If the link to my letter last November published in the WT does not work, try instead
http://shrinkster.com/uzv

Right-leaning and left-leaning newspapers certainly have their agendas. Sure, that can influence how they cover stories. They may play up negative stories involving one party and play down such stories if they involve the other.

I myself saw differences in two cases involving historical records. The New York Times never reported concerns raised by Rep. Tom Davis in a minority staff report in 2007 about Sandy Berger's removal of records from the National Archives. Those concerns centered on attempts by NARA's Inspector General to inform the 9/11 commission about the extent to which Berger was alone with original documents. According to the staff study, the IG faced off with DOJ on whether the commission should be informed about the handling of original documents. He argued for informing the commission. The IG thought it was important that the commission know that the scope of document losses could not be determined.

The National Archives' IG lost the battle over how much to tell the commission, indeed, came to believe it would be career ending to continue to press the matter with DOJ. (Very troubling in and of itself). The New York Times never covered that aspect of the story although other outlets did.

On the other side, the Washington Post wrote about the disappearance of affirmative action documents from the Reagan Presidential Library after White House lawyers did research there as John Roberts faced confirmation hearings. The Washington Times never informed its readers that a document loss had occurred. As in the earlier Berger case, high powered officials had been left alone by archivists with sensitive documents.

After archivists located records relating to Roberts, and White Hosue lawyers reviewed them, some documents were made available to the Senate for the confirmation hearing but not the affirmative action records, which remain unaccounted for to this day. According to a report posted on the Internet, NARA's IG never was able to determine if the affirmative action documents relating to Roberts were removed deliberately, removed inadvertently, or were misfiled after the White House lawyers visited the Library.

The Berger and Roberts cases both involved documents that went missing after VIPs visited NARA. To me, the issue was and is how NARA deals with high powered people, regardless of whether they are Republicans or Democrats. (In the Berger matter, one Archives official reportedly referred to "bullying.")

There are published rules for NARA's research rooms which include not leaving people alone with original documents but they seemingly are not always be followed within NARA. The question is why not. Apparently the WT and the NYT didn't see the two stories that way. For whatever reason, the press played the two stories very differently. Depending on whether news outlets leaned right or left, they failed to inform readers of the details of one story but did report on the other.

So yes, a newspaper seemingly may reveal its agenda in reporting as well as on its editorial pages. It may just be a case of wanting people associated with one party look better than those associated with the other.

Regardless of what happened in the past, I'm just not convinced that, going forward, in all cases the goals of all the outlets you cited will include achieving impeachment of Presidents of the opposing party. I have not been convinced that that would be the goal of the Washington Times.

Posted on personal time (Presidents' Day holiday)

Thanks Maarja for drawing our attention to this analysis.

Rick

Yes, the Washington Times leans right. But if you read the Washington Times' editorial pages, you can see that while there certainly are plenty of partisans represented, they also offer views by people who don't always look at issues from a partisan viewpoint. Consider, for example, some of what Bob Barr and Bruce Fein have had published in the WT over the last couple of years regarding executive actions. The WT also includes columns by Democrats, such as Donna Brazile.

More generally, it's hard to say whether things will play out in the patterns set in the last couple of decades or not. Polling suggests that there may be a large segment of the voting public that has reacted negatively to hyperpartisanship. Pollster Douglas Schoen noted in an op ed in the WaPo recently that

"Voters today aren't just fed up with the status quo; they're furious. In a Gallup poll last month, only 24 percent of Americans said they were satisfied with the state of the country -- one of the lowest readings ever recorded.

. . . . So who are these angry voters? I call them "restless and anxious moderates," or RAMs. Most come from the third of the electorate that identifies itself as independent, but some Democrats and Republicans have also joined this new bloc. These voters tend to be practical, non-ideological and unabashedly results-oriented -- people such as Gary Butler, 60, who lives in Show Low, Ariz. Both parties, he says, "are way too far apart, and nobody is looking out for the good of the people."

"Address my life and the problems I face in my terms," another RAM told me. "Cut political rhetoric, cut political fighting, cut the game-playing, stop the five-point programs; just address my issues in a real-world, straightforward way."

. . . Both parties, in fact, seem largely unaware that a new group of passionate and frustrated voters with a distinctive set of concerns has emerged. Instead, strategists from both parties have continued to treat independents as either "soft Democrats" or "soft Republicans." But there's nothing soft about the mood now transforming American politics."