Magazine. In fact, I sincerely doubt that even the most salient objectivarian could possibly suggest that there isn't a distinct non-Biobrain slant to the entire editorial leanings of your fine magazine. Until this is remedied, I will continue to refuse to subscribe to said magazine. And after this is remedied, I will promptly buy subscriptions for both of my friends and say "See, bitches. I told you." That would be sweet.

But it's obvious that Time's overt bias against my overwhelmingly accurate worldview will prevent that from ever happening. Prove me wrong, Jay. Prove me wrong.

Now you have enough time to respond to this with hopes of clearing up any doubt about your intent?
Is this re-disecting the disected lab rat?
When was "news" anything but the truth?
When you open this up and make it clear there are many people out there with an agenda you lower the expectations of ever getting truth in "news".
Or is this the point?
We can't expect truth?
It is now up to the consumer to decide which "truth" is more newsworthy?
Or which media provide for their type truth?
Or does the "truth" have to be the "truth" that sells the best?
Or that is most consistent?
You see when you add all this to the discussion and make even the reporting of news a story, all you media people become part of a clearly visible operation that determines what you feel is the "news".
So,what consumers get is what you want them to get anyway.
What will you call this now?Surely not news.

I couldn't help noticing that TPM claims you were shot at Yearly Kos ("Andrew Golis' TPMtv interview with Time mag's Jay Carney, shot at Yearly Kos,...) and I think it's really tremendously non-partisan of you not, apparently, to hold that against them. I doubt that the conservative journalists shot at Yearly Kos are being nearly so high-minded about it.

And jesus christ, no html formatting in the comments section?? What the hell kind of Howard Johnson's is this?

When did conservative become synonymous with bugf*ck insane? Even I don't think all conservatives are bugf*ck insane.

How do we know Doctor Biobrain is a real doctor? How do we know that conservatives actually commit acts of sexual congress with insects? Aren't these really questions of journalism?

Why did Time even hire Kristol this year, when all of his opinions were already being ably presented by the the very worthy Charles Krauthammer? In fact, most columnists writing at Time seem to share most of Krauthammer and Kristol's ideas, which often makes for a rather mind numbing read.

This notion of "partisan" you use is pretty insulting to people on the left and the right, and is also a fairly deep misunderstanding of human psychology. You claim to differ from a "partisan" in that you are "faithful to the facts and our judgment about where the truth lies, rather than to a political cause, party or ideology." But who doesn't think they are being faithful to the facts? Left, right, or center, everyone thinks their ideology is correct because it is based on truth and fact. If you say to someone, "I try to base my views on facts, unlike you, who base your views on ideology," that's as insulting as calling them a robot or a moron. You are of course free to insult everyone to the right and left of you if you want, but is that really what you want? And if not, how will you distinguish what you do from what all the rest of us (intend to) do: build up beliefs about what is right and wrong based on the truths we see around us.

We all agree now that "balance" for its own sake is a mistake. But we also all believe, as you do, that our beliefs follow from "judgment about where the truth lies." So how, now, will you distinguish your job as journalist from what the rest of us do?

Jay,

Thanks for the update on who hires the columnists. I have to go find out who the managing editor is, and direct my emails to him, on why the columnists lean conservative!

People here keep wanting to blame or complain to YOU about who the conservative columnists are, but that isn't your area, so really they should lay off on that particular topic.

A good post, and I take your points well. Truth is, in and of itself, neutral. (even if one side or the other doesn't think so.) Now the question becomes, how often does that happen?

A couple of other good comments here as well, that I would love to get your take on, as a reporter and editor.

The idea of "balance", as has been referenced above.

So often reporting seems to be quoting the two sides of an issue. The Republican said this, the democrat said this. this, of course, isn't truth. If a republican said that the world was flat, and a democrat said that the world was round, (this is similar to the global warming argument now), I could see the following story:

"Pat Leahy sent a letter to Alberto Gonales today, demanding that he turn over any documentation regarding stifling scientists who teach the world is round, and forbidding any scientist to comment on the controversy of round versus flat. However, citing executive privilege, Gonzales refused to testify, instead releasing the following statment:

"the belief that the world is round, is one that we all share. These accusations that suggest otherwise, are simple accusations. However, because this infringes on the presidential privilege, with all due respect, I cannot answer questions on roundness or flatness.

Sincerly,

Alberto Gonzales."

