A study by professor Andrea B. Nikischer of Buffalo State concluded that the education coverage of the city’s only daily newspaper is biased in favor of charter schools and against public schools.
“The study demonstrates that two distinct stories are being told: The first gives readers an uncritical look at charter schools, promoting them as the answer to the perceived failure of the city’s so-called failing public schools, while the second gives an overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Buffalo Public Schools, along with their teachers and union.
“As Buffalo has only one traditional newspaper, and virtually no other mainstream media sources in the county provide detailed coverage of the Buffalo Public Schools or school reform, the power of articles published on these issues is immense,” notes Dr. Nikischer, an assistant professor at Buff State’s Adult Education Department.
“Public school supporters have been critical of the News’s coverage, which has, they believe, unfairly and loudly echoed the agenda of Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Buffalo Board of Education majority, and the nationwide school privatization and high-stake testing movements. Now, for the first time, they can point to a qualitative study to back these claims.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Same could be said about the Seattle Times. They detest public education, teachers, unions, and poor people. They have pushed charter schools for years. Since the demise of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, the Times pretty much controls the narrative.
Chicago is the same.
Here’s an article about the new N.Y. State Ed Commissioner MaryEllen Elia’s appearance in Buffalo.
http://www.buffalonews.com/feed/education-commissioner-to-buffalo-fix-your-schools-or-i-will-20150719
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THE BUFFALO NEWS:
“ ‘That someone’s going to come in here and wave a magic wand, and all of these kids who have severe problems will start doing well, that’s just not going to happen,’ Buffalo Teachers Federation President Philip Rumore said.
“Elia disagrees.
“ ‘It’s important for you to understand there will be consequences if you can’t move those schools forward,’ she said. ‘It’s handing you a tool and giving you an option to use it. If you don’t use it, I will.’ ”
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Exactly what is this “tool” to which Commissioner Elia refers?
Will this “tool” be able to reverse or correct the conditions described in the following post from “Perdido Street Schools” blog, beneath an article covering Elia’s appearance in Buffalo?
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/07/nysed-commissioner-maryellen-elia-shows.html
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“AnonymousJuly 20, 2015 at 7:07 PM
“I taught for three years in the Hempstead UFSD, at Hempstead High School specifically, one of the schools that have been ‘identified’ as a persistently struggling school.
“The school had a student population of approximately 65% African-American and 35% Latin-American. As a teacher of Spanish-speaking students, a majority of them were recent arrivals from El Salvador and Honduras. When I refer to them as recent arrivals, the time period includes students in the US from as little to just arriving to less than one year in New York.
“Both the black and Latino populations suffered extensively fro severe economic hardships. As a teacher of Latino students, I recall many of them were wonderful children, but the experiences that they had endured, both before coming to the US and then magnified after living in New York, created barriers that children should never have to experience.
“One student would shamefully glance at the floor when homework would be collected. He confided in me that he worked in a restaurant after school and didn’t get home until midnight. He did this to help his family pay bills. This student told me he wanted to do the homework but couldn’t because he was too tired and could not keep his eyes open that late at night.
“Another student used to look into classrooms during holiday season. When I asked her what she was doing, she told me she wanted to see if there was food because she was hungry.
“The high levels of unemployment, divorce rates, and crime in the area were heartbreaking, and I experienced this for the short time I was there.
“Ms Elia…what you fail to understand…what the reformsters want from you, is a punishment to be inflicted on a school that cannot defend itself. This policy is akin to walking over to a person who is handicapped and demanding that they walk, and when they say they can’t, the person making the demand beats them, hoping to get the desired effect, while knowing in the back of their mind that it will not happen under current circumstances.
“Ms. Elia…many of the teachers at Hempstead, both of the black and Latino students, were wonderful educators, warm and caring, using their expertise to change lives for the better.
“If you truly want to deal with the ‘struggling school syndrome’, it is time to break from the Cuomo Party Line…visit the schools, walk through the neighborhoods, talk with the students.
“I am most certain you will not, because the truth is not what you are looking for. You are helping your masters to profit off the backs of our neediest…as the blame is shifted against professional educators. What is even worse, is that the group identified here as the neediest is made up of children.
“Ms Elia…will you be a voice for them, or the people who are banking their success off the ‘manufactured’ failures of children?”
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Again the above post from “Anonymous” is in the COMMENTS section at:
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/07/nysed-commissioner-maryellen-elia-shows.html
Apparently, the “tool” of “receivership”—and it’s only Commissioner Elia who can wield it—is to turn over “failing schools” to management by privately-controlled, Wall Street-connected charter organizations, the same ones that bankrolled Governor Cuomo’s slim election victory last November—and boy, is Mario’s kid and Meryl Tish hell-bent on pleasing their corporate masters, and also on taking revenge on those who opposed Cuomo in the election, including… yes… the teachers unions.
That means that hundreds of millions of New York state tax dollars and assets—i.e. school campuses built by the public sector, annual school budgets in perpetuity, etc. will then be put under the control of the private sector originating on Wall Street. In legal and practical terms, the citizen-taxpayers—whose money and assets these Wall Street-connected operators will now control—will have no mechanism for holding private management accountable for anything it does, or for demanding transparency to the public over how these private operators run its school…
— over how salaries are set, ($500,000-plus for Eva Moskowitz)
— over whom they hire, (uncredentialed, poorly trained non-teachers… non-union who can them be fired at will, and regularly replaced every two years or so)
and
— over which students in the public they deign to educate—as these private sector managers can refuse to serve and/or kick out any students it finds too expense or too troublesome to teach—i.e. Special Ed. kids, homeless, foster care, bad behavior kids, etc.
In short, some good things are coming to New York state schools!
Same could be said for the Star Ledger’s coverage of Newark.
It seems to me the biased anti-public school news reporting by major media is the norm. We all know what happened to Michael Winerip with his unbiased educational reporting in the NYTimes. I dare say the wealthy owners of newspapers have a financial interest in supporting charter schools. I believe the Washington Post, currently owned by Bezos of Amazon, made most of its profits from ownership of Kaplan Schools and Bezos is a big supporter of charter schools.
You can the Indianapolis Star to this list.
Excellent! I live in Western New York and am on the BoE of a suburban public school. Five years ago the Buffalo News would print articles I submitted…a new editor came on board and it has been pro-charter and anti- public school ever since. Glad to see we have a study to point to now!
Same is true of Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Add the San Diego Union Tribune (aka anti-union Tribune) and Voice of San Diego to this list.
Add the Post and Courier of Charleston, SC
Add national news citing self anointed educational experts with no credentials.the most common sources of news from non-experts are the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Heritage and Cato. That factoid comes from a 2015 study published in Educational Researcher. Then add the messaging campaigns paid for by Bill Gates and fellow travelers. Then add the role of Fox News in shaping not just the news but the opportunity for Presidential candidates to participate in debates.
The good news is that social media are serving as sources of information for local and national news. In Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer is picking up on the social media calls for Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Ross to resign for misconduct. That news report is picked up and recycled by the less than attentive news seekers at the Cincinnati Enquirer. What we do not see in local newspaper coverage is the corruption in charter schools. There is more information about big corruption in Ohio charter schools in the social media than the local newspaper. Media ownership and bias related to that is national problem.
Laura,
You forgot to mention the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a major media source.