Lies of the Times
This book sounds like it’s worth reading:
“My research churned up not mere errors or inaccuracies but whole-cloth falsehoods,” Rindsberg writes in “The Gray Lady Winked” (Midnight Oil), out now, which examines how the nation’s premier media outlet manipulates what we think is the news.
The “fabrications and distortions” he found in the Times’ coverage of major stories from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia to Vietnam and the Iraq War “were never the product of simple error,” Rindsberg contends.
“Rather, they were the byproduct of a particular kind of system, a truth-producing machine” constructed to twist facts into a pattern of the Times’ own choosing, he says.
Rindsberg argues that Times reporters have followed the same playbook since the 1920s.
I am less surprised by this than I am that people still think of the NYTimes as the newspaper of record. They have not been since at least Duranty.
It is not simply the infamous fabrications of Pulitzer-winning Duranty in the 1930s, of the propaganda on behalf of Castro penned by Herbert Matthews in the 1950s, of the case of Jayson Blair, or of the reckless lies and misrepresentations surrounding Duke Lacrosse, but of the egregious journalistic malpractice of The Grey Harridan concerning every major story (and many a minor story as well) of the Trump administration. To be an admirer of the NYT is to reveal oneself as not only misinformed on the issues but incapable of discerning the difference between sources worthy of trust and purveyors of propaganda.
“If you don’t know the truth you’re ignorant. If you don’t WANT to know the truth you’re a Democrat”. Or NYT reader …
Consequences people, consequences. The NYT has over the past 100 years consistently demonstrated itself to be a seditious organization.
Sedition is a passive/aggressive form of treason.
American citizens who engage in sedition and treason have through those actions demonstrated themselves to be mortal enemies of America because the goal of sedition and treason is the destruction of the nation to which they claim citizenship.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.” Marcus Tullius Cicero
You gain leverage over an enemy, by attaching to their actions, what for them is intolerable consequence.
They’re reporters. It’s their job to lie.
@SteveD:
Correct.
It beggars belief that Conservatives spend their energies rattling on about the other side lying when the smart thing to do is pay them back in their own coin with as much sophisticated bias and invective as possible. Given the proclivities of the Left, it’s not even necessary to LIE that much about them… just to be fearless with the scorn and disgust. But this pathetic belief that politics is about Reason and Civil Debate is going to be the death of us all. Better if it’s the death of some of them.
This is not High School Civics ca. 1945 or some ‘Why We Fight’ cartoon. Never was. Bit more of the Jimmy Hoffa School of Public Policy called for on our side.
The NY Times even lied regarding the murder in March 1964 of Kitty Genovese in Kew Gardens, Queens, NY.
Abe Rosenthal, the NYTimes editor – wrote that about 35 witnesses heard Kitty’s cries for help and not one witness even bothered calling the police.
Turns out that Rosenthal just invented out of thin air the number and (in)actions of the witnesses. His story was total bullshit.
But it sold papers; people were shocked that none of the “witnesses” provided any assistance to the victim , even while she was screaming for help.
I still remember this crime because at the time I lived in Forest Hills, Queens , just 2 miles away from the scene of the murder.
While on the topic of the NY Times, Walter Duranty received a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his fictitious (i.e. lies) in reporting upon events in the USSR.
To this day his prize has not been revoked.
This tells you all you need to know about the Pulitzer Prize committee members; they are just as dishonest and execrable as the propagandists who write for the NY Times.
“Abe Rosenthal, the NYTimes editor – wrote that about 35 witnesses heard Kitty’s cries for help and not one witness even bothered calling the police.
Turns out that Rosenthal just invented out of thin air the number and (in)actions of the witnesses. His story was total bullshit.”
Culture of Critique FTW.
I’ve got a great idea… Let’s make the world a better place by totally demoralising the people living in it! Guaranteed to work!
Thanks for the recommendation, neo. I just ordered it through your link.
Abe Rosenthal, the NYTimes editor – wrote that about 35 witnesses heard Kitty’s cries for help and not one witness even bothered calling the police.
AM Rosenthal was not the chief editor of The New York Times in 1964. He was the city editor. The reporter who wrote the story was named Martin Gansberg. Unless you think Gansberg reported what happened correctly and Rosenthal rewrote the story, Gansberg’s responsible for getting the story wrong.
Oh well… It was one or the other of them or both or a committee.