And that is how an article would b e written up. A s a formal structure, this can hide truth, or at least, lay out truth obliquely. Truth is inferred, left up to the reader to decide. And that can be very good, and shows respect to the reader - however:

In that structure, the ability to discern truth - especially about a complicated subject, where someone is attempting to bamboozle, or spin furiously - can be difficult. The structure itself is setup to promote "he said/she said", and ambiguity.

Any thoughts, on political reporting, done with a different structure, that doesn't lend itself to so much ambiguity, to the point of hiding the truth, instead of finding it? (To the best of our ability of course.)

In a way, that's a fascinating challenge for a reporter, isn't it? Making sure to change the structure of a story, to GET to the truth, reporting fact and what happens, over what people say, when the spinmeisters are so good at manipulation nowadays. (In different ways - exploiting the holes in the normal structure of reporting, strategically timing the offering of information, to near when stories have deadlines, "working the ref", etc.)

To shine through with incisive truth in the story - without getting cutoff, say, by the actors (politicians themselves) is a challenge.

Once upon a time, Jay Carney, your magazine was a bona fide newsmagazine of substance and grit, a publication that tried honestly to inform people about real issues that truly mattered. When I was a teenager, I'd actually look forward to reading it, and consider TIME to be one of the catalysts for my lifelong interest in politics and world affairs.

Now, sadly, TIME has been reduced in stature to yet another stale symbol of a stagnant pop culture, a more sophisticated version of your sister publication "People", that falsely implies that life in these United States and in this world is merely a dazzling, nonstop parade of the profane and publicity-challenged.

Your reporting, such as it is, more often than not appears to play upon and manipulate your readers' emotions, rather than provide them with the facts and proper analysis necessary to make intelligent and well-informed decisions. As such, you insult my intelligence by pandering to the worst instincts of the least common denominator of our society, instead of appealing to the brightest aspirations of its greatest common multiple.

In short -- your magazine sucks, Jay. And as managing editor, you bear a certain degree of responsibility for that pathetic state of affairs.

When your sister Time-Warner affiliate CNN deliberately chose one Friday morning to cut away from a breaking bombshell story about the unceremonious sacking at the Pentagon of JCS Chair Gen. Peter Pace, to instead cover a tearful millionaire heiress / socialite's mandated rendezvous with an irate traffic court judge, I finally became convinced that Al Gore's argument about the faltering state of mainstream American media was in fact correct: The fix in indeed in.

Now, you can either blithely dismiss all our complaints with a wave of your hand and continue what you're doing to your magazine's ultimste detriment, or you can take those complaints seriously as a professional challenge, and return your charge to its celebrated roots as a pioneer in modern investigative journalism.

It's really up to you. Is the fix in at TIME, Jay, or not?

"What I meant about having a responsibility not to be labeled left or right is that our responsibility is to the truth -- that we should write what we see, not what we want to see or wish to be true, and that, if we do so, attempts to label us as partisan will fail."

I think Jay Carney essentially confirms Jay Rosen's point here. When Jay adopts the proposition that IF he behaves as an objective, non-partisan journalist, THEN attempts to label him as partisan will necessarily fail, he's also accepting the proposition that IF he is successfully labeled as partisan THEN that means he has not behaved as an objective non-partisan journalist. (I.e., "if A then B" implies "if not-B then not-A").

As other have pointed out, right wingers will label Jay and his colleagues as partisan liberals whenever they report facts that are politically inconvenient for the right. They've been extremely savvy in promoting the idea of a "liberal media", despite all evidence to the contrary. But Jay is going into the game having conceded in advance that the very existence and success of this labeling by the right is evidence of actual bias on Jay's part. After all, by Jay's logic, if Jay had been non-partisan the labeling would have failed, right?

So Jay Carney ends up operating within a framework in which he needs to make sure that accusations by the right that he is a "biased liberal" don't stick.

Reading over Jay Carney's post, it seems to me that he's actually agreeing with Jay Rosen's premises, but rejects the conclusion anyway.

I think the key question for Jay Carney is this: what reason do you have to believe that if you behave as a non-partisan journalist then attempts to label you as partisan will fail?

Wouldn't the right attitude be: "I don't care how I'm labeled. I'm going to report the facts as they are."

You have to admit: the theory that Jay Carney and his colleagues have tailored their news coverage, i.e., treated the Bush administration with kid gloves, in order to avoid charges of liberal bias by a sophisticated right-wing machine, has a lot of explanatory value when you try to understand why they've done such a horrible job of covering the Bush administration. It also explains why they have a slew of far-right columnists and zero columnists.

