One of the most persistent complaints I receive is that we are biased.
People can see bias in word choice or the framing of issues. Readers might also see bias in photo choices, story placement or whether a subject receives news coverage or not.
“What caused The Oregonian to become so biased?” one reader wrote last week. “It seems like every story is talking points and disdain for the President and Republicans.”
But often, readers mean they don’t agree with the positions of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s editorial board, which is entirely separate and operates independently from the newsroom.
“Of course, your paper is leaned to the Liberal Left, as your endorsements reveal,” a reader emailed. “When will The Oregonian ever be fair and balanced?”
So, do our editorial positions lean left?
I asked Opinion Editor Helen Jung, who has been a member of the editorial board since 2014, how she would characterize our positions over time.
“Generally, our positions have leaned center-left. We support socially liberal causes while also emphasizing financial stewardship,” she said, stressing the importance the board places on government accountability. “In evaluating policies, we’ll consider good-governance questions, such as whether it’s a program that this government agency should be taking on, and whether it’s a wise use of public dollars.”
As an example of a more conservative position, Jung cited the board’s opposition to the new tax to fund homeless services, which voters approved in May. The board opposed it because of the lack of accountability over what voters would get for the money.
The board also has supported PERS reform. The board opposed the concept of Multnomah County getting into the preschool business when the state education department already has, for far less money.
On the liberal side, the board favored same sex marriage, a new business tax to support education, and police and juvenile justice reform.
It’s fair to say the editorial positions evolve over time, as the makeup of the board changes. Current-day editorials can be informed by long-standing positions, but they are not bound by previous opinions.
Readers noticed a distinct shift under Editorial Page Editor Erik Lukens and Publisher N. Christian Anderson III. (Lukens left in 2016, Anderson in 2015.)
“We moved the editorial page in a more libertarian direction, which means we disagreed regularly with many readers on the left and the right,” Lukens said. “By challenging liberal conventional wisdom about state and local environmental policies such as the state’s low-carbon fuel standard, for instance, we tended to disagree with many readers on the left. And by advocating for same-sex marriage, recreational marijuana legalization and the creation of driver cards for people in the country in violation of immigration law, we tended to disagree with many readers on the right.”
When Anderson was hired as publisher in 2009, one of the first things he did was take the editorial board out of the editor’s portfolio.
“I feel strongly that if the publisher is responsible for the success of the overall enterprise, why should he or she ignore editorial positions that speak for the organization?” Anderson said.
Many readers perceived Anderson took the board in a more conservative direction.
“It is safe to say that on some matters we were more conservative than we had been, but not at all on social issues,” he said. “We continued to support a woman’s right to choose and we strongly supported gay rights, for example.”
During Sandy Rowe’s tenure as editor, from 1993 to 2009, she and Publisher Fred A. Stickel relied on the independent thinking of the editorial page editor, especially in endorsements. “Either one of us could have bigfooted that process if we disagreed with an outcome,” she told me, “but it was well established that each of us would speak our mind during the deliberations for endorsement, but we would not overrule the board and editorial page editor when it went another way.”
Current publisher John Maher is a member of the editorial board, along with me. The board operates mainly by consensus, rather than any one member dictating positions.
“From my experience, the editorial board work product is most impactful when the priority is community benefit and service,” Maher said. “Institutional consistency for the newspaper is second to that, and individual member priorities must take a back seat. A collaborative approach by the board is the only way to get there.”
We are strong believers in accountability and transparency. We think government should be prudent stewards of public money. And, we believe, as society changes, editorial boards must evolve.
My hope is that the current board and its positions serve the community and reflect its values.
The toppling of the statue of Harvey Scott, a long-ago editor who stridently opposed women’s right to vote, is a reminder of how wrong a newspaper can be. I hope our positions hold up better to the test of time.
Therese Bottomly is editor and vice president of content for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her at tbottomly@oregonian.com or 503-221-8434.
Correction: Publisher N. Christian Anderson III took the editorial board from the editor’s portfolio when Sandy Rowe retired in 2009. This post has been corrected.