Letters to the Editor
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NY Times and Credibility
As I've written to the New York Times, if one can't trust the NYT to publish with honor, veracity, and ethical conviction, who can one trust? Certainly in the polical arena, and perhaps others, the New York Times has published all the news that Bush & Co. have approved of. It is truly a sad day when what was once THE journalistic standard becomes no better than a supermarket tabloid. My heart goes out to all the truly ethical, dedicated writers still working for the Times: must be quite difficult to go to work every day.
I can't but think that one of the principle reasons we are bound up in Iraq is the failure of a free press to report, and report honestly, all the events pre and post 9/11. Furthermore, I've read nothing repudiating ex-administration authors's views of this administration in dire need of investigation and impeachment.
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The Times
Doesn't it seem like the problem is Bill Keller? When he was writing a column, it was conservative, and now he is doing the conservatives' bidding. He seems like a nice enough guy, whatever that means, but it also seems like he wants to retard the Bushies' inevitable slide into oblivion and disgrace. Very bad! I don't read the Times at all anymore, and I used to read it religiously--it was my only religion! But about two years ago I started to look in vain for what I considered to be important stories, especially about Global Warming. So, read the Guardian and Salon and the Huffington Post and the New Yorker, and forget the Times.
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The problems at the Times
Anyone looking for some insight into why the NY Times has managed to screw up so royally in the past few years on issues as critical as the Blair fiasco, the Judy Miller fiasco, the coverage-of-the-'04-campaign fiasco (think Jodi Wilgoren's comparison of Kerry to a "caged hamster"), and now the wiretapping fiasco need look no farther than the New Yorker's excellent profile of Arthur Sulzberger last week by Ken Auletta.
What emerges is a portrait of a fairly well-intentioned, unreflective person who is inclined to reach snap decisions and who seems to see the world in black and white. In other words: Sulzberger seems like someone who is likely to stumble from mistake to mistake and not learn much from his blunders.
I have no independent way to confirm Auletta's impressions, but they certainly may explain a lot of the Times' recent maddening gyrations. And they make sense when you consider that Keller (for whom I am not inclined to make excuses) probably must defer to the (apparently flawed) judgment of his publisher.
There is no question that the Times' reputation has taken body blow after body blow over the last few years. And the remaining (relatively) independent media, such as Salon, as well as Times reporters have not been silent about the problems at the paper.
What remains astonishing in all of this is how the Sulzberger family, which owns the Times, can sit back and watch while Arthur apparently damages the paper so thoroughly and consistently.
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What did the New York Times know and when did they know it?
What did the New York Times know and when did they know it? It might have been nice for the American people to have this kind of information before the 2004 presidential election.
The formally dauntless NYT, are completely cowed by the Bush Administration. The Bush Administration has no shame nor morals and will not stop at anything to further their grasp on power.
When a Republican is in the White House, we are all reminded how "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
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Who told the White House?
One question I've yet to see answered about this story is how the White House found out that NYT reporters were working on the story. It seems to me, if reporters are working on a story based on leaks of secret information, they're not likely to call the White House and say, "Somebody gave us this information that we're not supposed to have because they're not supposed to give it to us; is the information true?"
So -- how did it happen that the White House knew about the story and was thus able to tell the Times not to run it?
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Believing your own propaganda
I know many people who for decades have believed something isn't news unless the NYT prints it, and whatever it prints is true because they printed it. The apology for their screwups has always been something like, "But where would we be without the Times. It's still the best paper around." The paper itself has appointed itself the "Newspaper of Record," despite its censorious motto, "All the news that fit to print." The Times is the voice of the Establishment, and always has been. It scares itself when it starts doing the real job of a newspaper - to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable. It certainly has been afraid, or unwilling, to criticize George Bush directly very much, and it's so obvious as to make me want to scream.
The opaqueness of the Times has, if anything, been far worse in the past than now, and the internal politics about what got printed, and when, frequently a better story than the story itself. This was particularly true during the reign of A.M. Rosenthal as Executive Editor. The only difference now is the willingness of people inside the Times to speak out, and the many outlets for Times criticism that have developed. It used to be only The New Yorker magazine, and maybe the Village Voice, that got on the Times back occasionally, but being a critic of the Times now has career opportunities, after Jason Blair, Judith Miller, the coverage of the '04 'election', and now the domestic spying scandal. Gee. What next?
How long the Sulzberger family will tolerate Pinch's screwups remains to be seen. Auletta suggested they are circling the wagons to defend him, but, hey, it's their paper. That's what a free press is all about. It's free if you own it.
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Secrecy and the New York Times, etc.
It's increasingly looking like the New York Times and perhaps other members of the so-called "liberal" media deliberately attempted "to throw" the election or at the very least stupidly permitted themselves to be manipulated by the Bush Administration in a way that "threw" the election. It's just too coincidental that Miller/Plumegate, the wiretapping and other abuses of power, and all of the corruption stories hit the newsstands after the election instead of before it. The disappointment in Bob Woodward, for example, is stinging. Even now, it's like Plumegate has fallen off the map. Did this cease to be a story?
Is no one keeping score? Why is there no cumulative litany of all of the times that we, the American people, have been betrayed by both the Administration and the Press in the last six years. It's so disgusting that I want to stop listening/reading/watching, but then I remind myself that "eternal vigilence is the price of liberty."
All of this reminds me of why we need young people in journalism--people who haven't been co-opted, who don't have too much to lose, people who are too young to understand the risks they are taking by shining the light in dark places and speaking the truth to power--people who still believe what they were taught in journalism school.
Thanks Salon.com for your efforts.