The myth of the "liberal" Washington Post opinion pages

February 19, 2010
by Jamison Foser
Media Matters

There may be no better example of the absurdity of the "liberal media" myth than the widespread notion that the Washington Post's opinion pages -- and Fred Hiatt, the man who runs them -- lean to the left.

The Daily Beast and Forbes magazine have both named Hiatt one of America's five most influential liberal journalists -- though the Daily Beast acknowledged that many liberals would question that assessment given Hiatt's "near-neocon" views on foreign policy, while asserting "there is no doubt at all that he is a traditional liberal in all matters domestic."

The assertion that a neocon -- near or otherwise -- is the nation's fifth most influential liberal is self-evidently absurd. But that bizarre assessment isn't limited to Tunku Varadarajan, the Scaife-funded Hoover Institution fellow who compiled both lists. NewsBusters' Warner Todd Huston has called Hiatt a "socialist" -- a kinder assessment than that of his colleague, Matthew Sheffield, who thinks the Post's editorial page is merely "liberal." Fellow NewsBuster Noel Sheppard expresses surprise when the Post publishes an op-ed that is "counter to leftwing economic dogma." Tim Russert described the Post in 2006 as "hardly an organ for Republican views."

Even the Post's own media critic, Howard Kurtz, says that the paper's editorial page is "left-leaning" and that "liberals are pretty well represented on the Post op-ed page" by, among others, Richard Cohen. For his part, Hiatt has insisted that the Post has "a pretty good balance on the oped page."

(More here.)