Media Bias and the L.A. Times

By David Henderson. 

"This a repost of an EconLog post I did in 2010. What motivated me to repost is something I read in the Wall Street Journal a few minutes ago. It’s James Freeman, “Kudos to the New York Times,” WSJ, October 26, 2026. Freeman writes about an interaction between constitutional law scholar Josh Blackman and Patrick Healy, the NYT’s assistant managing editor for standards and trust. [DRH aside: That title is already revealing. The NYT thinks it needs a special editor for standards and trust? Wow!] 

Here’s a quote from Blackman that Healy uses in his piece:

Back in February of this year, I was quoted twice in The New York Times back to back in the span of 24 hours, which is, you know, pretty cool. But I sort of noticed that both of the references were to Josh Blackman as a “conservative” law professor. And I just thought that was strange. So I went through the Westlaw archives and just sort of searched for “liberal” law professors and “conservative” law professors in the New York Times database, and it was far more likely that you’re identifying a conservative than a liberal. And those numbers are stacked because liberals are quoted even more often. So the numbers even have a greater disparity.

The whole NYT piece is worth reading. Healy was fairly accountable, which doesn’t mean that his colleagues will be.

It reminded me of a not so nice interaction I had in 2008 with Ralph Vartabedian of the Los Angeles Times. I wrote about it in 2010. Here it is.

Bryan Caplan’s and David Boaz’s comments on media bias remind me of an incident that happened almost two years ago. Ralph Vartabedian called me to get my take on the members of President-elect Obama’s economic team, particularly Christina Romer and Larry Summers. I answered his questions. At no time did he ask my ideology. Here’s his article. [DRH note: Surprisingly, you can still access it.]

In case you’re in a hurry, I’m posting here the relevant 2 paragraphs:

He also will have to work with some outsized egos and giant intellects on Obama’s economic team: Lawrence H. Summers, chairman-designate of the National Economic Council; Timothy F. Geithner, nominated to be Treasury secretary; and Christina Romer, chosen to lead the Council of Economic Advisors.

The group is generally not of one mind. Major differences exist in how they view regulation, monetary control and fiscal policy. Summers, for example, was among the Clinton administration officials who helped relax federal regulation on Wall Street, recalled David R. Henderson, a conservative economist at the Hoover Institution. Romer has questioned how well fiscal policy works at all, a central tenant of Democratic economic thinking.

So I wrote him the following:

Dear Ralph, 

I saw your piece. I’m not a conservative. I notice also that not only did you get my ideology wrong but also that I’m the only economist to whom you ascribed an ideology. What gives, Ralph?  

David

He replied:

Dear David,  

I thought your comment about Summers and Romer came from a viewpoint of significant concern about what the Obama Administration was going to do, so I used the reference only as an indicator that you are critical of at least Summers. As for the conservative label, I based that on a couple of points…clearly Hoover is known as a conservative organization and I have honestly never known anybody in it who was a liberal. I believe you were on the council of economic advisors under President Reagan, no? You seemed pretty critical of the liberal members of Obama’s team and our data base at the Times indicates you are a registered Republican there in the Monterrey [sic] area. I can give you a call later today. 

Ralph

I replied:

Dear Ralph, 

Those are all relevant techniques for figuring out my ideology–if I’m dead. Given that I’m alive, another way is to ask me.  

Also, couldn’t you use those same techniques to discern the ideology of Blinder and others you cited? And yet you didn’t.  

Best,  

David

Later that day, he did call me. He said he felt apologetic. I persisted and asked him why he didn’t ascribe an ideology to the other economists quoted, who clearly had ideologies. He explained that I was the only one quoted who was critical of the Obama team.

 
“Did you hear what you just said?” I asked. “Only those who are critical are given ideologies.”  

“Yes, I get it,” he said.   

That’s why I didn’t blog on it. I thought maybe he really did get it and I didn’t want to reduce my probability of being interviewed again. Twenty months later he still has not called for another interview. My guess is that by simply confronting him about it, I reduced my probability to close to zero."