Jay's framework also explains why the right's approach -- scream "liberal media bias" when you don't like the facts being reported -- has historically been more effective in influencing media conduct than the left-blogosphere approach -- demand better journalism. In Jay's framework, accusations of "liberal bias" that can be made to stick are prima facie evidence of actual bias, while complaints about complacency and weak journalism do not threaten the journalist's self-perception as non-partisan and unbiased.

Last sentence in the second-to-last paragraph in my post above should have said:

"It also explains why they have a slew of far-right columnists and zero [LIBERAL] columnists."

My sincere apologies, Jay. I mis-IDed you as TIME's managing editor, rather than its DC bureau chief, and as such your culpability regarding TIME's current state is certainly less than what I otherwise implied.

But that mea culpa on my part in no way renders invalid the rest of my criticism, which still stands. You really need to challenge both yourself and your reporters in Washington to aspire to be more than merely the inspiration for The Politico.

Well, I was there. First, I'd like to note that in response to Jay's comment on the panel about always having conservative columnists in Time is, in my recollecton, accurately recalled by Jay.

Second, I"m trying to recover my video of the event (I have all the main ballroom video as party of the YearlyKos in Second Life project [some of which you can see here:http://video.yahoo.com/search/video?p=yearlykos&x=0&y=0 with more to come except there's apparently a corruption in the QT file of this panel which I'm trying to resolve and when I do I'll post it.)

Third, Jay didn't respond (and to my knowledge hasn't) to Glenn Greenwald's comment at the time that there is nothing wrong with Time running conservative columnists--conservatives are, Glenn said, a substantial, if diminishing fraction of the magazine's readership. What's wrong, Glenn added, citing atrios, is that the spectrum of opinion Time publishes ranges from the National Review to The New Republic--Joe Klein is their House Liberal--and there is no voice that authentically represents what is now the mainstream views of the democratic party, and, I would argue, independent voters as well.

Moreover, voices from the left who were right about this war from the outset, like Howard Dean or Mark Danner, are not represented AT ALL in Time's collection of voices. (I should also note that in a side conversation after the panel, Jay said that he too had believed the war to be a serious policy mistake, for reasons similar to those laid out by Danner--that the US was not prepared for the necessary postwar nation-building exercise.)

Fourth, Jay speaks about publishing the "truth." I asked him why we have not seen the magazine publishing the story for plans of permanent occupation of about 50,000 soldiers, plans that are clearly the consensus view of the Serious Members of the Foreign Policy Elite (in my recollection, Jay upped the ante to 75K, but that may have been a conversation with someone else). The plans for permanent occupation have been in place from the outset, stated by Cheney in an offhand remark saying that the plan was to draw down to about 50,000 troops in what was then said to be the next few months, made concrete by the construction of "enduring bases" and taken for granted in every drawdown plan from the Baker-Hamilton panel to any of the Democratic proposals for redeployment.

Also, I asked him why there has been no coverage, at all, of the incompatibility of the dual US goals of a representative government in Iraq and the plans for a long term alliance that involves at least some permanent military presence there.

There is no way that a freely elected Iraqi government would support the presence of foreign soldiers to further US military support for Israel and US opposition to Iran and Syria. Jay said "Well, that's just your opinion." which is a singularly disingenuous response. Yeah, and it's also "just my opinion" that a 35 year old Muslim female is not gonna be elected president of the US anytime in my lifetime.

Both of these stories--the plans for permanent occupation and the incompatibility of those plans with the highfalutin (and clearly false, see the response to elections in Palestine) claims of the US working to advance democracy in the Middle East--are true, would be very upsetting both to rank and file voters who don't follow these matters closely (and rely on magazines like Time to serve as news filters) and to the administration.

These are stories that need to be written about. They aren't "opinions." The first represents the Washington consensus (and says something about just how far we can trust the democratic presidential candidates on this issue) and the second is a simple recognition that this was a war of imperialism, not a war of liberation and extension of democracy. The American people need to hear the truth on both these subjects from our most influential publications.

And, jay, I don't hide behind any pseudonyms. That's another canard used to deflect the discussion from the substantive issues raised by your commenting community.

Rick Stengel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stengel

Just thinking of market share, there is a demand for 'reporting' that doesn't just accept the CW. That shows some curiosity and underlying skepticism. That wants to tell the rest of the story. Or finds a story that everyone else is overlooking.

Kristol, besides being dead wrong, is both predictable and boring. You read the headline-byline and you know exactly what he will say and what conclusion he will reach. His 'column' is like having the same sandwich from the same vending machine everyday while listening to elevator music. Boring, tasteless calories.

