Worrying About Bias Is Biased!

I'm a bit late to this particular rodeo, but I've watched with amusement the "concern" that the new Arizona political reporting website, The Arizona Guardian, needs to be watched (we should wait and see if the cliche "wait and see" becomes overused) for signs of bias because my law firm helped form the LLC and because Democratic political consultant Bob Grossfeld is a minority owner. Here's the AZ Guardian's take, but I wonder about why only Democrats get put on probation when becoming journalists.

Funny, I don't recall similar hand-wringing when those fun-loving libertarians of Freedom Communications bought the Tribune newspapers, or when Bonneville purchased KTAR radio, or when Belo bought KTVK-Channel 3. Nobody seemed concerned about waiting and seeing if those more conservative owners would start to skew coverage in line with their political beliefs.

It reminded me of a story that former Phoenix City Council member Joy Carter used to tell. Once Mayor Margaret Hance, a staunch Republican, took Joy aside and said that it wasn't right and proper that Joy was involved in the Maricopa County Democratic Party's Nucleus Club. The Phoenix Council was, and still is, elected on a non-partisan basis, and Hance said Joy, instead of being a high-profile member of something as overtly political as Nucleus, rather should spend her time on community activities -- like Trunk and Tusk.

(For the irony-impaired or the recently-arrived, Trunk and Tusk was the GOP's version of Nucleus at the time.)