September 23, 2003

Hey Stephen, seen the Harvard report which logged editorials which praised/bashed the last two administrations? It was weird: it showed that your beloved New York Times and Washinton Post were more likely to print "counter" editorials than were the Washington Times and the New York Post...

Yup, it noted that the NYTimes and WaPo ran more editorials counter to its presumed bias than the Washington Times and the New York Post did. FAR more.

Of course, people would never learn that reading Horsefeathers!

Posted by: Frank on September 23, 2003 11:43 AM

Uh, Frank, that's the "Michael Tomasky" report, not the "Harvard" report. Al Franken also wrote his book while he was a Shorenstein fellow at Harvard.

Posted by: Stephen on September 23, 2003 01:51 PM

You're correct, Stephen, I mislabeled it. The report's conclusions remain, however.

Posted by: Frank on September 23, 2003 02:31 PM

"....the New York Times and Washinton Post were more likely to print "counter" editorials than were the Washington Times and the New York Post."

This just proves that the New York Times still has remnants of its former "all the news that's fit to print glory". The Post has always been a newspaper with a right of center bias supposedly not even in the category of the "great" paper of record the NYT the fact that the defenders of the NYT even compare the NYT to the Post is evidence as to how far gone the NYT is. I am glad to know that the NYT is not as far gone as the big liberal WAPO but of course WAPO has to compete with the Washington Times and growing opposition "committees of correspondence" (BLOGS) on the Internet. Step by step the NYT and others are losing their importance and their monopoly just as the Network news has lost its monopoly. More people trust cable news, the internet, and their local radio hosts than the NYT. But as O'Reilly has mentioned the NYT is extremely influential yet because most small to medium newspapers rely in the NYT for international or national news.

Besides the ENTIRE NYT is BIASED and "editorializes" so the so called balance of the odd conservative or non-liberal orthodox viewpoint of the Op-ed page is hardly relevant. Between my father and me we have read the NYT regularly since my family became naturalized citizens in 1936 -a period of over 67 years- and we have the clippings to prove it! The NYT of 1944, 1954 , 1964 and 1967 is not the NYT of today by any means, shape or form.

The turning point of course was the probably the 1968 Tet offensive, the mid-sixties so-called Free Speech movement and the advent of Affirmative Action which has pushed so many colleges and quasi-public quasi-governmental institutions to the left. My company commander, who did two tours of duty MOS combat infantry officer in the United States Marine Corps, was deeply disturbed by the anti-war, anti-military and particularly anti-Marine bias of the New York Times which is evident by the fact that the NYT no longer capitalizes the word Marine today as it did in 1964, 1954 and 1944 but denigrates the Corps constantly with sniping articles and the constant disrespect that seems to have its origin in GRAMNA and Latin American journalists such as Garica Marquez who refused to use the term "Marines" but instead used the lower case "marines" and "infanteria de marina".

Today we can add anti-Israeli bias.

The classic example of how far the NYT has fallen by the corroding influence of Affirmative Action is the Jayson Blair-Howell Raines Affair.

Thomas Sowell has written:
"The New York Times' famous motto -- "All the News That's Fit to Print" -- has been dishonored by the revelation that one of its own reporters has been printing stuff that he made up or stole from other publications."
***
" More than a year ago, one of the Times's own editors wrote a memo that said plainly: "We have got to stop Jayson from writing for the Times. Right Now." Instead, Blair was promoted to national news coverage.
New York Times managing editor Howell Raines has been quoted as having boasted in 2001 about Jayson Blair as an example of the Times' commitment to "diversity" -- because Jayson Blair is black. White reporters do not get promoted for doing what Blair did."

The Blair case is the most egregious example but there are countless other examples of the bias and steady creep towards the Establishment Left.

It's not for nothing people call the Liberal Elite of the NYT the Liberal Inquisition. One crosses them at one's own risk. Ask the Borks and the Estradas of this world great and small if they think the liberal elite is "fair-minded", "honest" and "even-handed". Affirmative Action is not even an issue for the well-connected elite who like the Irish Protestant Ascenency of another age who were indifferent to the Test Acts which disenfranchised and excluded non-Anglicans such as dissenters, Catholic and Jews. But heartland America remains sick at heart for the "diversity" scandals of Muslim Chaplain Capt Yee, of whom the US Army, under President Clinton, was proud. Today we learn (AP News) "An Air Force airman who worked as a translator at the U.S. prison camp for suspected terrorists has been charged with espionage and aiding the enemy"...-Halabi worked as an Arabic language translator at the prison camp for al-Qaida and Taliban suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Shavers said. The Air Force enlisted man knew the Muslim chaplain at the prison arrested earlier this month, but it's unclear if the two arrests are linked, Shavers said."

