Jacques Steinberg

New York Times media reporter Jacques Steinberg watched the popular ABC morning chat fest "The View" and actually found a liberal slant. His Tuesday Arts section lead story, "'The View' Has Its Eye on Politics This Year," basically contradicts what the paper claimed on September 13, when it said the show was "generally friendly territory for politicians." As a bonus, veteran journalist Barbara Walters claimed that "I don't think anyone knows my political opinions." Really now?

In a reversal from usual media denials of liberal media bias, the Times's Steinberg actually noticed a pro-Obama slant on the part of the show's co-hosts.

Barbara Walters said she left the set of "The View" on Sept. 12 believing that she and her fellow panelists had conducted a fair on-the-couch interview with Senator John McCain, and later in the episode one with him and his wife, Cindy. That was the live conversation in which Whoopi Goldberg asked Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, if she should fear "being returned to slavery" if he won, and Joy Behar complained to him about the untruths she saw in his campaign advertisements.

But soon after it was broadcast, Ms. Walters recalled in an interview at her ABC office on a recent afternoon, she received an e-mail message from Rosie O'Donnell, a former "View" co-host whose on-air monologues were often far left of center.

The front page of Saturday's New York Times Arts section featured Jacques Steinberg's "Fox News Finds Its Rivals Closing In."

The Times clearly adores this theme, and is constantly checking for signs that the reign of right-wing news is over and that CNN and MSNBC, whose liberal leanings are never admitted to in the paper, have overtaken Fox among this or that particular viewer segment. The only problem is, those cable rivals never quite seem to stay ahead of Fox News.

When prime-time cable news ratings for the second quarter of 2008 are officially released next week, they will show that Fox News reclaimed the top spot among viewers in their mid-20s through mid-50s, those of greatest interest to news advertisers, according to estimates from Nielsen Media Research.

During the first three months of the year, by contrast, CNN drew so many viewers on big Democratic primary nights and for several presidential debates that it vaulted over Fox News for the first time in six years.