La Voz

Issue date: 12/4/06 Section: Opinion

Sam Karimzadeh

(Editor's note: Due to conflict of interest concerns, Sam Karimzadeh's article has been published unedited.)


Since fall, La Voz has made a sharp right turn: criticizing Islam, almost publishing anti abortion propaganda (and then complaining about liberal media bias when it is stopped), antagonizing liberals and bemoaning the 2006 democratic congressional takeover, La Voz has gone for the first 8 weeks completely unabated and unchallenged by any on the La Voz staff.

Only outside opinions have challenged the overwhelmingly conservative opinions offered by La Voz.

As of the Thanksgiving break, not once this quarter has any La Voz staffer criticized the Bush Administration or challenged any conservative position.

This shows an overwhelming conservative bias. As a bellwether, I asked Sealana what he had to say about media balance.

"A lot of people think that Fox News is biased… I don't know if I would agree with that, but I could see where they are coming from."

Coming from stock like that, it is clear to see why this La Voz's fall editorial page has been shaped the way it is.

Sealana also said that he "[doesn't] like to write editorials;" however, this is quite quizzical, as he had written one of the more perceivably offensive editorials, and stuck it on the front page.

"The only true unbiased people in media are those guys on the street in Berkeley handing out the free papers because they have no corporate sponsorship."

However, those are indeed among the most biased - in fact among the pack of street papers, Revolution Books' paper is clearly a partisan Communist paper. It seems as though Sealana's idea of balance revolves around sponsorship rather then content - and the examples he sites are indeed the most unapologetically biased.

Sealana also indicated that he and Schulte were the only outspoken conservatives on staff, and that shyness of newer liberal staffers was to blame.

I asked Sealana specifically about La Voz's alleged bias. "I have this kind of half way joke here… we're fair, but not balanced."

It seems to be a microcosm of the media as a whole - the media crying out about a liberal bias all the while pushing their conservative agenda, or in the best case scenario, cowed by the threat of being called liberal from doing real journalism.


Sam Karimzadeh is a La Voz freelancer and a De Anza Associated Student Body senator.



Dan Sealana
Editor-in-Chief

It's clear that De Anza Associated Student Body Senator Sam Karimzadeh has spent a lot of time reading and criticizing La Voz. He's declared to the world that this newspaper has a "conservative bias" and brought his revelation straight to La Voz's readers.

Readers shouldn't let the fact that Karimzadeh is a La Voz freelancer mislead them. Besides coming in to complain, he has not spent any significant time in the La Voz office learning how a newspaper works or getting to know individual staff members.

If he had bothered to take the time to learn how La Voz and most other newspapers are run, he'd realize that opinion writers speak for themselves - not the newspaper. He would have learned that the La Voz staff, much like the rest of the De Anza College population, is made up of people with diverse political ideologies.

Apparently, he's never noticed the disclaimer printed in the staff box of every issue stating, "Opinions expressed by staff and contributors are the opinions of the individuals and not necessarily the opinion of La Voz." To further emphasize that opinion writers speak for themselves only, La Voz places a photo of the writer above each opinion article.

Instead of critiquing individual La Voz opinion writers and their arguments, Karimzadeh, blames the entire newspaper.

In his article, Karimzadeh chastises La Voz for "criticizing Islam, almost publishing anti-abortion propaganda (and then complaining about liberal media bias when it is stopped), antagonizing liberals and bemoaning the 2006 Democratic congressional takeover."

La Voz never criticized Islam. But one of our opinion writers, James Schulte, did criticize radical Islam is his Sept. 25 opinion piece, "Muslims, media distort pope's true intentions." Like all opinion writers, Schulte was speaking for himself and not the newspaper.


"Almost" a good argument

It's strange that Karimzadeh uses an incident where La Voz "almost" published an anti-abortion ad to further reinforce his theory that La Voz has a conservative bias. At the beginning of the quarter, an anti-abortion group approached La Voz about placing a 12-page advertisement in the newspaper. The editorial board ultimately rejected the ad.

But, in Karimzadeh's logic, the mere fact that the editorial board even considered the idea and took the time to come to a thought-out decision is proof of our "overwhelmingly conservative" bias. Some readers would disagree - especially those who labeled us liberals for not allowing the ad.

Again, Karimzadeh's misunderstanding of La Voz makes this newspaper seem schizophrenic. La Voz didn't reject the anti-abortion ad and then turn around and complain to itself, as he implies in his article. An editorial titled, "Editors refuse controversial anti-abortion ad" appeared in the Oct. 9 issue of La Voz.