"Diversity" at any price has pushed so many government institutions and colleges and quasi-public quasi-governmental institutions to the left and probably undermined their effectiveness. But above all "diversity" (really positive discrimination) is a breach of the time honored American principal of equality before the law and judging a person by his or her individual merit rather than "class, gender or preferred racial category." The Constitution prohibits hereditary titles of noblity (with hereditary privileges, preferences and rights) but to many liberals of today the Constitution and our traditions equal justice mean very little. Unfortunately for the liberal elite of the "New Left (Social) Democrat" party, their edifice of arrogance, privilege and power- like the Protestant Ascedancy of old- is eroding before a populist revolt which will continually say NO to bilingual education (Prop 227), Affirmative Action Preferences (prop 209), the 9th Circuit Court and business as usual demagogues like our own Prince of Darkness Gray Davis. Justice and courage is worth ten thousand men and before the PC crowd corrects me show me ten thousand men and there are plenty of wives, sisters, mothers and aunts who will vote just like them and their sons and brothers. And when election time comes we will never, never, never, forget the people who opposed our opportunity and our equal justice and our social advancement and the opportunity of our sons, our brothers our grandsons and our cousins. All Americans are equal but some of course have been made more equal than others. The NYT should be forced to accept new quotas, quotas that include veterans, Catholics, Cajuns, Cape Fear Highlanders, ultra minorities not yet recognized by the government, entrepreneurs, Born Again Christians -yes a few know how to read and write-. These can be enforced by the people with a constituional amendment but I have a better plan.

The people can vote with their feet and pocketbooks.

One day the NYT like the Herald Tribune may bite the dust and close its doors.

I have cancelled my NYT subscribtion because I have more than enough to read. The Internet is long and wide and life is too short. The NYT one day will just be a brand name like the Herald Tribune or JEEP. On the bottom of the bird cage. All the poop thats fit to for ole Snoop.

"O heartland, forget the past, and think of the day that's coming fast, when you shall be liberal, neat and clean and well-advised oh won't Mother Times be surprised......!"

Poor FDR...all his work is being undone. How long can the Democrat party self-destruct? As long as the are beset with the quota cancer of special interests.

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/May/05162003/commenta/57250.asp

Posted by: Ricardo Munro on September 23, 2003 11:31 PM

Ricardo, I don't know what you're reading these days, but if you read Tomasky's report it would have been clear to you that the editorial pages of the Washington Times and the New York Post are far less openminded than is the case with the New York Times and Washington Post. THAT is the point of the report: if you want to discount it by attributing it to "remnants," then in a sense you're saying the conservative alternatives NEVER had any unbiased heritage.

Everyone owes it to themselves to read a variety of sources, whether or not they think they'll like what they read. Me, for instance, I was just at Foxnews.com reading the front page links to coverage on Bush's UN speech. Uh, both of them. Check that — they don't have any. Good Ted Kennedy bashing, though. Great quote from Sen. Santorum: "Sometimes members of Congress with very narrow, parochial vision ... don't necessarily do what's best for the world." (Santorum is of course especially informed about narrow parochial visions.)

Posted by: Frank on September 24, 2003 09:19 AM

I read Tomasky's report. He claimed (based on editorial pages only) that the NYT and WAPO are still open minded as compared to the Washington Times and the WSJ. I thought his premise very doubtful. Oh the NYT is fair because -according to him- the NYT is only against Bush 67% of the time. Well Bush is not the ultimate litmus test. What about its views of Mel Gibson, the Marines, education reform, liberal colleges etc.
I liked his term Bush II (totally unbiased, yes?!). He claimed that only the conservative WSJ used disrepectful terms; he implied that the NYT was above all that. Apparently he never read any of Dowd's OP- editorials about Bush and Clarence Thomas or beyond the editorial page. How about the coverage of the Iraq war? The Vietnam like quagmire? The overextended supply lines? How about the unfair smear that Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite because he is crafting a film about the passion of Christ from an authentically religious perspective?

***Gibson's Aide Exposes New York Times' Frank Rich

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

Left-wing columnist Frank Rich's bizarre attack on Mel Gibson's "The Passion" was even more ignorant than previously known.

