Question: The main media state they have a right to report with bias. I say they have a responsibility to report without bias. You can’t trust their report if they report with bias. It also means they aren’t treating their customers equally so we can say they don’t believe in equal rights. You should advise companies that reporting to you should be without bias. — Robert L. Goertzen

Answer: I know of no professional, mainstream media organization that acknowledges it reports with bias or believes that it should. Professional journalists in print and broadcast do their best to bleed their news of personal biases, striving to be fair, balanced and accurate. More than ever, however, some news consumers equate balance with news that reflects their own political biases and sensibilities. With the proliferation of Internet and cable news outlets that flaunt their biases, such consumers have a place to go to affirm their own views. Thus reinforced, they come back to the mainstream press and charge bias. A Sept. 14 Wall Street Journal column covers some of this ground and is worth reading. — Steve Smith, editor

Why so negative about Iraq?

Question: Why do you constantly pick the most negative headline you can about events in Iraq? Have you ever run a big bold headline stating: “Power Restored in Baghdad Suburb?”

Iraq is a semi-lawless place and every day someone is probably going to die. Why do you need to make that your headline almost every day? Why don’t you pick Oakland, Calif., where if you look at the Oakland Tribune.com you can usually find some particularly gruesome murder or gang shooting? For what Iraq has gone through, the level of violence is not really as disturbing as the level of violence in many of our own cities. — Dennis McManus, Mead

Answer: Contrary to your opinion, we don’t intentionally seek to write the most negative headline about events in Iraq. However, we do look for the most important developments in Iraq each day and, unfortunately, the civilian and military casualties often are the dominant story.

I certainly agree that the level of violence in America’s cities is alarming, but I don’t think we should be comparing violence here with the situation in Iraq. The United States has sent thousands of its men and women into a hostile and tense environment, and the military situation there is of extreme importance and interest to our readers. We have hundreds of military personnel from the Washington and Idaho region who are in Iraq, and it’s our duty to report on the dangers and obstacles they face.

Our editors do look for stories from the wire services (Associated Press, Los Angeles Times/Washington Post and Knight-Ridder) that report on the improvements and progress being made in Iraq, but frankly, those stories aren’t showing up very often. We are solely dependent on the wire services for our international coverage, as are most newspapers in this country. — Gary Graham, managing editor

Where are the home sales listings?

Question: I miss the houses that have been sold in the Thursday Voice section. I wrote several letters but did not get any replies. I would like to see these published weekly in the real estate section of Sunday’s paper. I bet you could get someone to sponsor this for you. You make revenue, and we get info. A win-win. — Leonard Riley, Spokane

Answer: We no longer have the staff resources required to collect and hand-enter all of the home-sale listings. The agencies that collect the data and maintain electronic databases have declined to share the electronic records with us. As a result, we stopped printing home-sale records some weeks back. We take occasional calls on the subject, but demand for that information seems to be limited. — Steve Smith, editor