‘New York Times’ Editor Throws Paper Under Bus For ‘Liberal Bias’

Arthur Brisbane, public editor of the New York Times, dedicated his final column to criticizing the paper of liberal bias. According to Brisbane, progressivism “bleeds through” the paper.

Brisbane nabbed the post two years ago, and talked about his experience as public editor in his farewell column, published on Saturday. “What I’ve seen has surprised me,” he wrote, as he talked about “the deeper changes” happening at the paper. Though he talked about the paper’s digital transition, as well as investment to the print side and web content, he also issued a deep, philosophical warning to the Times.

“Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times,” Brisbane wrote. “As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.”

The New York Times has been criticized for a liberal slant before. The paper’s first public editor wrote a similar column in 2004, and a former editor called the paper “socially liberal” in a 2011 interview.

Some have already stepped forward to defend the Times from Brisbane. Exclusive editor Jill Abramson wasted no time telling Politico that she disagreed with Brisbane’s “sweeping conclusions,” and that any perceived bias was “essential” to “keep the paper straight.”

Media critic Jay Rosen also voiced his opinion, principally rooted in confusion, arguing that Brisbane “doesn’t seem to appreciate the contradiction between calling for greater transparency and bashing the times for showing that it has a world view,” commenting that “wouldn’t real transparency mean that the Times embraces who it is, where it is made, and the culture of New York City, acknowledges that it has a sensibility and takes other steps away from the implied (but absurd) default: the View from Nowhere?”

Do you think that the New York Times has a liberal bias?