Not only has Rich never seen the movie, he also is continuing the New York Times' recently exposed tradition of publishing fiction.

Rich had falsely claimed that Gibson's highly regarded publicist Alan Nierob used "p.r. spin to defend a Holocaust denier."

Since earlier this year, the Times has continually tried to suggest and imply that Gibson was a Holocaust denier. Frank's column was just one more distortion.

The Times doesn't seem to be interested in reporting that Gibson has never made such claims. In fact, Gibson not only believes the Holocaust took place, he also knows people who survived the death camps.

"This is another perfect example of shoddy journalism and distorting the facts at the New York Times," Nierob is quoted as saying in today's Page Six section of the New York Post. ***

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2003/8/8/111056

(MUNRO)

And the point I made was that BEYOND THE EDITORIAL PAGE the bias was most evident.

Also his comparisons to the Washington Times as being as influential as the NYT and WAPO are ludicrus.

I really don't know the Washington Times that well but I know something of its history. It is not as well-known or influential as the WAPO-NYT-INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE liberal octopus. Even if one does not buy the NYT any more one cannot get away from their dominance in local and medium market papers. In Europe this summer I read the IHT daily.

( I read the WSJ fairly regularly) but to me fair minded conservative/moderate venues are the ECONOMIST or FIRST THINGS.

I am not a big fan of the National Review -which seems too conservative for me nor of REASON magazine which is too libertarian.

I used to read Newsweek and US NEWS and World Report regularly but only from time to time for some of the authors I like like John Leo or George Will. Will for example is, I think, more conservative and libertarian-leaning than I but he is well-read and well-informed. By comparison many of the writers at the NYT seem childish and bigoted in their prejudices (Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd for example have no class compared to Scotty Reston for example)

The NYT has fallen greatly since its glory days. "It is not ALL the NEWS that's fit to print." Perhaps it will rally but frankly I doubt it.

If FDR were alive today and he said "Tell THAT to the Marines" and found the NYT felt compelled to put Marines in small case to be PC he would be disgusted as would Truman and Eisenhower and JFK and probably LBJ as well.

Posted by: Ricardo Munro on September 26, 2003 12:05 AM

I almost forget my "favorite" NYT liberal Mavin...the GREAT AND WONDERFUL WIZARD OF MIT and PRINCETON, PAUL KRUGMAN.

Paul Krugman is the classic Big Liberal living high off the hog our our tax money in his ivory tower. By being printed in the NYT he is NHIIL OBSTAT that is to say he has the imprimatur of the Liberal Inquisition. The Ivey Business Journal Online, which this week published an interview with the good professor, called him "the world's greatest living economist."

O my God! I must have missed the news that in the words of Peter Foster “a jumbo jet filled with economists just go down with Milton Friedman at the controls?” Mr. Krugman has just published a book, The Great Unravelling, consisting of a collection of his Bush-bashing columns from The New York Times.

More from PETER FOSTER “Those columns are still coming thick and fast. Two Sundays ago, Mr. Krugman wrote a cover story for The New York Times magazine titled "The Tax-Cut Con." In that article, he claimed that there has been a dastardly plot of lies and subterfuge by the Bush administration to shrink government by slashing taxes, running huge deficits and thus forcing cuts in expenditure. This news must have come of something of a relief to those who feared that the Bush administration had caught drunken sailor disease. But if Mr. Krugman's analysis is correct, then why the Bush government should have to pursue this policy secretly is something of a mystery. The notion that governments are too big, inefficient, and repressive is hardly a theory that needs to hide in the shadows. However, for Professor Krugman and his ilk, the good society is the big government society, and, like most wonks, he sees himself as a Galbraithian Robin Hood without tights.”

But the most shrill and ignorant of them all has got to be Dowd the Dull. Does she ever read a book (other than a comic book)?

I remember when in the 1960's and 1970's I used to actually DEFEND the New York Times from vicious slanders (which I shan't repeat here because there is no need. They weren't true then and they aren't true now).

I wouldn't equate the NYT to GRAMMA or the call them "Traitor" a la what's her name that leggy hard-drinking blonde but I finally woke up to the fact the NYT and the LIBERAL INQUISITION of the Democrat Party and the NYT (virtually their mouthpiece) are not my friends nor my allies but virtually enemies -note I say virtually they are really weasels and wimps mostly- who would destroy my family and undermine all I love, cherish and believe in starting with my ancient heritage of faith and my family.

