Posted by
Dennis Pemberton on Thursday, October 16, 2008 9:35:15 AM
Reuters- A plan to reverse public perception of media bias in the 2008 campaign was revealed in a New York Times e-mail leaked today. In the e-mail, Times Editorial Chief Andrew Rosenthal asked Times opinion writers to moderate their coverage of John McCain and Sarah Palin. "There is evidence," the e-mail began, "that perceived media bias is eroding Barack Obama's standing in the polls." The e-mail, whose subject line was "Project UnBias," continued "We need to reverse that trend. Emphasize the positive in covering McCain/Palin, as hard as that may be to find. I know Palin's a barely literate hick, but talk about something else, like... Well, I don't know, you're the writers!" Prior to the release of this e-mail, many had been dumbfounded by pieces like Thomas Friedman's "The Sarah You Don't Know," which extolled her baking skills, but in the lastparagraph states: "But nobody makes brownies like Barack." Maureen Dowd's column "Not as stupid as Bush" and Frank Rich's "McCain's not Hitler" were evidently also written in respons to Rosenthal's e-mail. The Times has not responded to requests for information or comment on this story.