Callers got through to the "Times" on CSPAN. None of this would be happening without the Net and the Blogs. They must be cussing this kind of exposure that they can't refute. "Timeswatch"
Callers Grill Times on Baghdad Protest Blackout
C-SPAN's Washington Journal program aired live Friday morning from the Washington bureau of the New York Times, with five of the bureau's reporters and editors taking calls. Two callers wanted to know why the Times (along with all the other major dailies) had failed to cover Wednesday's anti-terrorist demonstration in Baghdad--a question Times Watch and others have asked as well.
Addressing Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman, a caller from Illinois asked "if he was aware that there was a pro-coalition demonstration in Baghdad two days ago. Being that it didn't get reported in his newspaper." (Editors note: The Times did mention the rally Thursday in the ninth paragraph of an unrelated page 19 story, as well as in the caption of a photo on page 18.)
Taubman's reply: "I was not aware of that, but that's something that you really should take up with the correspondents who work for the Times in Baghdad. I don't know what their decision-making was that day. But I can assure you that we make every effort every day to try to be fair and balanced in our coverage. And I know that there are accusations that somehow the Times has opposed the war in its news coverage. I don't think that's a fair statement. We have tried to be exceedingly careful in giving all sides, all points of view ample coverage in the newspaper."
Later in the show, Times chief diplomatic correspondent Steven Weisman had a caller from Virginia who noted: "I saw in a European paper, in a Spanish paper, where the day before yesterday, there was a manifestation in the streets of Baghdad of about 15,000 people, they calculated, in favor of the current government, the councilors there, and against Saddam Hussein and calling for the trials of Saddam Hussein. And there was nothing that I saw in the Post or any of the American papers about that manifestation. But I can't imagine that a manifestation against the United States and against the current efforts of the United States in Baghdad of 15,000 people would have gone unreported in American papers."
Weisman admitted the media does have a problem covering positive developments in Iraq: "That's a very thoughtful question. And it gets to a dilemma for the news media, which does tend to focus on problems and conflicts rather than where things are going right. And sometimes we're rightly criticized for that. But in defense of that, you know, I don't think that we can run stories saying, and with respect--I know this is an exaggeration--but we don't run stories saying, you know, '100,000 GIs were not killed yesterday.' I mean, the nature of news is to report on what's going wrong."
Weisman then noted things are returning to normal in much of Iraq. As for the anti-terror demonstration? Weisman apparently hadn't heard about it, either: "I'm not sure that I know about that specific episode, that demonstration that you just referred to. But I would say that we, the readers of the Times ought to be aware that many things are going well in Iraq, but the fact that the security situation is not going well is not something that we can ignore."
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