The ACORN tapes story brings the NY Times to its knees…
…because now the Grey Lady will have to sully its aristocratic little non-liberal non-partisan hands by actually glancing at Fox News now and then, and perhaps even at right wing blogs on occasion.
The horror, the horror! And the nameless editor newly assigned to this distasteful task has entered the Times version of the witness protection program.
Read the entire piece by Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt if you want to see the Times editors’ continuing efforts at meaningless and transparent excuse-making, as well as an excellent demonstration of their profound cluelessness and boundless contempt for the reading public. But to me, the funniest part of Hoyt’s piece (that’s both funny/ha-ha, funny/strange, and funny/sad) is this:
Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies. Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person “a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere.”
The Times has no choice now but to continue in their “insufficient tuned-in-ness” if they want that MSM bailout they’re all clamoring for, and to continue in their role of propaganda arm of the DNC.
By the way, “tuned-in-ness”? Really? From the NYT’s Public Editor?
excellent demonstration of their profound cluelessness and boundless contempt for the reading public
Yup. NYT. RIP.
they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies
Makes me LOL. Gee whiz, I wonder what the results will be.
I rather suspect most of these publications wouldn’t even be around were it not for doctor’s offices and hotels.
I wonder what the political fallout will be from an bailout for the news press as is being floated around.
I’m sure they’ll assign their best man for that position. Ahem…yeah…the very best.
Gasp! Could it be…? The NYT having to check out the blogosphere news aggregate sites, like Insty? Or even regional bloggers?
The horror of it all … I can imagine them assigning the newest and most junior intern with this, just so they can claim they have done it – but thereafter ignore whatever the poor little intern discovers, while busily seining the murky depths of the blogosphere…
How utterly humiliating for the mighty to fall so far. The most famous newspaper in America is going to have to listen to the radio and read the internet to find out what is going on. There was a time when they had reporters in the field who could sniff out an incipient story.
An alternative explanation is they know what is going on but they elect to suppress the story if it doesn’t promote their agenda.
One of the most telling passages in that article is this: “The Times quoted a statement by Bertha Lewis, Acorn’s chief executive, saying that the two activists, James O’Keefe, 25, and Hannah Giles, 20, spent months visiting Acorn offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia before getting the responses they wanted. But the article left out one city Lewis cited: New York.. . Scott Shane, the reporter, said he had been unable to reach Lewis and felt that including New York among the cities she mentioned would have implied unfairly that she was lying, something for which he had no evidence.”
In other words, although Scott Shane knew as a matter of fact that the cities cited by Lewis had included New York, and even though his paper is published in New York and features a large New York readership and, oh yes, even has the words “New York” in its name, he intentionally left the reference to New York out of his article — that is, he distorted and misrepresented the actual facts of her statement — because reporting that she had mentioned New York would have permitted readers to draw an inference he did not want them to draw — not the only inference they could have drawn, and a potentially correct inference, for all he knew, but never mind — for goodness sakes, don’t give readers facts — given facts, they might be able to start thinking, and the NYT might not be able to control their thoughts, and their thoughts might include negative conclusions about Democrats, and good lord, we obviously can’t have that!
This tells you everything you need to know about the NYT’s perception of its relationship with its readers. The Times does not believe that its job is to inform us. It believes that its job is to shape what we think. If the Times does not want you to draw what they perceive to be a damaging inference from a fact, they will do their damnedest to keep you from finding out about that fact. What they haven’t realized yet is that they can’t do this any more, except for their choir — the few remaining NYT readers who have not yet figured out that what they are getting from that paper only vaguely resembles the truth.
On that topic, I am watching the Times now to see how long it will take them — if ever — to report on Sarkozy’s mocking speech about Obama to the Security Council. Not one word so far, as far as I can tell.
Oh, and I’m also waiting for the NYT to ask Kristin Gillibrand, one of New York’s two senators, why she was among the tiny handful of seven senators who voted against defunding Acorn. I would like to know. I imagine that at least a few other New Yorkers would also like to know. Think any of us will ever find out? Not if the Times can help it!
“How utterly humiliating for the mighty to fall so far. The most famous newspaper in America is going to have to listen to the radio and read the internet to find out what is going on.”
As reporters, they should be embarrassed to admit that out loud. How pathetic.
Of course, if it was really true that they lack a liberal bias they would have reporters on staff who paid attention to that entire half of the country anyway, as a matter of course, and they wouldn’t have to assign it as a special task to anyone.
John McCain got 58 million votes in the election. Just as rough estimate, although obviously there’s not a perfect correlation, you could use that number as the number of people who might have at least some interest in the things that Fox, the right side of the blogosphere and related media talk about. The NYT tries to make it sound like some out-of-the-way, uncharted little backwater. It’s half the voting country. It’s worthy of a little attention from any news organization, no matter they’re political leanings. That is, if that organization wants to be thought of as competent at its job of covering the news that affects people.
Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin’ around
You should be made
To wear earphones
Because something is happening here
But you dont know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
— Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man
It’s interesting that these editors apparently just ASSUMED that the Acorn sting (in the grand tradition of 60 Minutes, Dateline, etc.) must have been manufactured by conservative writers, bloggers, etc.
There was online video, and lots of it, for pete’s sake! The legwork was already done for them and the powers that be at the NYT still refused to tune in. It’s really quite amazing to observe such behavior among (purported) journalists.
Acorn is an organization that had many credible accusations of voter registration fraud during the election, so that should have been a heads up. Not to mention the Obama connection (he served as lawyer for Acorn), the fact that they were receiving taxpayer dollars and had been engaged to do work for the Census and the IRS! Then we have the outright lie by Obama that he hadn’t been paying attention and didn’t even know they received govt. funds.
I mean, how many smoking guns have to go off before America’s Newspaper of Record deigns to pay attention?
[Keller declined to identify the editor, saying he wanted to spare that person “a bombardment of e-mails and excoriation in the blogosphere.”]
Heh.
It’s going to be entertaining when the secret scrutinizer gets outed.
Hahahahahahah!
When forced by events they couldn’t ignore, the NYT claims ignorance instead of malice.
I love reading the NY Times: I think there is an editorial rule that on any page with an ad for a very expensive bauble or clothing, there must be at least one offsetting picture of a starving African.
The NYT is written and designed to allow insular, head-up-their-ass liberals to assuage the guilt of their wealth and status.
This will not hurt the NY Times at all: The lies are softer to their readers than the guilt. They need the lies, so they are OK with the claimed ignorance.
At my convenience store in Middle-of-Nowhere New Mexico, there is a prominently displayed sign-up sheet for the NYT. All the guilty, old, wealthy, white, liberal transplants put their name on that list and note whom else is on that list: its not just a list of people who want a NYT, its the list of Good People Who Care Deeply and everyone knows it.
The NYT can be safely left around the house, unread, but to be seen by your guilty, old, wealthy, white, head-up-their-ass, liberal transplant “friends” so long as your name is on that list.
Their hideous fake adobe McMansions will go empty when they die. Who then will be on the list?
The NYT will assign an editor to monitor opinion media? I am sure they will find some evidence of racism, etc. Shouldn’t shareholders be demanding new editors?
I truly feel sorry for that person, he/she will be swiftly alienated by the rest of the staff as they sound the alarm as to what is really happening, on the bright side, we may see another interesting change story as they get exposed to the truth, as opposed to what they hear and talk about inside their bubble. Bet nobody fills that job very long, we’ll see.
The MSM has denied bias for so long, insisting instead that “mistakes were made” (a new, liberal verb tense called the past perfect exonerative) that they have gotten themselves into a bind.
“We’re not crooks. We’re stupid.” That can be accepted every once in a while. Eventually, you wonder why you pay attention to a self-advertised stupid. So they’re not crooks. They’re consistently stupid. What does that make somebody who believes them?
Checking out the NYT Public Editor is like being a cesspool inspector. You know what you’re going to find; it is just a question of how much.
The Public Editor symbolizes beautifully how the Left works: a high-sounding job description, but the product stinks as journalism.
I do read both sides of these issues and I’m often struck by the Through the Looking Glass quality of what liberals think is reality and how things work.
From the Columbia Journalism Review we have an interview with Rick Pearlstein, a liberal historian, explaining that the ACORN stories were ignored and rightfully so:
I mean, why would a newspaper like the Post be training its investigative focus on ACORN now? Whether you think well or ill of ACORN, they’re a very marginal group in the grand scheme of things–and about as tied to the White House as the PTA.
The real story is that millions of Americans don’t consider a liberal president legitimate, and they’re moving from that axiom to try to delegitimize the president in the eyes of the majority. And one of the ways they do that is, frankly, by baiting the hook for mainstream media decision-makers who are terrified at the accusation of liberal bias.
Must see PJTV today. A brilliant assessment by Bill Whittle. The Destruction of ACORN, the Strategy of Breitbart & Why We Must All Remain Vigilant
Richard Aubrey said: “past perfect exonerative”
I love it!
“ACORN, they’re a very marginal group in the grand scheme of things”
– They were directly involved with fraudulent voter registrations in many different states (voting being one of the most fundamental aspects of our political system)
– They had direct ties with the US census that determines how much federal money goes to various places and how congressional districts are allocated (another fundamental part of our system)
– They had direct ties with the IRS and tax collecting services (another incredibly fundamental part of our national edifice)
– They have direct ties with the housing industry (one of the biggest problem areas in the country in the last five years)
– They have direct ties with many states
– They have direct ties with many corporations (which I think is probably the result of political extortion)
– They have intimate and direct ties with people in the White House (including Barack Obama, Patrick Gaspard, and who knows who else)
But, sure, ACORN is just a marginal group.
By that standard, the tea parties are just a flash in the pan, with no direct involvement in any of those areas of government. Yet, even though they’ve broken no laws, been convicted of nothing, fined for nothing, had no violence associated with them, etc, the tea parties have evinced the most excessive hyperventilating accusations from the left about their role in politics and the life of the nation.