New York Times Isn't Liberal, Maher Says

Liberal comedian Bill Maher had to be joking when he told "Reliable Sources" host Howard Kurtz that the vehemently anti-Bush, ultra-leftist, pro-appeasement New York Times hasn't been liberal over the past two years.

We're not joking - that's what he said. "The New York Times has not been left of center about a lot of things in the last two years, beginning with the Clinton impeachment," he told Kurtz.

Such as ...?

Moreover, Maher doesn't think the media are pushing a leftist agenda.

"The media is neither, I think in general, liberal or conservative," he told Kurtz. "Where they do have an ideological bent, they are conservative. That's all of talk radio, practically. Fox News, which is leading the pack ..."

Maher's view of the media isn't all that positive. "I don't think the media is liberal or conservative so much as petty, often, egotistical. That's more of what it is. The story is always about the reporter.

"I think in the old days, the media took more seriously their job as the eyes and the ears of the people who couldn't be there to see it. It wasn't about them; it was about the story. I think that's all gone away now.

"And also, they were rich people who ran the media, and they didn't need more money. It wasn't about getting every ratings point so they could get a little richer. It was about taking seriously this job as the fourth estate, and being an editor, so that people got - because when you're the press, you do constantly have to make decisions, what are we going to present to the people?

"I'll give you an example. We were talking about the recall. And I think it was the New York Times last week, they said one day - it was the day that Arnold had appointed Warren Buffett.

"And they said - on a day when Mr. Schwarzenegger did not even make an appearance, he dominated the news. Well, he dominated the news because you're writing that story. It's so incestuous and self-fulfilling of a prophesy, isn't it? He dominated it. Well, he wouldn't have dominated the news. You could have chosen to cover Mrs. Huffington's, you know, speech about being against the drug war or something else that was a lot more substantive. You chose this story about Arnold Schwarzenegger appointing Warren Buffett, which means absolutely nothing. Who cares? What is that going to affect, anything?"

You have to keep in mind that this is the Bill Maher who told his HBO audience the other night that religion is a "neurological disorder."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Media Bias