[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 69 (Thursday, May 16, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E827]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           MEDIA OBJECTIVITY

                                 ______


                           HON. NEWT GINGRICH

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 16, 1996

  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, the professed objectivity of this 
country's mainstream media should be of concern to all Americans as 
they attempt to assess the vital issues of the day. News tinted with 
bias clearly prevents citizens from making truly informed decisions. I 
share with this body the following startling comments by Newsweek 
assistant managing editor and Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas from 
Inside Washington, a weekly public affairs show broadcast locally in 
the Washington area the weekend of May 11 and 12, 1996.
  Apparently one member of the media establishment knows bias when he 
sees it.

       There is a liberal bias; it's demonstrable. Boy, if you 
     look at some statistics: About 85 percent of the reporters 
     who cover the White House vote Democratic; they have for a 
     long time. There is, particularly at the networks, at the 
     lower levels, among the editors and the so-called 
     infrastructure, there is a liberal bias.
       There is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work 
     for. Most of the people who work at Newsweek live on the 
     upper West Side of New York and they have a liberal bias.
       I don't think it's so much Washington. It's New York. You 
     have to look at which city we're talking about. It's where 
     the networks are based--where the New York Times is based. I 
     think the greatest liberal bias is amongst the people who 
     work for large major news organizations in New York.
       The network White House correspondent who writes for a 
     conservative opinion magazine's bosses are liberal and 
     they're always quietly denouncing him for being a right-wing 
     nut.
       The word liberalism is pretty much dead. Therefore, it's 
     not a liberal bias; it's an anti-Republican, anti-right, 
     anti-Christian Coalition bias. That's the bias.

  I submit these observations into the Congressional Record in the 
hopes they are kept in mind when the topic of media fairness arises.

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