In totally unrelated news, it is a wonder that Ernie hasn’t been Cancelled yet:
One Of These Things (Is Not Like The Others)
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn’t belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
Maybe Bert and Ernie get the Gay Pass?
The nadir of the NYT was reached with the ascension of A.G. Sulzberger – graduate of Brown, self-proclaimed vegan, self-proclaimed atheist (unlike Episcopalian papa and Jewish grandad), remover of the Times’ Public Editor position (replaced by left Twitter), champion of N – Hannah Jones and Maya Gay.
An all-around pipsqueak who would not even publicly reply to Bari Weiss’s resignation letter. A chap whose thought patterns are energized by flatulent wind turbines.
The lies of the Times?
Sure. For them it’s entertainment. A pasttime. Also makes ’em feel important. Powerful. (I think the official term would be something like “educating the masses” or “influencing public perceptions” but it’s really “brainwashing our readers all the way down”.)
Anyway, here’s lies for the Ages:
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/watch-fauci-pal-daszak-describes-chinese-colleagues-developing-killer-coronaviruses
I am reading the book (The Gray Lady Blinked) now. The first chapter about the Times’ pro Nazi correspondent in Berlin, a cretin named Guido Enderis is very illuminating. Another good book about Times bias (anti-Israel and anti-Zionist) is Jerrold Auerbach’s book, “Print to Fit”.
NYT also has made some pretty bizarre errors involving non-political matters. When Robert Goddard was performing his rocket experiments circa 1920, a NYT editorial asserted that a rocket could not possibly accelerate in a vacuum, asserting that Goddard lacked “the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”
http://astronauticsnow.com/history/goddard/index.html
They didn’t get around to apologizing for the error until 1969.
The combination of arrogance and ignorance is a NYT trademark.
The nadir of the NYT was reached with the ascension of A.G. Sulzberger
I think there’s a secular decline in the quality of human being we seem to raise in this country, manifest I think in every post-1938 cohort. I thought maybe we’d hit bottom when juvenile crime and drug use began to go into decline, but in the last dozen years the young have seemed susceptible to tommyrot to a degree previous cohorts were not. (They’re also – in comparison with people just a shade older – remarkably resistant to getting married).
Camille Paglia in 2004 offered the opinion that The Times had ceased to be ‘the paper of record’ about 20 years earlier. AM Rosenthal retired as chief editor in 1986. Richard John Neuhaus also offered the opinion that the character of the paper decayed after Rosenthal retired.
A cautionary tale:
Apparently, this is what happens when you start messin’ with the Babylon Bee —
https://futurism.com/new-york-times-watermelons-mars
}}} Unless you think Gansberg reported what happened correctly and Rosenthal rewrote the story, Gansberg’s responsible for getting the story wrong.
It’s the editor’s job to hire trustworthy people, make sure they remain trustworthy, and to make sure facts are properly checked… by ACTUAL fact checkers, not FB-grade fake checkers.
So, no, still the fault of the editor IN ADDITION TO the writer — esp. if he later found out the fabrication and did not fire the employee on the spot.
Wanna bet he did not do so?
It says a lot about NYT editorial practices when you find out how many prevaricating ambulatory humaniform containers of excreta seem to pop up in their history of highly questionable reporting hires.
You name it, if there’s a journalism scandal, chances are, the NYT is right there, part of the story.
Used to follow Pressthink, a blog by Jay Rosen, a journalism prof.
They would occasionally admit a mistake here and there, mostly to say errors happen.
It may have been just me, but they didn’t seem to address the NYT’s missteps in a active way. Whatever the NYT did was…..and the discussion just kind of wound down. I got the impression that what the NYT did was obvious to Rosen and most of the commenters and they figured it was pretty cool as long as nobody admitted it.
At one point, an NYT reporter got Purple Hearts mixed up with Purple Stars–whatever those are. After some abuse, some of the journos said that the whole thing was such an arcane bit of militaria that nobody should be held accountable for not knowing it. Probably true of journos, but they didn’t twig to that.
Some of the explanations from the public editors had to be read not to be believed.
Democracy Betrayed, A History of the Democratic Party, https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Betrayed-History-Democratic-Plantation/dp/1628944250/ref=sr_1_2?crid=188F1LM0GS1OM&dchild=1&keywords=democracy+betrayed&qid=1623266961&sprefix=democracy+betrayed%2Caps%2C220&sr=8-2, is another book worth reading.