Newspapers that get the proportions wrong look like propaganda mills. On Monday of last week, senators John McCain and Russ Feingold held a town hall meeting at Northwestern University. It appeared on page 65, an obituary page. One more death of a worthy citizen and the paper might have found no space to mention the meeting at all. McCain and Feingold hope to put limits on soft money, money contributed not directly to political campaigns but to political parties that support the candidates the donors favor.
Soft money buys political influence, something a media company wants as much as anybody.
The way newspapers that oppose the McCain-Feingold bill skirt the risk of being seen as the dissembling shills of their owners is by reporting responsibly on the legislation they oppose. There was much more reporting in the editorial than there'd been in the news brief, all of it in the service of an argument. We continue to believe that one day a high court review of all the issues involved in campaign finance controls will come down on the side of protecting speech.