Whether someone makes their opinions public does not matter. Surely there are people with anti-war views similar to his, and others on the pro-war side, who simply have not been given an opportunity to express their opinion to the audience that this reporter did. All of these people are going to work their bias into their stories, whether intentional or not. Every story is going to have slanted details - it’s unavoidable. Even the best reporters are not capable of writing a truly objective story, and the fact that this man happens to have an opinion on the war that you consider to be irrational or extreme does not mean he is not capable of writing a minimally biased article.
Surely you have opinions on this war, and many other issues. Everyone does. And yet you believe that you are capable of presenting an unbiased newscast because it is “just not right”. Do you have any reason to suspect that the reporter in question does not share this same belief? Just as you say, if there was a noticeable bias in his reporting, someone would see the bias immediately. Although newspaper reporters can twist the facts more than television reporters, there’s no reason to believe that a noticeable bias and distortion of the facts in his reporting would go unnoticed - especially at the New York Times.
You’re joking, right? You do know the Times just discovered one of its former employees fabricated facts (and, in some cases, entire stories) over a nine-month span?
I’ve got no problem with a journalist having a personal opinion on a story or an issue. When I start having a problem is when said journalist gets involved in the story or issue on one side or the other. At that point, he or she isn’t a journalist any longer – they’re a crusader. And crusaders are notorious for giving only their side of the story.
The fact that this guy has an anti-war book out right now and is actively promoting it should have been a warning to officials at the school.
Well, I’m glad you put that disclaimer in at the end. Otherwise it sounds similar to many rationalizations for biased reporting:
We cannot eat a perfect diet, so we might as well eat junk food all the time.
We don’t want to be tee-totallers, so we might as well drink like fish.
We can’t always exercise as much as we should, so therefore let’s not exercise as all.
And so it goes.
Seriously, the fact that we can’t do everything perfectly should not stop us from trying to do it better. The news media might have biases, but they could attempt to recognize it and eliminate it. The NYTimes, to cite just one example, does not. It embraces its biases.
Just for one example, before the Jayson Blair affair, the NYTimes censored two of its own columnists because the editors didn’t like their opinions about Tiger Woods and the Augusta National.
People have been pointing out the liberal bias of the Times for decades. The Times has refused to even acknowledge the problem, and if you don’t admit it exists, you aren’t going to do anything to rectify it.