We’ve seen how Facebook openly favors liberal news outlets; now we can see the unconscious bias against conservative outlets that media moguls have.
Facebook at least has started paying lip service to (and may actually be serious about) correcting its own bias. The company held an allegedly off-the-record meeting with a dozen or so publishing executives (allegedly because of the leaks of the meeting’s contents by participants). BuzzFeed‘s Editor in Chief Ben Smith, though, objected to the presence of “six conservative-leaning publications among the dozen or so outlets” present. Apparently, actual balance between conservatives and liberals is biased representation.
Mr Smith said that the number of conservative publications in attendance indicated that Facebook had bought into the idea, promoted primarily by conservatives, that mainstream outlets such as the New York Times are liberal and should be counterbalanced by right-leaning opinion outlets, said people familiar with his remarks.
As if the NYT is a bastion of conservatism and needs no counterbalance. Or, as if liberalism itself needs no counterbalance.
Then he attacked the journalistic standards of The Daily Caller, a conservative outlet that was represented at the meeting. Lacking coherent argument, the liberal Smith stooped to character assassination, this time of a competitor. He’s not alone in the character assassination; Lydia Polgreen, HuffPost Editor in Chief, in a canonical example of a pot complaining about a kettle, echoed Smith’s plaint.
It’s bad enough that the NLMSM is biased. It’s bordering on dangerous when the NLMSM can no longer discriminate bias from balance.