Do Not Trust Your Lying Eyes, No Bias at the Washington Post

...or in any other fish wrap newspaper either. You see, we conservatives, being all immensely stupid (and racist, and classist, and sexist, and just generally evil as well) just happened to perceive a bias that is not really there. You see, because we are so completely steeped in all of those evils listed above, and mostly because we are just stupid, we cannot see that the Washington Post, the New York Times, the LA Times, et al, are just fairly reporting the news.

Here is what Deborah Howell, the ombudsman at the Washington Post, has to say;
Remedying the Bias Perception. I especially like the first sentence.

Thousands of conservatives and even some moderates have complained during my more than three-year term that The Post is too liberal; many have stopped subscribing, including more than 900 in the past four weeks.

It pains me to see lost subscribers and revenue, especially when newspapers are shrinking. Conservative complaints can be wrong: The mainstream media were not to blame for John McCain's loss; Barack Obama's more effective campaign and the financial crisis were.

She goes on to write things designed to make us feel better, even providing some examples of biased reporting. She then explains that no, it is not really reflective of any bias.

Useful Fools makes a good point;

First, the title shows a misunderstanding of the problem. To any conservative who is aware of the issues, it isn’t a “Bias Perception,” it is bias. When the generally left-ish Saturday Night Live is running skits about the media being in the tank for Obama, it’s time to pay serious attention.

Second, you assert “The mainstream media were not to blame for John McCain’s loss; Barack Obama’s more effective campaign and the financial crisis were.” Let me phrase that slightly differently with the a reasonable hypothesis: “Without the bias and outright cheerleading of the media towards Obama, he would have lost the election.” Certainly Obama ran a good campaign, but one reason is that the media simply gave him a free pass. His record was not critically examined, his questionable associations were glossed over (Rev Wright is equivalent to McCain having dedicated his autobiography to a KKK member), his past work history was unexplored. If one compares this to the treatment of Sarah Palin or George Bush, the bias is off the scale.