The Ellen Goodman Line

Our Bozeman Daily Chronicle today ran a column by Ellen Goodman, the timid liberal. I’d link, but the Chronicle is behind a subscription wall (Wulfgar has a great take on this flawed business plan). The piece is not that interesting anyway.

Here’s what bugs me: The Chronicle runs a bi-weekly column by Tammy Hall, a right wing Christian Bush parrot. She an insult to thoughtful readers. They run John Baden, and Pete Geddes, his Tonto. Though intelligent writers, these are free market extremists. They run George Will, an interesting, if predictable, right winger. They occasionally run Kerry White, an insult-hurling motorized recreation freak.

Ellen Goodman is their idea of “balance”. And it’s not just the Chronicle – it’s many newspapers around the country. Right wingers have many avenues to reach print, but leftists are stuck with the mild-mannered Boston liberal.

I can see the thought process: I, the editor, have few qualms about anything that I see from the right, but realize that I must present some posture resembling balance. There are good, hard-hitting writers out there from the other side, like Paul Krugman or Seymour Hersh, Bill Moyers, David Corn or Arianna Huffington, and many others. But Ellen Goodman is good enough – she’s mild, inoffensive and soft-punching. She’ll do. She’ll be my answer when people point out my bias.

Many a right wing editor lives by a creed: Thou shalt run any op-ed from the right, no matter how inane or silly (Tammy Hall), doctrinaire (Baden), or ill-mannered (White). But for the other side, thou shalt not cross the Ellen Goodman line.