During the October 26 broadcast of KRMA Rocky Mountain PBS' Colorado State of Mind, guest Tom McAvoy, the editorial research director for The Pueblo Chieftain, “mention[ed] from a conservative point of view” that “the opinion makers at The New York Times and The Washington Post have tended to make news judgments based upon ideology.” McAvoy supported the claim by citing the criticism of "[Bill] O'Reilly or someone on the media," after admitting, “I actually didn't read the New York Times.” As Media Matters for America has documented, the Fox News and syndicated radio host has made numerous false statements on his broadcasts that advanced conservative viewpoints.

Answering a question host Greg Dobbs posed about conservative and liberal criticisms of media coverage of the Iraq war, McAvoy stated that the Times and the Post “prefer the negative story out of Iraq, which is very legitimate, to the more positive story. Other media outlets have covered the more positive story. I believe the New York Times consciously does not.”

When Dobbs asked McAvoy to elaborate about the “positive side” of the war that “the major opinion makers in the media” were not covering, McAvoy stated, “I actually didn't read the New York Times” and referenced “O'Reilly or someone” -- rather than his own independent research -- to criticize the newspaper's coverage of the posthumous Medal of Honor ceremony on October 22 for Navy SEAL Lt. Michael Murphy. McAvoy said, “I was told by O'Reilly or someone on the media that when the first Medal of Honor winner for service in Afghanistan was named and celebrated, it appeared on the inside of the New York Times. And if he had killed civilians, according to O'Reilly, it would have been on page one. That's just an example. ”

While O'Reilly reported accurately that the Times did not run its article about the Murphy ceremony on the newspaper's front page -- it ran on the front page of the B section, according to the Nexis database -- Colorado Media Matters has noted that to support his contention that CNN and MSNBC are “controlled by far-left loons,” O'Reilly repeatedly made misleading remarks about the cable networks' October 22 coverage of the ceremony.

From the October 26 broadcast of KRMA Rocky Mountain PBS' Colorado State of Mind:

DOBBS: And now, the war in Iraq and how well is it covered. Of course, the question has heavy conservative-versus-liberal political overtones. Conservatives charge that the media has been negligent, because if they can cover the bad news in Iraq, which they do in abundance, then they ought to be able to cover the good news too, whatever good news there is. And why don't they, according to the critics? Because the media generally are biased -- basically, anti-Bush. The most cynical, strident critics say anti-American. And because of that, they argue, the American people are given a skewed, incomplete, negative picture of the war.

Bill O'Reilly comes right out and says it. He was picking on just a couple of national news outlets when he said, “CNN and especially MSNBC delight in showing Iraqi violence because they want Americans to think badly of President Bush. And that strategy has succeeded.” But that makes liberals defending the media indignant. They argue that the media covers the war about as well as it can be covered, given the danger inherent in just being a Western journalist in moving through Baghdad and many other parts of the country. They also argue that coverage of the war has been manipulated by the Pentagon and by the White House, and, if anything, it's not critical enough. A University of Michigan professor wrote in his blog, “Let me just suggest that if bombs were going off in Republican neighborhoods in the United States, the local mayor couldn't mollify the Republicans by saying, 'But we painted the school! Why are you ignoring the good news?' ” So the question is, does each side make a fair point?

[...]

NEIL WESTERGAARD (editor, Denver Business Journal): You know, I think we fret about this too much, about, you know, whether we're biased or we're not. I mean, the fact is that the truth emerges over time. It isn't recognized by everybody -- the facts aren't even recognized as facts by everybody at the same time, and it sort of emerges. There were, there was plenty of criticism of the news media in the run-up to the war, that the New York Times and others had adopted this attitude -- an unchallenging attitude -- about the assertions that were being made by the administration. So it goes back and forth, depending on your perspective.

McAVOY: Well, I completely agree with Neil. It's kind of been a 180-degree change since the beginning of the war in Iraq. The media did not investigate weapons of mass destruction and other things sufficiently to warn the people that this might become a quagmire. And then as it evolved, the media finally caught on to public opinion in the United States, even though we don't have a draft forcing young men to go to -- as they did in Vietnam. It's still become a very unpopular war without any stated, really clear objectives for this country to achieve. So I completely agree that the working press and the working television and radio have done a magnificent job in Iraq.

I do want to mention from a conservative point of view -- I do believe that the opinion makers at the New York Times and The Washington Post have tended to make news judgments based upon ideology. They do prefer the negative story out of Iraq, which is very legitimate, to the more positive story. Other media outlets have covered the more positive story. I believe the New York Times consciously does not.

DOBBS: Tom, I read enough on both sides between the Internet and daily papers to have a pretty good idea. But would you elaborate on what you think the positive side is that at least the major opinion makers in the media are not covering?

McAVOY: Well, it's news judgment. I actually didn't read the New York Times, but I was told by O'Reilly or someone on the media that when the first Medal of Honor winner for service in Afghanistan was named and celebrated, it appeared on the inside of the New York Times. And if he had killed civilians, according to O'Reilly, it would have been on page one. That's just an example.

JOANNE OSTROW [Denver Post columnist]: According to O'Reilly.

McAVOY: News judgment.

WESTERGAARD: The New York Times is not the only voice out there, though. I mean, there are many, many other sources of information.

DOBBS: Well, there are, but it is a major voice, not only because it is "The New York Times" --

WESTERGAARD: I know.

DOBBS: -- or represents the biggest city in America -- but, in fact, New York Times pieces are reprinted in our papers here in Denver, for example, as you well know.

OSTROW: Well, there are so many people deconstructing every New York Times story now, all across the Internet. And, I mean, the voices are bubbling up from the bottom increasingly. I really take that as an optimistic statement.

WESTERGAARD: I think proponents of the war would like the news media to -- it's not a matter of covering positive stories coming out of Iraq. It is, it's dealing with the issues, the stakes of Middle East unrest and whether it was right for, whether it's right for the United States to be there, and legitimizing that particular side of the debate of whether it's right or wrong for the United States. It's not a question of which facts or which positive stories. It's, they want the news media to take a stronger position that this action in the Middle East is the right thing for the county to do.

MICHAEL ROBERTS [Westword columnist]: And O'Reilly consciously takes a different position. He overtly said on his program that he wasn't showing every time a car blew up and there were victims because he felt like that that didn't advance the story. So he's not telling bad news, or some of the bad news on his program.

DOBBS: Well, arguably it does advance the story because it tells people that some things, some awfully bad things, haven't in fact changed. And I would say this, as a newsman for more than 40 years: Whenever somebody criticizes the media because we're out to get somebody, and that's what they're saying about the media and Bush -- and there may be members who are -- but, generally speaking, the theme of my defense is, my general defense of the news media is that we cannot make a politician look stupid, incompetent, corrupt, unfair, or just a total failure without his or her help. Simple as that.