User:Sohmc/Sandbox/Rfc: Liberal bias?

THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS

I will submit this once I've gathered all my thoughts and written something coherrent. This is just something to gather my thoughts.

I'm not sure how to approach this topic because I don't want to start a religious war. So please assume the best about me and I'll try to be as open and honest as possible.

I've come to notice that that a large majority of articles have a liberal slant. It's very subtle but over time became noticable. The primary thing I see is that "conservative" articles are labeled as conservative, usually within the article's introduction. Here are some examples:

From Washington Times:

The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and is owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate owned by the Unification Church which also owns newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America. The Times is sometimes considered to be a socially and politically conservative alternative to the larger and more well-known Washington Post.

While on the face this may seem just a regular summary of an article, when I read introductions like this, it almost makes it sound that liberalism is "normal" while conservatism is outside of mainstream. Take this in conjunction with the "liberal" articles I show below. These introductions do not contain political stances, dispite a wide agreement that they are liberal. The rest of the article does show this, but by not having it in the introduction makes it seem "normal".

Similar "liberal" article introductions usually contain no reference to political stance.

From The Washington Post:

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation.

The newspaper is written as a broadsheet, with photographs printed both in color and black and white. Weekday printings include the main section, containing the first page, national, international news, business, politics, and editorials and opinions, followed by the sections on local news (Metro), sports, style (feature writing on pop culture, politics, fine and performing arts, film, fashion, and gossip), and classifieds. The Sunday edition includes the weekday sections as well as several weekly sections: Outlook (opinion and editorials), Style & Arts, Travel, Comics, TV Week, and the Washington Post Magazine. Beyond the newspaper, the Washington Post operates a syndication service (The Washington Post Writers Group) and under its parent company of The Washington Post Company, is involved in the Washington Post Media, Washington Post Digital, and washingtonpost.com.

I know there was an article some time back about Wikipedia tending to have a liberal slant, which is why I'm not really sure how to approach this topic. And for complete openness and transparancy, I do consider myself conservative. However, I hope this isn't being read as "I think all Wikipedia articles should be deleted!" or anything like that. I am looking for more of honest feedback and frank discussion on this topic. While I think it is impossible to be truly neutral, I do think it is possible for there to be even-handed policy all-around.

From Huffington Post

The Huffington Post, also referred to as HuffPo or HuffPost, is a liberal/progressive American news website and aggregated blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring various news sources and columnists. The site offers coverage of politics, media, business, entertainment, living, style, the green movement, world news, and comedy, and has news, blogs, and original content. The Huffington Post was launched on May 9, 2005, as a commentary outlet and alternative to conservative news websites like the Drudge Report.

In this introduction, it shows that it was made as an "alternative to conservative websites", but does not outright say "liberal".