Newsweek: Yep, we're liberal

The Media Research Center reports on a little tête-à-tête between Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and NPR newsbabe Nina Totenberg on Inside Washington over the weekend:

Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas wondered, on Inside Washington over the weekend, whether the effort in the U.S. House to reduce funding for PBS and NPR through the CPB would "make NPR a little less liberal?" An indignant Nina Totenberg of NPR retorted: "I don't think we're liberal to begin with and I think if you would listen, Evan, you would know that."

Thomas countered that "I do listen to you and you're not that liberal, but you're a little bit liberal." Totenberg insisted, "I don't think that's a fair criticism...any more than you would say that Newsweek is liberal." To which Thomas conceded: "I think Newsweek is a little liberal."

How funny that Nina swears NPR isn't even remotely liberal, then tries to counter on Thomas that "yeah, well, if we are, then you are too! Nah-nee-nah-nee boo-boo!" Thomas ruins her point with a wrecking ball: "You're right...we are liberal." Uh...well...uh...not exactly what she was expecting, huh?

Kudos to Thomas for recognizing his employer's bias, which is a bias, by the way, that liberals deny. I think if a Newsweak editor says that they're biased over there while some unemployable non-bathing slacker wearing hemp clothes with a burlap toboggan says they're not...I'll defer to said editor.

But don't take my word for it:

This isn't the first time that Thomas has recognized bias. The July 12, 2004 CyberAlert recounted: The media "wants Kerry to win" and so "they're going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and dynamic and optimistic," Evan Thomas, the Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, admitted on Inside Washington over the weekend. He should know. His magazine this week sports a smiling Kerry and Edwards on its cover with the yearning headline, "The Sunshine Boys?" Inside, an article carrying Thomas' byline contrasted how "Dick Cheney projects the bleakness of a Wyoming winter, while John Edwards always appears to be strolling in the Carolina sunshine."

(snip...)

The night after the election, Thomas contended on MSNBC's Hardball that President Bush suffered from media bias against him since "most" of Thomas's colleagues in the media "don't like Bush and they do like Kerry" and he "can't believe that doesn't affect" coverage. He also asserted, from NBC's "Democracy Plaza" in Manhattan, that "the mainstream media" are out of touch "with most of America. I mean there is a red-blue divide. And most of the media types live in the blue part. They live right here."

In light of Thomas' own words, as well as the fake Koran-flushing story, Newsweak ceases to be a credible source of information.