NYT to Readers: Can You Handle the Truth?
New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane wonders if the readers of the Paper of Record want to know if the politicians the paper covers are telling the truth.
When the Campaign Moves Back to the ‘Center’
The presidential campaign is breaking down along familiar ideological lines, according to New York Times reporter John Harwood (1/12/12): American voters loathe both major symbols of the forces squeezing their pocketbooks and life savings. President Obama will seek re-election vowing to rein in one of them: Wall Street. Mitt Romney will focus on the other: […]
Pundits and the Romney Pass
In theory, presidential campaigns are a valuable opportunity for journalists to evaluate candidates’ positions on important issues so citizens can make an informed choice. Actual media coverage is different, of course. And it’s striking how some media voices diminish the importance of what the candidates are saying, treating it as meaningless theater that need not […]
It’s GOOD That Romney Has No Principles
We’ve been seeing a lot of this sort of thing lately–this time from Elizabeth Wurtzel on TheAtlantic.com (1/9/12): All the reasons Romney is disliked are all the reasons he would be an excellent president. Let’s start by recognizing that principled politicians are highly overrated–consider Jimmy Carter as Exhibit A. Despite our pretensions to pretension, we […]
If PBS Is Afraid of Moyers, Maybe It Needs a New Slogan
Elizabeth Jensen has a preview (New York Times, 1/8/12) of the new Bill Moyers program coming to public television stations later this month–a show that is not being distributed by PBS. Why not? She reports: Mr. Moyers said he was unsure why PBS, where he has spent most of his career since 1971, declined the […]
Action Alert: NYT Misinforms on Iran Crisis
FAIR’s latest Action Alert (1/6/12) urges activists to contact the New York Times about its repeated assertions, contrary to the available evidence, that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Feel free to leave copies of your messages to the Times in the comments thread here, along with any thoughts on the alert.
NYT Misleads Readers on Iran Crisis
In two articles yesterday (1/5/12), the New York Times misled readers about the state of Iran’s nuclear program. On the front page, the Times‘ Steven Erlanger reported this: The threats from Iran, aimed both at the West and at Israel, combined with a recent assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran’s nuclear program […]
Iowans Frustrate Reporters With Their Multiple Opinions
The usual criticisms of the Iowa caucuses–that the votes of a small, demographically unrepresentative slice of America gobble up too much airtime–are basically correct. As David Sirota noted in Salon (1/3/12): The same journalism industry that pleads poverty to justify cutting big city newspapers’ editorial staffs, gutting coverage of state legislatures and city councils, and […]
Pentagon Investigates Pentagon Pundits Scandal
On December 25, New York Times reporter David Barstow filed this update on the scandal that he broke back in 2008: A Pentagon public relations program that sought to transform high-profile military analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers” for the Bush administration complied with Defense Department regulations and directives, the Pentagon’s inspector general has […]
New York Times Finds Noam Chomsky Fit to Print
Left-wing activist and author Noam Chomsky is in the New York Times today: The American linguist Noam Chomsky, a prominent source of intellectual inspiration for President Hugo Chavez, made a new appeal on Wednesday for the release of Maria Lourdes Afiuni, a judge arrested two years ago by the secret intelligence police. If you find […]
Tom Friedman Not Sucking It on Iraq War
Today New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (12/21/11) gives readers a sense of what the Iraq War was all about: Iraq was always a war of choice. As I never bought the argument that Saddam had nukes that had to be taken out, the decision to go to war stemmed, for me, from a different […]
Now It Can Be Told: Libyan Civilian Deaths
The Sunday New York Times (12/18/11) featured a powerful investigation of civilian casualties resulting from the NATO war in Libya–casualties that, to hear NATO officials tell it, maybe don’t even exist. The Times‘ C.J. Chivers and Eric Schmitt report: But an on-the-ground examination by The New York Times of airstrike sites across Libya–including interviews with […]
Louis C.K. and Net Neutrality
New York Times reporter David Carr (12/19/11) takes a look at comedian Louis C.K.’s recent decision to webcast his own comedy special: A scabrous and successful champion of the everyman, Louis C. K. decided last week to go direct with his fans: no cable special, no middleman, just a simple download for $5 on his […]
‘Invented’ Palestinians Can’t Be Quoted
Of course Newt Gingrich (you know, the “big thinker” in the Republican campaign) made a lot of news by declaring that the Palestinians are an “invented” people. As As’ad AbuKhalill–aka Angry Arab—pointed out, the New York Times ran a piece on this controversy on December 10 quoting exactly two sources: former U.S. ambassador to Israel […]
Great Moments in Campaign Journalism…
Three moments, actually: —NBC‘s Chuck Todd yesterday on Meet the Press (12/10/11), commenting on Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich: Well, first of all, those are a couple of nimble debaters. They are pretty good. I think we have seen it. This is the final two. I’m old enough to remember when Todd had the campaign […]
How Iran Assertions Turn Into ‘Facts’
The New York Times today (12/8/11), reporting on the CIA drone that went down in Iran, refers in passing to the recent public debate in Israel about whether time is running out for a military strike to slow Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon. Of course, the assumption here is that Iran is making “progress […]
Republicans and the Hezbollah-in-Mexico Menace
Political campaign watchers seem to agree that the election will be about the economy, and that Republicans probably won’t have much to say about Obama’s foreign policy (partly because it doesn’t much differ from what a Republican president might be doing). The New York Times‘ Richard Oppel has a piece today headlined, “Republican Candidates Aim […]
Newt Gingrich, Smartest Man in the Room
The New York Times today (11/29/11) has a somewhat cheeky piece about Republican candidate Newt Gingrich‘s background as a historian–which, according to reporter Trip Gabriel, means he’s unusually smart: In an election season rife with factual misstatements, deliberate and otherwise, Mr. Gingrich sometimes seems to stand out for exhibiting an excess of knowledge. I don’t […]
Anonymously Explaining Pakistan Deaths
A New York Times piece today (11/29/11) about the U.S. airstrikes that apparently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers opens with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani speaking publicly about the incident, as does Pakistani military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. Readers are then treated to a lesson in how U.S. officials speak to important news outlets […]
Which Side Are We On? NYT, US and Cluster Bombs
International efforts to ban cluster bombs fell apart late last week. If you were reading about this in the New York Times, you might have been led to believe that the United States was pushing to get rid of the weapons—instead of the opposite. Here’s the lead sentence from a story in Saturday’s paper (11/26/11): […]
