Media Matters for America, the group that is supposedly “dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media” has come out with a study documenting how conservatives have the advantage in newspaper op/ed columns.

They run research such as: The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives and in three out of the four broad regions of the country -- the West, the South, and the Midwest -- conservative syndicated columnists reach more readers than progressive syndicated columnists…

Op/ed columns in newspapers seem to have taken to America’s free market of ideas. It’s the demand. Like talk radio, conservatives dominate. Like Fox News (which liberals hate), ratings soar because that’s what the people want. Conservative George Will, in fact, is the number one and most run columnist around the country. It seems like Media Matters did a lot of – basically pointless – research just to whine that “progressives” aren't getting their fair share.

Newspapers, in general, report news with a liberal bias. This point has been dug into the ground but it’s true. It’s not that they start out the day with an intention of promoting liberal slants but journalists are overwhelmingly Democrat or liberal. Generally, they are also politically passionate in their personal lives. It’s practically impossible to eliminate this from reporting. That being said, perhaps the percentage of conservative columnists balances out the percentage of liberal news slants to make the papers a little more balanced all over. Ahh, that’s just a theory. But I say, let the people decide.

In their executive summary, MM writes “Syndicated newspaper columnists have a unique ability to influence public opinion and the national debate.” At least with columnists, partisan influence is loud and proud. With the liberal media in general, straight news comes from those who would say they are neutral in their reporting. This is so often not the case. Of course, that's why I work for an openly conservative news medium. Now there's an idea for the rest of the news world...