During an online interview with actress Marlo Thomas, New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson denied that the newspaper has an “excessively liberal” bias, and used the gun issue as an example of the paper’s unbiased coverage.
Abramson was responding to a letter sent in by one of the Time’s readers which said that the paper has been accused by conservatives of being “excessively liberal,” and asked whether or not she agrees with that charge.
The New York Times is The New York Times. I think it reflects a very cosmopolitan, inclusive outlook, which can strike some readers as liberal. I think that the news pages are not ideological; opinion is the province of our editorial and op-ed pages and the opinion section of our website.
It’s not just some readers that think the Times is liberal. Former public editors Daniel Okrent and Clark Hoyt admitted in their final columns that the paper is essentially a “liberal rag.” Also, Abramson’s predecessor, Bill Keller, told The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart in 2012 that if the Times was objective, it would be “tedious” to read.
Abramson went on to discuss the Times’ coverage of gun issues:
What I do to guard against opinion creeping too far into our news coverage is just watch it and make sure that on certain stories — guns would be one — that 100 percent of our stories aren’t told from the perspective of ‘How could Americans be so connected to their guns?’ This is to recognize that this is a deep part of American society and that we cover it from every angle.
The problem is that every time there is a mass shooting, the Times, along with the rest of the mainstream media, uses it as a clarion call for more gun control, as if that would eliminate further violence—something they must know isn’t true.
Abramson can deny the Times’ bias on guns and other issues, but the evidence isn’t in her favor.
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