If you (Jay Rosen) and Karen Tumulty were "reporters" as you claim, wouldn't you be doing more, you know, reporting? Or, any?

Rather than all this pontificating? And opinionating? And this gloriously self-involved spinning of your own interview?

I ask because you clearly function not so much to pass along facts, as to tell us what to think. It's the Jim Lehrer school of 'journalism': Why ask the obvious, responsible questions when you have the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State right there in your studio? When you can instead just smile at each lie that passes in succession, thank him or her profusely, and take your paycheck and your complicity in the deaths of 655,00 Iraqi civilians (not to mention the Constitution), and go home?

Sorry--if you have to TELL people you're a "reporter"--you're not one.

What Scott Horton called the "Yellowcake Road"-- that was in full view as newsworthy around the time of the Libby trial--has never been followed. Why?

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/04/horton-follow-the-yellowcake-road

Why does it take a third floor walkup in the flower district of Manhattan to do the kinds of things that comparably huge, well-paid and established media outfits will not? Aren't you a bit embarassed by that? I mean think about it. Basically, kids in a shabby walkup had to go off on their own in order to do the job that the MSM couldn't do, on the Niger Forgeries (which TPM couldn't finish because they didn't have the resources), and on the attorney purge story.

That's a pretty freakin' sad commentary, isn't it?

And it's not like Josh Marshall wouldn't share his sources if you called him up, like, right now. He said in the course of the investigation he didn't have the resources to back him up and finish. I'm sure he'd jump at the chance for a news outlet with the resources to finish his work.

His email is talk@talkingpointsmemo.com, Jay. What's stopping you?

Afraid the story would make you look partisan?

Notice something here: the objectors to Stephanie Power because of her links to the Obama campaign. So what? Kristol and Krauthammer may as well have Rove's phone number taped to their foreheads. Ms. Powers is an actual liberal, I'd say. Articulate people who have opinions may very well be columnists, and then may go into public life, as Mr. Kristol did with Dan Quayle, where he spent his time beating up Murphy Brown and trying to convince us that Quayle had an intellect. I have no objection to that. What I object to is that TIME has not been even-handed about it. Saying that the very centrist, ahem, Joe Klein acquits TIME of any further need of "the left perspective," is just hogwash. I'm glad that Ms. Powers will be starting here.

I absolutely side with Jay on this point. TIME would be an absolutely failure as a news resource if it was biased to a political party. "Right" and "left" are now synonymnous to "Republican" and "Democrat", and leaning towards one side - and indeed, an independent agenda - would render any information useless. America has become so obsessed with what party we support and what side we lean to that often the things of true importance - qualifications, real issues, and hard facts - become a footnote. My arguement is still this: show me accomplishments and qualifications that prove your democrat is worthy to be the highest official in the country. Likewise, show me a republican that can boast the same things. I don't think anyone can. So why don't we concern ourselves with finding a PERSON who is qualified?

Getting back on task, I commend Jay and his team for remaining unbaised. And for those of you whining about poor reporting: go somewhere else. No one wants to hear it. Listen to your AM radio if you want witless news droning. And take a look at the title of your web browser once in a while: "Blogs - OPINION - Commentary". With emphasis on OPINION.

Time magazine - for people who can't be bothered to think for themselves.

Come on, now, Jay. We all know that 89% of all reporters are liberal/communist. That's been proven in studies of the voting trends/personal statements made by thousands of journalists. So yes, we can safely label you and others as radical leftists.

Funny post Jay. I feel sorry for you for being involved with Dailykos. Dailykos is a joke, zealots for the sake of profit. The blogosphere is the Liberal version of the Christian Right. The sad fact is, like the Christian Right, some people take the blogosphere seriously. Rational thought is something that's totally lost in this country these days. Everyones trying to out-crazy the other side.

"... each man strives to show the excess of his zeal by the madness of his actions."-- Gouverneur Morris

Aren't the same People who read Time the same People who read People? Time's a dinosaur. Let it sink into the Swampland and fossilize in peace.

If you "must call b.s." on politicians, then why is there such an outrageous abscence of such when it comes to the not-so-green practices of the left wing candidates (and activists like al gorey) all of whom claim to be environmentally friendly?

Look at the facts: they all own massive mansions, much too large for what they need: single family housing. So they're all guilty of squandering the earth's resources on their Saddam-like palaces.

