While reading this report on the Valerie Plame leak investigation, I noticed this sentence:

The case dates back to July 2003, when a conservative commentator with close ties to the Republican party, Robert Novak, published Plame’s name.

The presumably objective (and therefore unbiased) reporter notes that Robert Novak is “a conservative commentator with close ties to the Republican party.” Both of those statements are undoubtedly true, and therefore there’s nothing wrong with reporting them.

Still, it made me strain to remember the last time I read similar reporting applied to the other side. I can’t ever remember reading a mainstream press report that referred to any particular journalist as “a liberal commentator with close ties to the Democratic party.”

George Stephanopoulos, the former Clinton spinmeister, now hosts ABC’s flagship This Week, sitting in the same chair that the stately David Brinkley once occupied. And Meet The Press, the titan of Sunday morning news, is hosted by Tim Russert, a former aide to liberal New York Democrat and former Governor Mario Cuomo. Yet when the names Stephanopoulos or Russert pop up in reporting, somehow they’re never labeled as what they are the way Novak is.

It’s not evidence of bias to say that Robert Novak is a conservative with Republican ties, because that information is accurate. But if the exact same descriptive data is withheld when covering liberal journalists, then bias is apparent in the omission of that information.

Labeling Novak, however true the label might be, seems like an attempt to question his journalistic integrity. But if it’s fair to ask whether Novak’s political ties affect his work, shouldn’t we ask that of all reporters, liberals included?

Pay attention to when descriptive labels are used in media reporting. You’ll discover a subtle way in which reporters insert their personal perspectives into their work.