Imagine reading an article that began like this: "The New York Times has been rocked by reports that its coverage of the 2008 election has been sorely compromised by an alleged homosexual relationship between executive editor Bill Keller and liberal columnist Paul Krugman.
"Waves of anxiety have swept through Times staffers who have been concerned about Krugman routinely showing up by Keller's side. Convinced that the relationship had become romantic, some senior staff at the paper have been trying to keep the two apart. These staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they warned Keller not to keep his office door closed especially when Krugman was inside.
"Concerns that Krugman's strong support for the Democrats have shaped New York Times coverage of the upcoming election underscore a paradox. The newspaper is widely suspected of tailoring its news coverage to support its political ideology--'all the news that fits'--even though the Times likes to portray itself as objective: 'all the news that's fit to print.'
"Both Keller and Krugman have denied the allegations although such denials are to be expected in such situations. Now some staffers are worried that Keller's coverage of the election may be influenced by his feelings for Krugman. 'We're worried that Krugman is threatening to break it off,' one reporter noted, 'if Keller doesn't give favorable treatment to his candidate and stick it to the Republicans.'"
Incredible? Absurd? Actually, this fictitious article is very, very similar to the actual article that the New York Times ran on John McCain. The key phrases in my made-up account are directly lifted from the Times' actual account. In that story, the newspaper alleged that McCain was having an affair with a 40-year-old lobbyist, naming her as Vicki Iseman. The Times also suggested that McCain gave special treatment to Iseman's clients.
What evidence that the newspaper produce for these explosive allegations? None, and this is after months of investigation by a whole team of reporters. It cited unnamed McCain staffers who said they had become concerned about appearances of impropriety. (None alleged any actual impropriety.) It cited two former McCain staffers who were by their own admission disenchanted with McCain, although even they refused to give their names.
Stung by criticism that followed this irresponsible piece, Keller told the public editor of The Times, "If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we'd have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members. But that was not the point of the story. The point of the story was that his close aides felt the relationship constituted reckless behavior and feared it would ruin his career."
I can testify from personal experience that this sort of weasel-behavior is entirely in keeping with the way the New York Times does business. Note that in the episode that follows I am giving actual names and not citing any anonymous sources.
Several years ago one of the paper's leading reporters Fox Butterfield did an article on The Dartmouth Review, which I edited as an undergraduate in the early 1980s. Seeking to discredit me, Butterfield quoted me as having written in the paper, "The question is not whether women should be educated at Dartmouth. The question is whether women should be educated at all."
A witty line, perhaps, only I didn't write it. The line was actually written by another student, Keeney Jones. When I called Butterfield to point this out, the man insisted, "No, you wrote it." So I demanded, "Where did I write it?" Butterfield pointed out that I had written an article about the Dartmouth Review in another magazine where I had quoted the line. I protested, "But I was merely citing controversial lines that had appeared in the student paper. How can you say I wrote that line when I made it very clear that Jones wrote it?"
To this Butterfield responded, "But by quoting it you have made it your line." I was dumbstruck. The best I could say to him was, "And I guess that since you have now quoted the line yourself, it has now become your line." The important point here is that we are dealing not with some dimwit but with a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for America's leading newspaper. Yet apparently such dishonesty is the way they operate at the Times.
Some critics have been calling for Keller to be fired but I suspect that a much wider fumigation is required to clean house over there. The Times has long become a liberal rag and as incidents like these pile up, more and more people will recognize that the New York Times is no longer the great newspaper it once was.
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Sex Scandal at the New York Times
Posted Feb 24th 2008 7:18PM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Scandal, John McCain, New York Times, Sex
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Reader Comments ( Page 5 of 19)
61. Paul at 6:56AM on Feb 25th 2008
You seem to think that you can dictate to Dinesh what he may write on his OWN blog. Amazing...what are you, a member of the liberal thought police department?
Marlinj Brown at 11:44AM on Feb 25th 2008
62. Is it just me or does the woman McCain was hanging out have an uncanny resemblance to his wife?
Gwen at 11:44AM on Feb 25th 2008
63. DD - It surprises me you did not want to claim the "woman should not get and education" line. It completely sounds like something ignorant and absurd you would say.
Gwen at 11:45AM on Feb 25th 2008
64. Well-said, Paul. It is a Pro-Life v Pro-Choice debate...NOT Pro-Life v Pro-Abortion. A lot of people need to understand that.
Strados at 11:43AM on Feb 25th 2008
65. Oh, and one more thing . . . how come it was okay to bash McCain when the republicans were doing it?
Gwen at 11:46AM on Feb 25th 2008
66. Gwen- that's probably the title of his next book
Strados at 11:46AM on Feb 25th 2008
67. Alan...
Again, do your own homework.
But I'll give you this: 7 out of 9 black Democrats now support Barack Obama. That's nearly 80%.
You've got to be stupid to think that 80% of ANY group agrees with one candidate's stand on all the issues. Funny thing is, even Obama's top political adviser failed to recite ONE (just ONE) of Barack's political achievements when put on the spot recently.
I guess that after Seinfeld's show about nothing, some Americans find it easy to agree with a candidate who's about nothing. African-Americans seem to find it easiest of all. (Suggesting that their support has absolutely NOTHING to do with race is "audacity" that ANYONE can believe in!)
paul at 11:52AM on Feb 25th 2008
68. ATHEIST
Reply to: 45. there is no objectivity in this world.... everyone has an agenda... We all have preferences that shade our observations, even Mr. Hays, though I am sure he would *try* to argue that...
