The Associated Press prizes objective reporting of the news so highly that at times its spare, fact-packed stories are downright dull to read. Thus it was something of a surprise to 500 newsmen gathered in Atlanta last week for the annual A.P. managing editors' meeting to hear the A.P. accused not only of bias but of left-wing bias at that.
A.P.'s critic was Charles Hazen of the Shreveport (La.) Times, who cited 58 stories, many of which dealt with the Red-hunting activities of Wisconsin's Senator Joe McCarthy.
Hazen suggested that the bias which he found in the dispatches stemmed from A.P. reporters who...