Harris: Rodricks’ unfair attacks on me reveal bias

For more than a century, The Baltimore Sun promised Maryland readers to “deliver the truth every day” and to publish stories “written without bias” so readers can make informed decisions about important episodes and events in our community. Sadly, for many years, opinion pieces written by Dan Rodricks have not “delivered the truth” and, in fact, have been written with extreme bias. With his frequent partisan rants, his columns call into question the veracity of your mission statement.

To highlight just one of many examples, the column Dan Rodricks recently published criticized the public event my office held examining the effects of offshore wind industrialization on our economy and our marine environment, and he even went so far as to label it

“too much negativity” (“Dan Rodricks: What’s with the negative current running through our electric future?” Jan. 20).

His column excluded the fact that my office invited not one but three proponents of offshore wind, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and U.S. Wind to provide testimony at the event. If his columns weren’t so one-sided, he could have informed Sun readers that the foreign-owned offshore wind company refused to make an appearance at the public event to explain to skeptical Maryland residents why they shouldn’t be concerned with offshore wind companies industrializing their coast.

Based on my count, Rodricks has written more than 49 columns in recent years specifically about or negatively mentioning Maryland’s only Republican member of Congress. He has also posted on social media derogatory claims directed at me or the office I hold more than 80 times. Rodricks isn’t a columnist — he’s a leftwing partisan.

If The Baltimore Sun is truly concerned with restoring its journalistic reputation and is willing to restore the paper to one that is truly “without bias,” perhaps you might start by dealing with the blatant bias of Rodricks — or perhaps balance things by hiring a partisan Republican columnist to become equally obsessed with U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen or other Democrats in Maryland’s delegation to Congress.

The Sun has proud history in Maryland. I hope it returns to that reputation with its new ownership.