Dear Mr. Batten WE are not Followers as you suggest!

We ignore bias at our own Peril from Taylor Batten

“Our opinion pages routinely run pieces critical of the Observer and points of view different from our editorial board’s. Our news side is vigilant about setting the record straight when it makes an error.”

Yes but where do these pieces come from? From out side sources and not from even one of your Editorial Board Members. If you think all of Charlotte/Mecklenburg does not know you don’t have any conservatives on your board, then you are mistaken. If you try to throw that one who appear conservative, but we never see anything from him, then don’t bother trying to mention him.

Hey why not publish the general location of where your editorial board lives so we can see they mostly live outside of Charlotte?

How do you know what is going on in the news side if you are so quick to point out they do their thing and we do our thing and the two never meet? Oh you read their PR like the rest of us and believe it unlike the rest of Charlotte/Mecklenburg who knows and reads this mess each day. We know that they don’t make mistakes because they only write about what they like and it is almost never anything about the average people and gosh nothing to do with that messy conservative bunch who lives all around here.

“Almost every journalist I know holds accuracy, fairness and objectivity as sacred. They could all pass lie detector tests saying they never intentionally inject bias into a story. And yet the public’s perception is totally different.”

Can we do a lie detector on you?

“I believe the public’s dwindling trust stems less from a sudden and sharp decline in the media’s performance and more from the increasing polarization of America. An entire spin industry has emerged, dedicated to hardening people’s opinions and influencing how the public thinks of different media outlets. Readers and viewers bring their own biases to the table, and increasingly reject a news organization as biased if it doesn’t push views they share.”

How many times are you going to kill the messenger? Oh and we need to take these excuses you have created like the polarization one and number then so you don’t have to repeat them in future articles. Or maybe we could rename them like racialism, hatred of anything we don’t like?

Is this the idea you have swirling around in you head about your readers who dare question you. Oh wait is it that that people are saying about any criticism of the President, oh wait is that what you are referring to, I not being a journalism student would not know but I know you give every opportunity to praise the fact we are in so much debt we will never get out of this hole.

Observer endorses Obama even today!

“It seems the media have two choices: drop efforts to be objective and fight for the share of audience that agrees with them. Or redouble efforts to ferret out every hint of possible bias, by analyzing story selection and play, word choice and what lens is used to tell the story. Find visual and storytelling devices that make clear to the reader and viewer that you’re telling all sides.

I vote for the latter. Even then, the media won’t win some people’s trust. But it’s a better approach for our industry, and a more valuable service to a society that is increasingly failing to consider all sides.”

I too am going to take your advice and from now on will not listen to my wife and eat what I want to spend. I know better about what is good from me and like you in the media will not listen to those outside my circle and in fact increase doing what I do and know is best. Great and I hope it works for both of us!