Date: February 18, 2004
Subject: One Sided Reporting?

In an unexpected twist, Norman Draper's article in today's Strib, "History guidelines take another punch," only included quotes by Julie Quist from the (WARNING!) "conservative education group" EdWatch and Commissioner Yecke. He did not identify by name the DFL members of the Ed Policy Committee who "suggested that a gender-neutral word be substituted for 'statesmen,' and wondered why Marcus Garvey wasn't included in a list of black civil rights leaders." In the interest of fairness, couldn't Draper report on something more objectionable in the third draft than the "statespersons" debate or the absence of an obscure, if important, historical figure from the Examples column?

Meanwhile, John Welsh at the PiPress, who also quoted Quist from the "conservative" EdWatch, gave a little more coverage to the critics. He actually identified Parents United as a "more liberal" group in his article today, "New standards keep critics abuzz." I thought there was something in the AP Stylebook that prohibits identifying liberal groups or persons as "liberal," but requires them to identify conservatives as "conservative." Or so it would seem.