# Is there a guide to the editorial stances of newspapers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 24, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061 "2006-05-24T18:31:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/1 "2006-05-24T18:31:56Z")
Almost every newspaper has a definite editorial stance, well-known if not expressly proclaimed. (Whether that bleeds out of the editorials page into the news coverage is a more controversial question.) Is there such thing as a reasonably objective reference source or website that can tell me politics of a given newspaper? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2006, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/2 "2006-05-24T23:56:34Z")
Nobody knows? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/3 "2006-05-27T14:55:05Z")
Nobody? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/4 "2006-05-27T14:58:07Z")
Honestly, no. While “everybody knows that the River City _Times-Recorder_ is moderate conservative,” I know of no source that lists this sort of material off for most major papers. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/5 "2006-05-27T15:29:31Z")
I don’t believe an objective listing of newspaper’s political stances is possible. The compiler of the list would also have his/her/their own biases and that would means you would be getting a subjective decision on something that is already subjective. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/6 "2006-05-27T18:49:54Z")
[QUOTE=BobT] I don’t believe an objective listing of newspaper’s political stances is possible. The compiler of the list would also have his/her/their own biases and that would means you would be getting a subjective decision on something that is already subjective. [/QUOTE] That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. The **relative** editorial stances of any two papers are probably noncontroversial. Take the _Wall Street Journal_ as a starting point: Everybody agrees, and the editors would not deny, that its editorial (page) policy is conservative, specifically business-conservative. So, what papers are to the right and to the left of it? (Or perhaps we need a multi-axis map.) ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/7 "2006-05-27T18:54:24Z")
A multi-axis map at the very least! As well as simple left/right, authoritarian/libertarian stances and suchlike, there’s also the degree of separation between reporting and editorialising. Some newspapers have a very definite demarcation, others allow the two to merge together. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2006, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/8 "2006-05-27T22:17:40Z")
No doubt not quite what the OP intended, but the oft-quoted (in this instance via [Wikipedia](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yes,_Prime_Minister)) _Yes, Prime Minister_ guide to the affiliations of the British press in terms of their target readership: > [@](#): > > - The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; > \* The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; > \* The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; > \* The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; > \* The Financial Times is read by people who own the country; > \* The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; > \* And the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is. > > **Sir Humphrey** : Prime Minister, what about the people who read the Sun? > **Bernard Woolley** : Sun readers don’t care who runs the country, as long as she’s got big tits. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-guide-to-the-editorial-stances-of-newspapers/358061/9 "2006-05-28T01:54:14Z")
And the American version of the previous: > [@](#): > > [ul] > [li] The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country. [/li][li] The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country. [/li][li] The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.! [/li][li] USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts. [/li][li] The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country – if they could find the time – and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it. [/li][li] The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much. [/li][li] The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train. [/li][li] The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who’s running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated. [/li][li] The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores. [/li][/ul] _Note: Original intarweb version edited to remove some unfunny chauvinism undoubtedly inserted by a lower-middle-class Wal-Mart conservative._