_________
I've been saying much the same thing.
A man named Saul was raised as a Pharisee. He attended a school that taught him the doctrines of the Pharisees, including a General Resurrection of all the dead at the end of the world, at the day of judgment.
When Saul heard a report of dreams that some members of the early church had, he became convinced that it was a "message from God" or a "sign" that his previous beliefs were correct, and the General Resurrection was about to take place.
Saul, later Paul, had NO BASIS for his beliefs... except he had an agenda. To prove his previous religious beliefs were right.
anyone with such an agenda inevitable winds up a fool.
William Hays at 11:55AM on Feb 25th 2008
69. alan,
just because a black would vote for obama to the tune of 80-90 % does not make blacks racist. it just means more than likely they are voting for them first because they are black and second because most blacks are deomcrats and therefore most blacks vote democratic as a historical fact. now why that is is for another discussion
brian at 11:58AM on Feb 25th 2008
70. strados,
pro-choice? what about the babies rights? you give whales more rights than humans!! why??? mistreat a dog and you go to jail. take a human life, and it legal. the system is messed up. we should value human life as much if not more than a whale. your pro-choice view is just a cloak for vice
brian at 12:00PM on Feb 25th 2008
71. "...just because a black would vote for obama to the tune of 80-90 % does not make blacks racist."
Except for one mitigating circumstance...
Obama has REFUSED to vote on 66% of the legislation that has crossed his desk so far this year, while other senators who are also running for president have found the time to vote on critical issues far more frequently than candidate Obama has.
Keeping his virtually non-existent voting record in mind, can somebody please tell me what key issues have garnered that overwhelming majority of African-American support for the half-black senator? (That is, if it's really not his race that has them all chanting his name.)
Paul at 12:03PM on Feb 25th 2008
72. for: K at 11:05AM on Feb 25th 2008
"our horrible public education "
Yes, thanks to liberals and the NEA, our schools have become "horrible". Standards constantly lowered to allow everyone to graduate results in no one getting a decent education. Before the liberals got a hold of the education system in America, we had a pretty good record compared to the rest of the world. Way to go, libs!!! Instead of going back to the tried and proven system, liberals just want to throw more of your tax dollars at the problem while blaming conservatives for the mess liberals created. Another example of liberal hypocrisy in action!!! If we get the liberals hands off our government and lives, we can go back to being the great country we used to be pre-LBJ's "Great Society" ( an obviously failed experiment).
Marlinj Brown at 12:08PM on Feb 25th 2008
73. Paul, that was a pretty ignorant statement. The degree of liberalism embraced by a politician has little to do with their political party. Only a complete facist would be opposed to every aspect of liberalism. In the 19th century, the Republicans were the more liberal party and the Democrats the more intolerant. I would have been a republican right up to Coolridge. I probably would have voted for Eisenhower too.
Now... to brian...
What is the yardstick you are using to measure this "blatant" liberalism? Is it the myopic opinion of journalist like Dinesh and Rush? Have you done collegiate research into each paper, every story, and analyzed their political stance and the stance of their writers? Do you compare our media in America to media in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
"The liberal media" is a myth, and it is as old as printing itself. Any media that criticizes those in power, especially of those who abuse that power, is labelled liberal by the establishment seeking to perpetuate its own authority. As popes and kings have lost control over media, they have instead always sought to discredit it as having an agenda to the purpose of undermining authority.
The media of America today is not liberal. It hasn't been for quite a while. It is overly critical of liberal ideals, seeking to curry favor with authority over critically exposing abuses of its power. If it truly had been liberal, Bush's record and character would have been the subject of far more negative press and Gore far less. Even today, despite numerous impeachable offenses (war fraud, war crimes, violation of the 4th, 6th, and 8th Amendment) there isn't a liberal media outcry for Bush's impeachment. It isn't just Fox news. All of America's established media outlets are conservative.
So please understand that when you are tackling a topic as vast as 'how liberal is the media' realize that this is a deep and complex issue. You need a standard to compare them to and copious amounts of data to compare to that standard. You have to understand just what liberalism actually is. And you have to realize that ultimately little can be substantively proven due to the ever changing and fluid nature of modern media.
Life has a liberal bias.
Somber at 12:07PM on Feb 25th 2008
74. Brian...
A human fetus has ABSOLUTELY NO AWARENESS of its surroundings before the 12th week of gestation. Up until the 12th week, a fetus can't even feel warmth, fluid movement, sense light, or hear sound, let alone feel the injustice of having its "rights" violated.
When I see people routinely holding funerals for miscarried fetuses before the 12th week, then I might (MIGHT) consider the idea that a cluster of attached cells has rights just like me.
And the funny thing is, even the Christian god has barely any regards for human rights. How many people has the Christian god killed through flood, fire, war, and famine?
Please...human rights are virtually non-existent in the eyes of the Christian god.
Paul at 12:08PM on Feb 25th 2008
75. "Paul, that was a pretty ignorant statement."
_________________
Which statement? That Lincoln was a Republican? How was that ignorant?
Paul at 12:11PM on Feb 25th 2008