Parts of the conservative blogosphere have been aflame the last couple days over Nick Coleman’s article attacking Powerline and other conservative blogs. The flame became a blaze after Henry Farrell argued that conservative blogs have no right to accuse the Main Stream Media (MSM) of bias. Hindrocket at Powerline made some very important distinctions in his response:

“. . . .I think that distinctions can usefully be drawn among several concepts that are often assumed to be interchangeable: bias, objectivity and neutrality. “Bias” is usually used pejoratively; I would use it to mean reporting news in a way that is in fact slanted, while purporting to report it neutrally. I would say that the New York Times is biased, but Power Line isn’t. “Objectivity” I understand to mean, essentially, fairness. Being objective means to weigh evidence and arguments fairly, as, for example, by reporting that President Bush turned in a mediocre performance in a debate, even though the person making that judgment supports the President. I would say that Power Line is objective, or at least tries to be, while 60 Minutes is not objective. “Neutrality” means indifference as among competing parties, candidates or ideologies. Power Line is not neutral; neither is the Washington Post. There are probably a few truly neutral news sites or commentators, but not many.

“Not everyone will agree with my definitions; maybe no one will. But I think it is helpful to distinguish among these various concepts. In general, “bias” is not a term that it is helpful to apply to commentators, as opposed to reporters. Paul Krugman is a liberal and Ann Coulter is a conservative. One could say that they are both “biased” because they argue for a particular point of view, but that would be meaningless and unhelpful, in my opinion. With respect to commentatary, which is what we at Power Line generally do, the relevant questions are: Are the facts accurately and fairly represented? Are there other, obviously relevant facts that are omitted from the analysis? And, are the arguments made on the basis of the facts logical and persuasive?. . . .

“. . .like op-ed columnists, one of the things that we do is to critique the accuracy and fairness–call it “bias”–of news reports in the mainstream press. When we critique mainstream news sources, we try to be objective, but we are not neutral.”

We at the Sounding the Trumpet are also not neutral, but our aim and hope is to be objective and fair in our coverage of events and issues — both here at Cornell and around the world.