Very fair: Baltimore Sun; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Generally fair, but slightly biased (the first two in the Democratic direction, the rest in the Republican): Milwaukee Journal (bias mainly in front-page cartoons); St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Chicago Sun-Times; Kansas City Star; Cleveland Plain Dealer; New York Herald Tribune; Portland Oregonian; Christian Science Monitor.

Moderately biased (both pro-Republican): New York World-Telegram and Sun; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin (which boasted of its fair political coverage).

Strongly biased (all but the first pro-Republican): New York Post; Buffalo Evening News; Chicago Herald-American; Minneapolis Star (whose publisher professed belief in news "without bias or slant or distortion or suppression"); Boston Post (whose major efforts during the period were the championing of Senator McCarthy and the denunciation of the Boston Public Library for housing Russian literature); Detroit Free Press (which at the end of the period said it was "proud of its long record of unbiased coverage of the news"); Indianapolis Star; Los Angeles Times; New York Daily Mirror; New York Daily News (whose president said a survey of bias would "do more harm than good"); San Francisco Chronicle (which claimed no bias in campaign coverage).

Very heavily biased (all pro-Republican): Boston Daily Record (New England's largest-selling daily); Des Moines Register; St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

Most biased (pro-Republican): New York Journal-American ("No newspaper in this study showed more political favoritism in its news columns").

As regards newspaper chains, the survey yielded the following: the Block chain came off well; the Scripps-Howard rather poorly; the Knight, Pulliam and McCormick badly; the Cowles very badly; and the Hearst worst of all.

Local residents might be interested in the rating of the Boston papers. There were eight major dailies in Boston in 1952. Rowse analyzed three of these in detail, and commented in an early chapter on four others. From this, the order of merit would seem to be: the Christian Science Monitor; the morning and evening Globe; the evening Traveler; the Herald; the Post (now defunct); and lastly the Daily Record.

Rowse concludes his book with remarks on the problems of measuring bias. "The persons best qualified to evaluate newspaper fairness," he says, "are newspapermen themselves; yet they are unwilling to do this." He thinks that the next step is to set up regional panels of newspapermen who would meet periodically and rate each paper's performance.

The whole question is of vital importance and merits prompt action; for it affects every one of us.