The Gray Lady Stops Pretending
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:51am Matt DiBari
For years and years, the New York Times has been a thinly veiled Democratic Party hit machine. Their treatment of the Presumptive Republican Nominee John McCain this year has been… something less than fair and honest.
Its an open secret that the paper has been trying everything it can to smear John McCain, and now Ed Morrissey reports that they are trying to extort the McCain Campaign. The emphasis here is Mr. Morrissey’s, who deserves the credit for blowing the lid off a potentially huge story.
All of that brings us to today. It’s no secret that the McCain campaign believes the Times to be dishonest in its reporting on the candidate, and they decided not to extend an invitation to the Times for the media pool at the release of the medical records on Friday. According to my source close to the part of the campaign that deals with these issues, they have invited a variety of media outlets, including national-reach newspapers, wire services, and cable-news networks into the pool, but told the Times that they would not receive any credentials for the event.
This prompted a conversation between one Times editor and the campaign staff. Again according to the source, the editor told the campaign that the Times would take a negative view about the release of the records if an invitation was not forthcoming. It was clear that an invitation to the pool would change the nature of the coverage.
That sounds a lot like extortion, doesn’t it? Is that acceptable practice for the American mainstream media? This kind of hostility calls into question their motivation for all of their past articles and stories. Did the McCain campaign do something to annoy the editors in February and March while all of these hit pieces got trotted out?
For the record, Morrissey also posts the New York Times ethics policy. Again, Mr. Morrissey highlights the most interesting section.
A2. How We Gather the News
21. We treat news sources fairly and professionally. We do not inquire pointlessly into someone’s personal life. We do not threaten to damage uncooperative sources, nor do we promise favorable coverage in return for cooperation. We do not pay for interviews or unpublished documents: to do so would create an incentive for sources to falsify material and would cast into doubt the genuineness of much that we publish.
Follow the link to the Hot Air post where Morrissey is keeping track of a potential response from the paper. In the meantime, I suggest you all spread this story on your blogs and e-mail it to your friends. The idea that the country’s premier newspaper could be blackmailing a major Presidential candidate should be a huge story, and is our duty to spread this to as many people as possible.
Entry Filed under: John McCain, Media Bias
3 Comments Add your own
1. Joe | May 22nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
“According to my source close to the part of the campaign that deals with these issues…”
Matt,
Just out of curiosity… why do you take the word of a Conservative blogger who got the information from “a source”? Was he part of the conversation? Was he there for any of this?
The idea that the country’s premier newspaper could be blackmailing a major Presidential candidate
— wow. Calling out an organization for “blackmailing” is a pretty serious charge. Especially considering all you have to go on is infomation from a blogger who got information from a source.
Oh by the way… if the NYT was such a “thinly veiled Democratic Party hit machine”, why did they not call out Pres Bush on the Iraq lies about WMDs?
2. Matt DiBari | May 22nd, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Well, primarily because Morrissey has proven himself (to me) to be an honest and fair minded in his columns and blog posts. Morrissey is not the type that would make up something so easy to disprove. He’s a Republican blogger who has no problem calling out Republicans when he feels they are wrong. If Ann Coulter or someone of that ilk broke this, I’d take it with heaping grain of salt.
When I combine this with out vicious and dishonest the Times has been in their coverage of McCain in the last few months, I have even less reason to doubt it.
3. KMorrison | May 25th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
People forget too that the NYT help tank Giuliani’s campaign with an out right lie. His numbers started dropping when the Times falsely reported that he had used city funds for personal/relationship matters.
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