Would a left-leaning cable network make things right?

Jay ROSEN -- author, academic, press critic and one of the nation’s more thoughtful agents provocateurs -- posted a characteristically controversial observation-cum-prediction on his Web log after the recent presidential election.

“At some point between now and 2008,” he wrote, “either MSNBC or CNN may break off from the pack and decide to become the liberal alternative to Fox.”

Rosen said the “logic of this move became evident” when Fox won the ratings battle at the Republican convention, the first time a cable network had beaten the broadcast networks in such competition.

“Everyone realized at once the power of GOP-TV and how much sense that system -- the more partisan system -- made,” Rosen said.

Rosen, chair of the journalism department at New York University and author of “What Are Journalists For?” and “The New News V. the Old News,” posted this argument at

journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/11/03/op_press. html. After I read it -- twice -- I called and asked him to expand on his suggestion.

“There is an inescapable logic to it,” he said. “The whole political scheme that journalists thought they had settled forever with this pact they made called ‘objectivity’ is not working the same way. We don’t have a media system that’s aligned well with the more partisan political life of the country. The press will have to become more political.

“If Fox continues to surge, how do others compete -- CNN, MSNBC or some new cable channel? Will the ... 48% of Americans who voted [for John Kerry] in the last election be open to a different kind of news? There are moments when people want to experience the world through the lens of a Fox or the lens of a liberal alternative, and it’s very easy for me to imagine that a third-place network will be in a position where it’s worth a try.”

I think that some Americans, for all their protestations about “media bias,” do want their news prepackaged and predigested -- slanted, biased -- so they don’t have to think about it. When they complain about bias, they’re really complaining that the news isn’t biased in favor of their particular viewpoint, be it conservative or liberal. So Rosen’s probably right; the liberals among these intellectually lazy folks would probably welcome a genuinely liberal news network.

In fact, the liberal in me is tempted to share that view. After all, I have no doubt that Fox News and the conservative hosts on talk radio helped galvanize the right wing -- especially the evangelical elements of the right wing -- to go to the polls to reelect George W. Bush. Maybe if there were an avowedly liberal TV network, it could similarly galvanize and motivate the left to vote, and we’d elect a president in 2008 who doesn’t want to outlaw abortion, gay marriage, civil liberties, government-sponsored Social Security and a multilateral foreign policy -- all because that’s what he thinks God told him to do.

Fanning partisan flames

But both the American in me and the journalist in me hope Rosen is dead wrong.

In our increasingly polarized society, the last thing we need is a partisan press. Yes, I know that many conservatives think we already have a partisan press -- a liberal press. And yes, I know that far more big-city journalists are liberal than conservative. I’m a liberal. But I’m a columnist, paid to express my opinions. When I was a reporter, I worked hard -- and, I think, successfully -- to keep my opinions from unfairly influencing what I wrote. When the facts led to a conclusion that was different from my opinion, I printed the facts, not my opinion. As a result, I sometimes wrote stories that gave aid and comfort to the “enemy.” I continue to think, as I’ve written before, that on most stories, most reporters and editors and news directors -- people charged with keeping their opinions out of their work -- are able to do that as well, to set aside their personal views and cover the news fairly and evenhandedly.

Many critics disagree. They think “fair and balanced” is as much a sham for CNN and CBS, for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, as it is for Fox News. They think the media should surrender what they see as the fig leaf of objectivity and replace it with an open acknowledgment of political affiliation.

At the moment, even Fox does not make such an acknowledgment -- witness its “fair and balanced” and “we report, you decide” rhetoric. Rosen says that was a “practical thing to do” in the beginning, but if an openly liberal network were to be created, that would free Fox to “come out as a conservative network.”

I have a journalist friend -- very liberal -- who thinks all journalists should “come out” politically, publicly. He says virtually every story of sociopolitical consequence should be preceded by a brief editor’s note describing the political/ideological affiliation/position of the writer.

“That way,” he says, “the reader knows where you’re coming from and can decide for himself how to evaluate what you write.”

I’ve repeatedly told my friend that, with all due respect, I think that’s one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard. First, if one is going to argue that a reporter’s political views are relevant, what about the political views of the various editors involved in each story? How -- and where -- are you going to disclose the ideology of the editor who conceived the story, the editor who assigned it, the editor who actually edited it, the editor who decided where (and if and when) it would appear in the paper? (And, in the case of television, the cameraman who filmed it.)

I could imagine editors’ notes on these matters that would be longer than the stories themselves.

But more important, I think any such accounting would automatically undermine the credibility of many, if not most stories. I’d rather have readers judge stories on their merits, on what the stories say, on the language used to convey the information, on what may be omitted, than on any political caveat that, as I’ve already said, I believe would almost invariably be as irrelevant as it would be distracting.

That’s why I’m opposed to Rosen’s suggestion about a liberal television network.

When I asked the folks at CNN what they thought of the idea, Jim Walton, president of the CNN News Group, shot back, “Under no circumstances would we do that. We’ve established that we’re a trusted network. We’ve done that by trying to provide balance ... to be independent in our thinking.”

At MSNBC, the top brass demurred when I asked for a comment. But Jeremy Gaines, the network’s vice president of communications, said the concept of MSNBC as a self-described liberal network “makes no sense. It is flawed, shallow reasoning and is totally without merit.”

Interestingly, when I pressed Rosen on this, he didn’t want to come right out and say he was certain it would be a good idea. Asked point-blank, he repeated that he thought it “likely” and “logical” and “practical” and perhaps even inevitable. But good -- beneficial to journalism and society at large? His not very convincing response was, “It’s not my job to tell television networks how to do their jobs.”

It’s not my job, either. But I’d like to offer my opinion anyway:

DON’T DO IT.

David Shaw can be reached at david.shaw@latimes.com. To read his previous “Media Matters” columns, please go to latimes.com/shaw-media.