NYT Censors the Fact that the NYT Engaged in Censorship — in an Article About . . . Censorship
By Patterico on Media Bias
Tom Zeller writes in the New York Times:
"LAST week, as YouTube continued its recent campaign to spit-shine its image and, perhaps, to look a little less ragtag to potential buyers (including Google, which was said to be eyeing the upstart in the $1.6 billion range), the company took a scrub bucket to some questionable political graffiti on its servers, including a video entry from the doyenne of right-wing blogs, Michelle Malkin.
This is a curious way of framing the issue up front. Although the article later acknowledges that the removal of Malkin’s video was unwise political censorship, the beginning suggests that YouTube was simply taking out the trash.
It’s a way of framing the issue that might appease Muslims. Which fits nicely with the rest of the article, as we shall see.
The article ironically notes:
"Many, but not all, newspapers were frightened away from publication of the Muhammad cartoons. But the cartoons, and other images of Muhammad, can be found all over the Internet, as individual users decide for themselves whether or not they will abide by the Islamic restrictions on Muhammad imagery."
Yes, many newspapers were frightened to publish the Mohammed cartoons. But the article fails to note that one of the papers “frightened away from publication” is the New York Times — the very paper in which the article itself appears. As this FIRE article explained:
"On February 7, Times editor Bill Keller told USA Today that publishing the Mohammed cartoons would be “perceived as a particularly deliberate insult” by Muslims, and that, moreover, not publishing them “feels like the right thing to do.”
To recap, as Rick Ellensburg might say: it’s an article about appeasing Muslims by censoring ideas — in a paper that appeased Muslims by censoring ideas. And, the article censors the fact that it appeased Muslims by censoring ideas.
Now that’s a strong anti-censorship stand! |
