Readers Want Less Liberalism in Newspaper

If you are over 50, you may recall that newspapers in your youth had a decidedly conservative bent supporting the Republican Party platform. Well times have changed and now conservatives bemoan the liberal attitudes espoused by many mainstream news organs like the New York Times (which is rapidly losing readers).

A columnist for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Regina Brett, decided to ask her readers what changes they would like to see in the editorial policy of the newspaper. She received over 500 letters, with the most common complaint that the paper leans too far to the left. "This newspaper needs to be more balanced. Bring more conservative writers to balance out the ideas of the liberals."

Other letters stated:

"Stop hiring bleeding-heart, liberal journalists who want to create social change through everything they write. They don't belong in journalism, they belong in politics."

"The Plain-Dealer has become a reprint of what some call the 'drive-by media.' N.Y. Times, L.A. Times, Boston Globe, etc. If you MUST use their stories, why not edit them by taking out the spin and liberal mind-control language?"

"Stop running New York Times stories. I don't believe anything they write."

"Find out what the people really want, all people, not just liberals. I would subscribe in a heartbeat if The Plain-Dealer would be smack in the middle of everything . . . where the people are."

"Dump Maureen Dowd and her conservative counterparts. They think they are intellectuals but are just plain snotty. Replace the cutesy sniping of Maureen Dowd with someone who's more closely attuned to our Midwestern sensibilities. Red or blue, that constant carping offers nothing constructive."

"Whenever a person has more than one firearm, it is called an arsenal. I would like to see a list of every person who receives welfare as the paper does with concealed-carry permit holders."

"The truth. Not my truth, your truth, or someone else's truth. Print the truth instead of making it up."