Editorials and bias

From the editorials, you can also get a sense of the publication's overall bias: after all, no publication is completely free from bias; even its news reports will be somewhat influenced by the editors' philosophy. Responsible editors, however, don't allow their bias to prevent them from carefully considering opposing viewpoints. They make sure that there is no conflict of interest influencing their editorials. For example, let's say a newspaper's editor just arranged to have her book published by a major publishing company. That company gets in trouble with the law, and the writer writes an editorial saying that the company should be absolved of all charges: that's a serious conflict of interest!