Accuracy of reporting depends on one's frame of reference

Editor:

In a way I have to agree with Edwin H. Grant IV, Chris Fermoyle, and Walter Besocke when they say that the media is predominantly liberal ("'Wildcat' is plagued with partisan, liberal reporting," Sept. 26). Statistics show that 75 percent of the press votes for the more liberal measure in most elections. But I disagree with their word choice, "...the Arizona Daily Wildcat is plagued with nothing but liberal rhetoric and partisan reporting." Plagued is a harsh way to say it, even though I, a liberal, agree.

They claim that reporting should be more bipartisan, more objective, and I agree. But I don't think that journalists are consciously trying to convert conservatives to liberalism like media missionaries. The fact is the job of a reporter/journalist is to see, hear, experience and record whatever they witness. Because they are humans, they have the same problem we all do: everything they witness and record is filtered through a frame of reference. Because they think liberal, they write liberal. They aren't being paid to pretend they "witness" things any differently than they do.

In the same way, you three obvious conservatives read articles through your frame of reference, and that is how you interpret the media. We would certainly disagree on our interpretations of anything in any newspaper on any given day. If you want to claim that their "reporting" of things the way THEY see it is unjust, than I think your uni-partisan interpretation is also unjust.

Journalists do not always feel "that it's their obligation to input their own personal views or that of the paper." Reporters are doing just that, reporting, but they cannot deny that the information came in through a liberal door and is going out through a liberal door. If you do not think they are reporting what they see, maybe it's because they see things differently.

Gentlemen, if the Wildcat as an entity is also liberal, it's because the people that fill it's pages are. If you want to read conservatively-written news written by conservatives from a conservative view point, then write some. And stop blaming one university paper for the entire liberal media.

Jennifer D. Cohoon
linguistics and anthropology freshman


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