April 22, 2005 1:35 PM

Who says journalists don't debate bias?

The exchange got its start in a column by one of our media critics, Dave Kopel. Almost a month ago, he lumped Denver Post Washington bureau chief John Aloysius Farrell, who writes a regular Sunday column, among the Post's opinion writers on the left. I think the following is illuminating.

Kopel received this e-mail from Farrell.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Farrell, John"
To: "DAVEKOPEL"
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 4:37 PM

> if i am "left" you are not impartial. jf

And Kopel responded:

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Kopel [mailto:david@i2i.org]
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 6:19 PM
To: Farrell, John
Cc: Steve Oelrich-RMN; Vincent Carroll
Subject: Re:

Dear John,

If you can't recognize that your columns have a very noticeable left tilt,
you have serious problems with self-awareness. As a columnist, you're
entitled to your opinion, but your opinions clearly put you on the left side
of the spectrum.

Bset wishes,
Dave Kopel

Then Rocky Mountain News Editorial Page Editor Vincent Carroll entered the fray.

-----Original Message-----
From: Carroll, Vincent
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 10:37 AM
To: Kopel, Dave; Farrell, John
Cc: Oelrich, Steve; Carroll, Vincent
Subject: RE:

Dear Dave,

Of course he's on the left -- the moderate, DLC-type left, perhaps, but the left nonetheless on almost all important issues separating most conservatives from most liberals. How very peculiar that he doesn't see it.

Vincent Carroll
Editorial Page Editor
Rocky Mountain News

And Farrell responded at much greater length.

You're wrong. You are defining "left" as anyone who doesn't embrace the dogma of the religious wing of the Republican Party.
I have been critical of these positions but so are many libertarians at Americans for Tax Reform, CATO, Heritage etc.
I am no more "left" than John McCain or Condoleezza Rice or Grover Norquist or Ed Crane or Colin Powell or Christie Whitman or George Pataki or Mitt Romney or Laura Bush or Barbara Bush or Sandra Day O'Connor on various social issues like abortion, creationism, stem cell research or birth control.
I think I am to the right of the current White House, the neo-cons, the Weekly Standard and the GOP Congress when it comes to cynical budgeting and roaring deficits, and maybe on immigration.
I have supported the war in Iraq and especially the young men and women serving there; praised the president's Inaugural Address; endorsed private Social Security accounts and Bush's stem cell policy, disagree with the Catholic Church on the death penalty and personally hold an absolutist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment that fits with that held by Clarence Thomas.
My gripes about the war in Iraq are that it was bungled, that we tried to do it on the cheap, instead of sealing the borders and imposing order in the summer of 2003, and lost precious time and U.S. boys and girls in the process. Hardly "left."
My biography of Tip O'Neill was praised in the Wall St. Journal, the Weekly Standard and the Washington Times for being even-handed, balanced and giving Ronald Reagan his considerable due. You can look it up.
Indeed, if you take the time to look you will see that much of my criticism of the current crop of Republicans is that they don't have the guts to do what they say they're going to do. They promised us a smaller, more efficient, less grandiose, cheaper and less intrusive government and have given us everything but.
I think what you mean is that I don't thoughtlessly endorse everything the Republicans do to try and extend their power.
That is the game that Beltway columnists and Fox talk show hosts play, calling everything to keep their pals in power, and I have always been grateful that in writing for an independent audience like that in Colorado, I'm free to think about things, not regurgitate either party line.

Jack

To which Carroll replied:

Actually, I do not define libertarian-minded people as on the left. They're clearly part of the coalition that helps elect people such as George W. Bush. Indeed, I've got a couple of extremely libertarian minded people on my staff who disagree with the religious right's social agenda, too. But they almost never agree with you, either. Why do suppose that is? And are you under the false impression that Kopel is affiliated philosophically with the religious right? Look, if you are truly not on the left politically despite your generally slavishly pro-Kerry columns and reporting of last year, you might think about occasionally tipping readers off to that fact in your column.

Best regards,

Vincent Carroll
Editorial Page Editor
Rocky Mountain News

Finally, Kopel did further research on Farrell's writings and shared his findings with the Post columnist.

Dear John,

I'm glad your book on Tip O'Neill was praised for fairness, but it's beyond
the scope of my column. I was just writing about what you do in your Denver
Post column.

I ran "Second Amendment", "gun", "immigration," "capital punishment" and
"death penalty" through the Westlaw database of your Post columns.

Your 3/6/05 column has a short paragraph approving of Justice Thomas's
Second Amendment stance, and your 8/10/03 column notes that Governor Dean
was praised by the NRA "for supporting the rights of gun owners." The clause
implies that you believe that gun owners have rights. That's all I can find
in your Post database on the pro-gun side.

On the pro-capital punishment side, I see that you've written about the
politics of the issue several times, but never made any argument in favor of
capital punishment as a policy matter. The only time you've come close, in
your Post columns, to expressing a personal position in favor of the death
penalty was 10/17/04, when you wrote (in the context of a column arguing
that American Catholics would and should ignore Bishops who tell them to
vote against pro-abortion candidates), "We Catholics are a tolerant lot -
classic swing voters, and not averse to ignoring the church on a wide range
of issues, such as birth control, war in Iraq and capital punishment." I
suppose a reader could tease out from that sentence the fact that you
personally support birth control, war in Iraq, and capital punishment.

On immigration, your 3/8/04 column argued for acknowledging the
environmental impact of immigration. Your 1/8/04 column was generally
supportive of Bush's immigration plan, and certainly did not take a position
to the right of the plan. You've written, in other columns, reasonable
analyses of the politics of immigration, but nothing that could plausibly
identify you as being to the right of Bush on the issue.

If you were running for Congress, the voters would be picking someone who
would vote on a huge variety of issues, and as a candidate, you would have a
good argument that some of your positions deviate from Left orthodoxy.
However, I was writing about your column, where you have the luxury of
choosing to write about the issues which interest in you most. Although your
column sometimes is just neutral analysis of a political situation, to the
extent you express a policy position (which is quite often) that policy
position is overwhelming a position of the Left; the expressions of a Right
position are very few and far between.

Best wishes,
Dave

Posted by at 1:35 PM | Comments (16)