The Media Research Center’s Clay Waters has a weird fixation on stories about conservatives that label conservatives as conservatives. He’s at it again in a Dec. 4 NewsBusters post:
The New York Times’ labeling bias isn’t just aimed at U.S. conservatives; the Times’ global reach and bias extends overseas, as demonstrated in Wednesday’s edition, crammed with dangerous and unpleasant right-wingers in Europe, Asia, and of course Israel, both among politicians and the media (who knew the “right-wing media” were so powerful?).
The headline to a front-page story by Martin Fackler on a controversy over Japanese “comfort women” from World War II read: “Rewriting War, Japanese Right Goes on Attack.” “Ultranationalist” was an apparently insufficient label for the bad guys in the story; Fackler eagerly identified them as “conservative” and “right-wing” at every junction.
Waters doesn’t explain why accurately labeling conservatives as conservatives is “labeling bias,” let alone why it’s not truthful to apply the label. Most people not obsessed with finding bias where none actually exists would call that factual reporting.