Favorite Newspaper (Is it Biased?)

[Virginian87]

After noticing all the topics on media bias, I figured we must all have a newspaper we consider most reliable in news coverage without declining too far into politics.

I regularly read the Washington Post, and honestly (despite some claims to the contrary) I have never found it to be liberally biased.  Its news coverage is fairly neutral, I would say, especially when you consider that the competition, the Washington Times is a right-wing rag.  The op-ed pages are slightly tilted towards the liberal side, but they usually have a good dose of conservative writers as well such as George Will and Charles Krauthammer.  I find the Post to be a better paper on the whole than the New York Times as well.

I also read on occasion the Wall Street Journal and the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  The Journal is quite possibly the best paper in the country, and certainly the best for financial news.  While there is a definite rightward slant in its opinion pages, it is more fiscally conservative than socially conservative. 

The Times-Dispatch is the leading paper of Virginia, and its coverage of politics in the Commonwealth is second to none.  Its news coverage tends to be neutral, and its op-ed page tends to be more conservative (the paper initially supported the Iraq war as well as a flat income tax).  Their columnists are generally conservative (but not extreme), and they do feature such liberal columnists as Paul Krugman and Molly Ivins.

[Virginian87]

But I would say my favourite newspaper, because it tends to not be biased, is The Times.

Is it really unbiased?  I thought Rupert Murdoch owned that paper.

[Virginian87]

WSJ and Potomac News.  The Journal is bipolar . . . every now and then flipping between being left and right slanted.  The Potomac News is fairly balanced, focusing more on the local news than any ideology.

I live in your area and I've never heard of Potomac News.  Is that the Manassas paper or just the paper for Prince William County?

[Virginian87]

Out of all the local papers, I tend to enjoy the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the most. It leans liberal, but on occasion commentary has been conservative, and more often libertarian.

Question: Did the Post-Gazette ever endorse Rick Santorum for the Senate?

[Virginian87]

I'm in Roanoke, Va. for the long weekend, and although this is considered to be a conservative area, I've found the Roanoke Times to take a surprisingly liberal position on some of its editorials.  On Saturday, it issued a call to vote anti-tax Republicans who oppose Gov. Kaine's plans for increased educational and transportation funding out of the House of Delegates next year if they continue to be bent on giving the governor a black eye instead of focusing on Virginians' needs.