The next time you encounter a learned discussion of ‘the liberal media’ — which usually features stalwart denials of political bias, combined with pious invocations of professional standards — consider the life and career of James Wieghart, who died this week at the age of 76. Mr Wieghart’s tenure in journalism was, by any measure, successful, star-studded–and emblematic of the problem of bias in American journalism.

He began at a distinguished provincial newspaper (the Milwaukee Journal) and ended as chairman of the journalism department at a provincial university (Central Michigan). But his ports of call between those two signposts are characteristic of the breed. He went from the Milwaukee newspapers to Washington, D.C.–and the staffs of two Democratic legislators, Senator William Proxmire and Representative Henry Reuss. From the Democratic side of Congress he then joined the Washington bureau of the New York Daily News, becoming bureau chief and, ultimately, executive editor in New York. When the News was acquired by Mortimer Zuckerman, Wieghart moved back to Washington and over to the Scripps Howard News Service, where he wrote a column.