I know that if there is a fight they won't be there by my side or the side of my young son or my friends sons so many of whom are NOW IN HARM'S WAY DEFENDING OUR WAY OF LIFE while the Big Liberals of THE NYT and the LIBERAL INQUISTION MOCK THE MEN (and a few women) who guard them while they sleep) .

Let them pat each other on their backs and live their short lives without honor.
America will go on without their help because people like me are tough, hardworking and prepared to die for our beliefs. They have worldly glory but I have honor. They have puffed up hubris and pride but I have the flag and more than that I have the Old Rugged Cross.
(I know that is anathema to the them but I don't care...let their houses doon fa' wi' oot me. The world is room enough for all kinds). I don't claim any monopoly on patriotism but the fact remains that 'if ye love, and if ye understand, ye wad dee and lay down yer life for what ye believe.' Most of the Big Liberals have forgotten we HAVE a COUNTRY let alone even think about sacrificing for it and for the sake of future generations.

Posted by: Ricardo Munro on September 26, 2003 08:17 AM

Ricardo, from all that you type, you seem like you have time on your hands. Why not do a full, rigorous study which will surpass Tomasky's, rather than relying on the editorials you remember?

Posted by: Hired Contrarian on September 26, 2003 08:56 AM

Ricardo, you raise a valuable question regarding the operationalization of a measure and its resulting validity. Perhaps Tomasky was too narrow in only including the unsigned editorials in his analysis, and should have included counts which include not only Dowd and Krugman, but also Safire. (Are there Safire-type counterparts — liberals — writing for the Washington Times and and the New York Post?)

(By the way, I don't think your Frank Rich argument does much for your position: if Rich takes a position which is consistent with Roman Catholic Catechism [paragraph 597, if you have a copy] — and is concerned about a movie which doesn't include important qualifiers against indicting all Jews at the time, or now, as being responsible for Jesus' death — I think it is difficult to argue that someone is displaying liberal stripes when they are in agreement with the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Vatican II was 40 years ago — agreeing with it is not necessarily progressive, if you keep in mind the Church's teachings on a wide variety of issues.)

Your citing Rich shows the care you haven't taken yet in thinking about the operationalization of the measure. Rich's arguments against Gibson's film aren't liberal, and yet you use them to suggest that he is, and that failure to include him is a flaw. I'd agree with you that Rich is liberal, I wouldn't agree with you that you have a good example.

Tomasky has taken a very good first step. We have to start somewhere. Even if his conclusions are only valid for the masthead editorials and not the columnists, they are pretty telling as it is. You can't ignore that.

Posted by: Frank on September 26, 2003 09:39 AM

Dear friend Frank...so it seems we are correligionists?

You say "Rich takes a position which is consistent with Roman Catholic Catechism [paragraph 597, if you have a copy] —"

AS a catechist I have a copy of the Catechism and am aware of it.

But I still think Rich's attacks are a red herring. I have not seen the film except brief excerpts (neither has Rich as far as a know) but to my knowledge the film has been viewed by the Vatican and has the full approval of the Vatican.

Also there is a lot of talk that Gibson listens to Latin Masses and that makes him some sort of renegade or nut case when in fact John Paul II is very fond of the Latin Mass -as I am- and Latin Masses are very common all is needed really is the knowledge and approval of the local bishop. In some locales Latin masses are available weekly. When Gibson made the film he attended -so I was told - Mass daily in Latin and he did this with full permission and knowledge of the hierarchy and leaders of the church.

Yes, I think Tomasky "was too narrow in only including the unsigned editorials in his analysis, and should have included counts which include not only Dowd and Krugman". I think the overall paper itself is dangerously degraded by PC, Feminism and surrender-now-Democrat-Social- Democracy-why-can't-we-all-get along-wimpdom.

I have a friend who is an NCO in Iraq and they use the NYT for toliet paper. (It it very clean and hygenic but poor Dowd the Dull and Krugman so much for their art.....) They don't object to anybody else reading it but on the whole they know its opinions before they even open it and know they only serves to demoralize and give aid and comfort to the enemy. But instead it gives great comfort to many a common solider and Marine.....

Posted by: Ricardo Munro on September 26, 2003 11:03 PM

Perhaps Gibson could do a lot to defuse the issues by inviting Rich and other concerned parties to a screening.

Posted by: Frank on September 28, 2003 10:03 AM

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember info?