Posts with the tag 'New York Times'
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 We do not pay for interviews or unpublished documents: to do so would create an incentive for sources to falsify material and would cast into doubt the genuineness of much that we publish.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.
Tags: blackmail, John McCain, New York Times
May 22nd, 2008
David Brooks of the
New York Times wrote an article questioning the ‘New Politics’ of Senator Obama.
…the aura around Obama has changed. Furiously courting Democratic primary voters and apparently exhausted, Obama has emerged as a more conventional politician and a more orthodox liberal.
He sprinkled his debate performance Wednesday night with the sorts of fibs, evasions and hypocrisies that are the stuff of conventional politics. He claimed falsely that his handwriting wasn’t on a questionnaire about gun control. He claimed that he had never attacked Clinton for her exaggerations about the Tuzla airport, though his campaign was all over it. Obama piously condemned the practice of lifting other candidates’ words out of context, but he has been doing exactly the same thing to John McCain, especially over his 100 years in Iraq comment.
This draws into question not only the question of whether Senator Obama is walking the walk of a new more civil and honest campaign style, but it begs the question what candidate is most capable of bringing change. Senator McCain has walked the walk. He has worked with Democrats to achieve legislative goals, he has run an honest and decent campaign. He has a record saying what he means and meaning what he says. Consider the difficulty of a Senator with 20 plus years experience earning the reputation as a strait shooter. One reason it has been so difficult for Senators to run for president is because their job requires compromise, and taking stands on a wide range of issues that Governors can often bypass. The Democrat candidates have the luxury of having a very short record with little to examine. Senator McCain has shown that political stress won’t make him compromise his principals. It is a person of that character and experience that has the best chance of bringing change to Washington style politics.
Tags: campaign style, Clinton, David Brooks, exageration, experience, gun control, honesty, hope change, integrity, maverick, mccain, New York Times, nyt, Obama, political change, tuzla, washington politics
April 18th, 2008
I’ve always been weary about claiming media bias because there is often a conspiratorial element to these claims, and I think conspiracy theories tend to be weak. However, this election cycle has been accompanied by such blatantly slanted journalism whether it is the New York Times’ irresponsible journalism or cable news’ infatuation with Senator Obama, objective reporting has all but disappeared. So what do you think about bias in the media…
1. It’s institutional, the networks are biased and they employ biased journalists.
2. Journalists simply tend to be more liberal than the average American.
3. It’s incompetence. A good journalist doesn’t convey personal views in their reporting, and good journalists are in short supply.
4. It’s a systemic problem. Wealthy liberals control much of the media and influence its content.
5. Other _________________________
I lean towards a combination of 1 and 3. What’s your opinion?
Tags: 2008 race, cnn, conspiracy theory, fox, fox news, liberal media, Media Bias, msnbc, New York Times, nyt, soros, survey
April 2nd, 2008
