Evolution
Intelligent Design
News Media
Bias Front and Center at Houston Chronicle
Finding bias in MSM newspapers like the Houston Chronicle is like finding design in nature, not at all hard to do. Sunday, The Chronicle decided to publish Michael Behe’s op-ed that appeared last week in The New York Times.
The headline the Chronicle perched atop Behe’s column nicely illustrates the petty biases of the paper’s editorial board: “Intelligent design: Creation explained or quackery?”
This didn’t surprise me. Two years ago in the midst of the Texas controversy over error-ridden biology textbooks a Chronicle editorial board member sent us one of the tackiest letters we’ve received from the media. We approached the Chronicle and asked them to meet with us to talk about textbooks and challenges to Darwinian evolution — much as other major Texas papers like the Dallas Morning News — did at the time. The editor responded:
“Surely you will admit that the battle in Austin is not between the Houston Chronicle and the Discovery Institute, but between those who believe the species on Earth today are descended from species now extinct and those who do not share this belief. … The Chronicle Editorial Board will not be neutral as between biologists and members of the modern no-nothing party who have no regard for reason, intellect or even basic honesty.
Yours sincerely,
James Gibbons”
Obviously, bias is a matter of policy at the Chronicle.