Media Watch Whose Choice

IF YOU harbor even the slightest doubt about media bias, examine the case of the report on school choice issued by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Although a final version of the study will not become available until later this year, its promoters released draft copies and executive summaries to the press on October 26—eight days before the election and just in time to help discredit an issue touted by President Bush, and to defeat a Colorado ballot initiative which would have created the nation’s broadest school choice program.

The New York Times splattered a story on the Carnegie study across its front page (“Research Questions Effectiveness of Most School-Choice Programs”), and the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many other newspapers gave it respectful coverage. Granted, the Carnegie study is by no means solely responsible for what happened in the presidential election or even in Colorado, but the non-critical promotion of this document points to the enormous power of the opponents of school choice.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.

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IF YOU harbor even the slightest doubt about media bias, examine the case of the report on school choice issued by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Although a final version of the study will not become available until later this year, its promoters released draft copies and executive summaries to the press on October 26—eight days before the election and just in time to help discredit an issue touted by President Bush, and to defeat a Colorado ballot initiative which would have created the nation’s broadest school choice program.

The New York Times splattered a story on the Carnegie study across its front page (“Research Questions Effectiveness of Most School-Choice Programs”), and the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many other newspapers gave it respectful coverage. Granted, the Carnegie study is by no means solely responsible for what happened in the presidential election or even in Colorado, but the non-critical promotion of this document points to the enormous power of the opponents of school choice.

About the Author

John J. Miller

John J. Miller, a former national correspondent for National Review, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.