thedrifter
12-04-05, 01:05 PM
Murtha and Lieberman and who deserves Page One
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Ted Diadiun
Plain Dealer Columnist
Conspiracy theories abound when it comes to some readers' ideas about how editors decide what gets into and left out of The Plain Dealer.
Several of us at the paper heard from such theorists last week, in the wake of the increasingly vituperative disagreements on Capitol Hill over the future of the war in Iraq.
In general, they went something like this: If there's no liberal bias at The Plain Dealer, then why did you guys splash it all over the front page when Murtha gave his get-out-now speech, but when Lieberman came back from Iraq saying that we should stay the course, you didn't even put anything in the paper?
"Murtha" is Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who long had supported the war but dramatically disengaged from the hawk wing of his party in a speech to Congress on Nov. 17, saying the time had come to bring the American troops home from Iraq.
"Lieberman" is Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a consistent supporter of the war, who recently returned from his fourth trip to Iraq and wrote an opinion piece that appeared in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal under the headline, "Our Troops Must Stay."
It is appropriate to note that I find Lieberman's approach more persuasive than Murtha's on this issue -- but I don't think the way The Plain Dealer played the two stories was biased toward the liberal side.
In fact, as I wrote at the time, I thought we were a day late in putting the Murtha story out front. On the day after his speech, it was deep inside the A section -- it wasn't until the following day, when the House's usual decorum evaporated into accusations of cowardice and dirty politics, that the story made our Page One.
There are two significant differences that determined what place the stories had, or didn't have, in the newspaper:
First, Murtha had been a steady supporter of the war from the beginning, and it was a shock to many when he publicly and emotionally reversed his field with a call to bring the troops home.
Lieberman has been a stalwart hawk on the war, and his column, while offering fresh information from the field, was not a departure from what he has said from the beginning.
In the time-honored news test of "man bites dog," it is news when a congressman changes his mind on a controversial issue; not so much when a senator buttresses a long-held opinion.
Second, Murtha's views -- and the raucous reaction to them -- were offered in a speech on the floor of the House. Lieberman's observations were written expressly for another newspaper and were not, as some have suggested, part of a speech either before or after. Significant events in the daily work of government are quite appropriately covered and presented to you in the media of your choice. Op-ed pieces are usually not reported by newspapers other than the ones in which they appear.
One other point that ought to be addressed: In Saturday's letters section, a correspondent asked sarcastically, "Why do I have the feeling that if Sen. Lieberman had returned from Iraq with an assessment in line with Rep. Murtha's view, it too would have been front-page news?"
You bet it would have. If one of the Senate's most faithful supporters of the war had visited Iraq and then changed his tune, it would have been on Page One here and in every other newspaper in the country, and rightfully so.
With all that said, none of it is to say that Lieberman's opinion piece is without merit or that you shouldn't read it. In the wake of all the ado, it is being considered for inclusion in our own op-ed lineup sometime this week. But if you just can't wait, here's the link:
www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature .html?id=110007611.
Who's blogging now? Some will find irony in the revelation that, just three weeks after I discussed the blogosphere, not necessarily in a complimentary way, I now find myself a part of it.
But it's true. A Reader Rep blog went online late last week as part of the Cleveland.com Web site, where with luck I will be able to mirror the things I admire in other blogs and eschew the things I do not.
There you can expect to find daily comments on the news and the newspaper, including some insights from our news meetings and links to interesting pieces on newspapers and journalism that I happen to stumble across. There will not be an open forum on this blog where you can simply post your opinions and questions, but you can e-mail me and I will post as many comments and answers as time, space and propriety allow.
Ellie
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Ted Diadiun
Plain Dealer Columnist
Conspiracy theories abound when it comes to some readers' ideas about how editors decide what gets into and left out of The Plain Dealer.
Several of us at the paper heard from such theorists last week, in the wake of the increasingly vituperative disagreements on Capitol Hill over the future of the war in Iraq.
In general, they went something like this: If there's no liberal bias at The Plain Dealer, then why did you guys splash it all over the front page when Murtha gave his get-out-now speech, but when Lieberman came back from Iraq saying that we should stay the course, you didn't even put anything in the paper?
"Murtha" is Democratic Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, who long had supported the war but dramatically disengaged from the hawk wing of his party in a speech to Congress on Nov. 17, saying the time had come to bring the American troops home from Iraq.
"Lieberman" is Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, a consistent supporter of the war, who recently returned from his fourth trip to Iraq and wrote an opinion piece that appeared in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal under the headline, "Our Troops Must Stay."
It is appropriate to note that I find Lieberman's approach more persuasive than Murtha's on this issue -- but I don't think the way The Plain Dealer played the two stories was biased toward the liberal side.
In fact, as I wrote at the time, I thought we were a day late in putting the Murtha story out front. On the day after his speech, it was deep inside the A section -- it wasn't until the following day, when the House's usual decorum evaporated into accusations of cowardice and dirty politics, that the story made our Page One.
There are two significant differences that determined what place the stories had, or didn't have, in the newspaper:
First, Murtha had been a steady supporter of the war from the beginning, and it was a shock to many when he publicly and emotionally reversed his field with a call to bring the troops home.
Lieberman has been a stalwart hawk on the war, and his column, while offering fresh information from the field, was not a departure from what he has said from the beginning.
In the time-honored news test of "man bites dog," it is news when a congressman changes his mind on a controversial issue; not so much when a senator buttresses a long-held opinion.
Second, Murtha's views -- and the raucous reaction to them -- were offered in a speech on the floor of the House. Lieberman's observations were written expressly for another newspaper and were not, as some have suggested, part of a speech either before or after. Significant events in the daily work of government are quite appropriately covered and presented to you in the media of your choice. Op-ed pieces are usually not reported by newspapers other than the ones in which they appear.
One other point that ought to be addressed: In Saturday's letters section, a correspondent asked sarcastically, "Why do I have the feeling that if Sen. Lieberman had returned from Iraq with an assessment in line with Rep. Murtha's view, it too would have been front-page news?"
You bet it would have. If one of the Senate's most faithful supporters of the war had visited Iraq and then changed his tune, it would have been on Page One here and in every other newspaper in the country, and rightfully so.
With all that said, none of it is to say that Lieberman's opinion piece is without merit or that you shouldn't read it. In the wake of all the ado, it is being considered for inclusion in our own op-ed lineup sometime this week. But if you just can't wait, here's the link:
www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature .html?id=110007611.
Who's blogging now? Some will find irony in the revelation that, just three weeks after I discussed the blogosphere, not necessarily in a complimentary way, I now find myself a part of it.
But it's true. A Reader Rep blog went online late last week as part of the Cleveland.com Web site, where with luck I will be able to mirror the things I admire in other blogs and eschew the things I do not.
There you can expect to find daily comments on the news and the newspaper, including some insights from our news meetings and links to interesting pieces on newspapers and journalism that I happen to stumble across. There will not be an open forum on this blog where you can simply post your opinions and questions, but you can e-mail me and I will post as many comments and answers as time, space and propriety allow.
Ellie