War horse analysts come saddled with image of bias

WHY do so many Americans think the news media are biased? One reason, I think, is the revolving door between partisan political service and television punditry.

It’s difficult to turn on the TV these days and not find someone offering his expert analysis of officeholders or candidates with whom he has long been personally allied and identified.

I’m talking about George Stephanopoulos going from the Clinton White House to ABC; Peggy Noonan going from writing speeches for President Reagan to offering commentary on MSNBC and in the Wall Street Journal; Joe Trippi going from Howard Dean’s presidential campaign to MSNBC; David Gergen going back and forth between and among four administrations and so many media outposts that even he probably can’t remember them all. The list goes on and on and on, on both sides of the political spectrum, from Pat Buchanan to Paul Begala.

Spin the dial on your television set and you’ll get a steady stream of political analysis from commentators and hosts who, moments before, were hired guns for political officeholders and office-seekers -- and who may return to those partisan positions faster than you can say “Joe Lockhart.” (Lockhart, formerly President Clinton’s press secretary, became an analyst at CNBC and left there last month to work for Sen. John Kerry.)

I’m not saying this is the primary reason the media seem so partisan to so many Americans. Several factors shape this misperception. Many would argue that the media seem biased because they are biased, and while I vigorously disagree, Dan Rather’s shameful failure to properly investigate and authenticate purported memos on President Bush’s National Guard service have reinforced that view. When it turned out that Rather’s producer had agreed to her source’s request that she give a top Kerry advisor the source’s name and phone number, defending CBS against bias charges became exponentially more difficult.

But several other factors shape the perception of media bias, not the least of which is the polarization of our society. If you stand at one end of the political spectrum -- it doesn’t matter which end -- the center looks like the other end. If you are entrenched firmly and angrily at one end, then the center -- where evenhanded, down-the-middle journalism should be and, in my opinion, usually is -- looks even further away. In other words -- biased.

Commentators, no matter how good or fair they may be, can appear especially biased if they’ve recently stepped out of the revolving door. Just last month, the Bush campaign complained that liberals James Carville and Begala shouldn’t serve as the co-hosts of CNN’s “Crossfire,” opposite two conservatives, while simultaneously serving as informal, unpaid advisors to the Kerry campaign.

Although that seems a perfectly reasonable position for the Bushites to take, Carville, Begala and CNN all defended the arrangement.

They’re wrong.

What’s in a name?

Idon’t mean to question the integrity (or the intelligence) of either man -- or, for that matter, of any of the men and women in the revolving door of the media/politics echo chamber. I’ve not only seen them on TV in both their partisan and journalistic roles but at one time or another, I’ve interviewed (and been impressed by) most of them. In fact, in Gergen’s case, I’ve interviewed him (when he worked for Clinton), and he’s interviewed me (when he worked for PBS. At least I think it was PBS. It might have been CNN. Or CBS.). I found Gergen thoughtful and insightful as both interviewee and interviewer.

But we’re not talking political or journalistic smarts here. We’re talking journalistic credibility. And I don’t think the media -- already faced with an increasingly skeptical public -- can afford to further undermine their shaky standing by providing a forum for political-operatives-turned-opinion-mongers whose very presence bespeaks bias.

This isn’t to say these commentators don’t sometimes criticize people and positions they would be expected to favor. But that isn’t the issue. The issue is what viewers think when they hear their names, not their words.

Their names, of course, are why the media hire them in the first place. They have instant recognition. They are who they are, immediately identifiable by viewers who, hearing their names and seeing their faces, might actually pause the remote control for a few minutes between “Survivor” and “Extreme Makeover.” (Leave aside for the moment the question of whether most of these commentators could also star in either of these shows.)

If the commentator is especially provocative and combative -- an eager purveyor of ideological red meat, in the current vernacular -- so much the better. Well-known snarling heads leads to good ratings, and that -- after all -- is what television is after.

I can’t blame the political war horses for succumbing to the media’s blandishments. Once you’ve had the limelight, it’s hard to live without it. And we all have to make a living. But I do blame the media for making these blandishments. Surely there are enough professional journalists out there qualified to offer expert commentary and analysis on this campaign (and other issues) without resorting to insiders.

“Just hearing from journalists who come with a point of view is not enough,” though, says Princell Hair, who’s responsible for the CNN’s day-to-day news operation in his capacity as executive vice president and general manager of CNN/U.S. “You want to hear from as many voices as you can. There’s real value to our viewers in hearing from these well-connected people. It adds to what we’re doing on politics on a regular basis.

“We balance them with people on the other side, and to me, if you take our coverage as a whole and the two sides are balanced ... that negates that [perception of] bias.”

No. It might even exacerbate the perception. The quest for balance requires more talking heads -- “Crossfire” now has four, two on each side -- and the more political operatives that appear, the more viewers are likely to think that all, or at least most, journalists have a political agenda.

Yes, these insiders do have great sources, and they do bring to the job special knowledge of the workings of government and of political campaigns. It’s the same reasoning the networks used to justify hiring all those generals to offer expert commentary during the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

But just as reporters sometimes have to trade credibility to get inside information -- promising anonymity to their sources and thus raising questions about legitimacy and motivation among their readers -- so there’s a trade-off in credibility when you use insiders to talk about the officials, candidates and issues with whom and which they’ve been formally involved.

In today’s polarized, highly charged environment, the news media can no longer afford that trade-off. Network executives should take a deep breath, call in all these on-camera commentators who’ve been active, official partisans within, say, the last 10 years, and fire them.

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