Underneath it was an opinion article by James Schulte criticizing the decision entitled, "La Voz censorship of abortion ad shows bias." It's laughable that Karimzadeh cites an incident were two opposing political opinions appeared on the same page as proof of La Voz's one-sided bias.

Last month, after the mid-term elections, James Schulte (not La Voz) said he was upset that Democrats took the election. Again, he spoke for himself and not the entire staff of La Voz.

Although he makes the claim, Karimzadeh also fails to explain just how this newspaper went about "antagonizing liberals."

His article also leaves the reader unsure of who Karimzadeh feels is responsible for La Voz's supposed bias. It's unclear whether he thinks I, in my position as Editor-in-Chief, force a conservative bias into the newspaper or if my entire staff are willing accomplices.

Karimzadeh shows further ignorance of newspaper production by complaining about La Voz's conservative "editorials." If Karimzadeh had bothered to read the La Voz handbook - a requirement for joining the Freelance class - he would know the difference between an editorial and a regular opinion article.

An editorial is an unsigned opinion article that reflects the majority view of the editorial board. Here at La Voz, we conspicuously write the word "editorial" next to our editorial. Even then, the editorial speaks only for the editors, not the entire La Voz newspaper staff.


The Fox News litmus test

Karimzadeh seems disturbed by my moderate response to his question about Fox News' bias. I told him during our interview that I don't completely agree with people who say that Fox News has a conservative bias, but I can understand where people who think that are coming from.

Apparently, anything short of my complete condemnation of Fox News as a far-right propaganda machine for the Bush administration is proof of conservative bias at La Voz.

Karimzadeh also took my quote about free Berkeley newspapers being "unbiased" out of context. My point was that free newspapers - those who don't have to worry about keeping subscribers and corporate sponsors happy - are the only ones that are free say whatever they want without the fear of reprisal.


What not to do

My only regret after being interviewed by Karimzadeh for his article was that I didn't have a tape rolling myself. The interview could have been used as an important learning tool for future La Voz staff.

Karimzadeh's hostile and sarcastic attitude towards his interviewee and his loaded questions could have been used as examples of a poor, unprofessional interview. Even worse, Karimzadeh misquoted me, took other quotes out of context and removed completely all my statements that refuted his La Voz "bias" premise.

I clearly stated that my only expectation for future La Voz staffers is that they're "good, hard-working" people and that I'm not concerned with their political leanings. That part of the interview was curiously omitted. Also left out of Karimzadeh's article was my statement that if, next quarter, all of La Voz's opinion writers were liberals, it wouldn't make a difference to me. But I guess that didn't fit with Karimzadeh's conspiracy theories.


"Fair, but unbalanced"

Karimzadeh includes the Fox News slogan-inspired joke I often tell about La Voz - that we're "fair, but not balanced," - but fails to include my explanation. I told him that La Voz is fair because we're willing to print opinions from all types of political perspectives. I said we are unbalanced simply because we don't have a 1:1 ratio of liberal to conservative voices in the newspaper. By that definition, most newspapers in the United States are unbalanced - not just La Voz.


Where is the "voice" of "La Voz?"

I also wonder why Karimzadeh didn't bother to interview or quote any other La Voz staff members besides me.
He might have wanted to interview Sports Editor Kayla Hilton, who, next to me, has been on the staff longer than anyone. Hilton, unlike the newer members of the staff, has the unique perspective of having worked under me as well as the previous Editor-in-Chief. Finding even one La Voz staff member to collaborate Karimzadeh's conservative bias theory could have helped his argument.

Furthermore, Karimzadeh offers no solutions on how to counteract La Voz's supposed conservative bias. His article's sole purpose, it seems, is to use the newspaper he dislikes so much as a soapbox to complain.


Common ground

Ironically, I can relate to Karimzadeh's frustration with La Voz. The only difference is that, when I joined the staff in 2004, I felt the newspaper was overwhelmingly liberal and didn't reflect the voices of people like me.

But, unlike Karimzadeh, I joined the staff of La Voz with an open mind hoping to make the newspaper better, not tear it down. I soon realized that the slant of the opinion pages was based on who was willing to write and not some organized effort by the newspaper to push a political agenda.

Luckily, unlike Karimzadeh, I learned that La Voz's malicious political "bias" was a figment of my imagination early on and avoided embarrassing myself in print.

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