They all fly every day (or almost) on private jets, burning hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil every year on their travel when they could easily fly commercial.

Almost all of them travel in caravans of SUVs and other fuel-inefficient cars...

Yet the media remains silent...

Try calling this b.s. and being loud about it instead of looking the other direction, and maybe mainstream America will decide to watch the news again. As it stands, all the lib bulwarks are crumbling: the new york times is near bankruptcy, cutting thousands of jobs and shrinking the paper in a desperate effort to stay afloat, all the major networks have lost millions of viewers, and the clintoon news network has had to hire Glenn Beck to save itself from the fate of the networks.

As a 30-year Time subscriber, I find that the reporting is reasonably fair, although it tilts to the right of center far more than to the left of center.
As far as the columnists are concerned, Time is resolutely rightwing and has been since its founding by one of the most rabid rightwingers of all time, Henry Luce.
Why you give a cheap partisan hack like Bill Kristol a platform to lie is beyond me---especially since he has the Murdoch-funded Weekly Standard to spread his particular form of manure.
Krauthammer isn't any better, and both of them are so averse to facts and truth as to be object lessons in how to lie through your teeth and get handsomely paid for it.
Neither of them has been right about anything related to the Bush administration or, more particularly, the Iraq Fiasco. Why are you continuing to support the employment of men who are not only grievously wrong in their opinions and assessments of the defining foreign policy debacle of the last 200 years?
The rest of us would have been fired long ago if we had gotten it so wrong.

And where is the liberal/progressive stable of columnists who would balance those far-right revanchists? It certainly isn't Joe Klein, who never met a fence he couldn't straddle.
Where is the clear voice of liberalism in the pages of Time? There isn't one, and until the columnists are truly balanced, left, right and center, then Time IS a conservative magazine.

It's high time to either fix it, or admit it.

@ModerateAmerica.

The thing about your logic is you coud accuse someone of being a hypocrit if they didn't live in an adobe, drinking wellwater, and growing their own crops. You seem to be fine looking the other way when Bush tells you he loves the troops and completely dismantles the military or when he swears an oath to defend and uphold the constitution and then chooses to cut and paste the parts he likes.

You seem to turn a blind eye when Republicans claim to want to bring African Americans back into the fold since they are "the party of Lincoln" even though Republicans only gained any kind of power in American by selling themselves out to the white southern racist.

You seem to be fine with President Bush coming into office promising to restore honor and integrity then admonishes our allies, emboldens our enemies, and puts American security at risk for personal gain and profit.

You know what's sad is that America is turning into Ayn Rand's wet dream and you're more than willing to bankroll the downfall of this country. As long as you can turn a profit doing it.

The problem with hiring Bill Kristol is that he is fundamentally dishonest in his argumentation. He particularly likes the employ the strawman formulation against Democrats in which he constantly misrepresents their positions.

Although I'd have no objection to Time hiring an honest conservative, when they employ a Republican shill it makes their publication one for which I can't in good conscience pay money.

Karma:

Where was I explicitly pro-Bush? I seem to be overlooking any mention of him in my previous post: your jump to conclusions is exactly why the extreme left is so ridiculous. You're *assuming*, and that's always dangerous (remember the old saying, now).

As for racism, Truman was a member of the KKK, as was democrat senator Byrd. Hmmm...seems you like to omit the truth at times. Another typical lib trait.

Was clintoon restoring the office when monica was "note-taking" in the oval office? Quite honestly, no. But...see, that's his personal business, which, in my opinion, wasn't a problem. It *became* a problem when he lied to everyone about it on national television, and again under oath. In fact, it became a *crime*. Look up the definition, little lib. Perjury. I know it's a big word, so I'll give you some extra time.

Eboldening our enemies? They've always hated us; regrettably, provincial people like yourself weren't exposed to it as I was in my foreign travels, so this is all new to neophytes like you. North Korea was developing nukes behind clintoon's back, as was Iran. Al qaeda officially formed during clintoon's regime, and the attacks on 9/11 were planned during that same time. In fact, according to one of the few *honest* liberal pieces of reporting by National Geographic, clintoon failed TWICE to kill bin Laden, once due to *economic* reasons, you know, something you accuse myself and Mr. Bush of loving so much. Hmmm...hypocrisy...look that up, lib...you're GUILTY of it.

Do I make a profit? Sure! Why not? Do I do it as a result of policies instituted by the current government? Yes! I take advantage of it in order to be a smart investor. Doesn't necessarily make me pro-Bush, though. Quite honestly, the GOP did what compla