The Top 10 Lowlights of the New York Times in 2009
2009 began as a year of smiles at the Times, with rapture over the “historic” Obama administration. Reporters showered partisan praise on Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and first lady Michelle Obama. Meanwhile, the Times resolutely buried emerging left-wing scandals over ACORN and Obama adviser Van Jones. But the smile curdled into a defensive snarl during the long hot summer of “angry,” “white,” and “bitter” tea party protesters, while Times columnists blamed conservative talk show hosts for a spate of ideologically motivated killings.
But perhaps the apex of outrages was a textbook case of liberal hypocrisy. In Timesland, unions are vital to the lifeblood of a sound economy -- just not at the Times itself.
Everything above is strict allegations, no quotes from the times and no links..
In ascending order of awfulness, here are the Top 10 lowlights of the Times in 2009.
10. Swooning Over Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
9. Ignoring Left-Wing Scandals ACORN and Van Jones
8. Editor Sam Tanenhaus, Cheerful Undertaker of the Conservative Movement
7. Birthers vs. Truthers
6. Obituaries: Ted Kennedy vs. Jesse Helms
5. Reporter Rachel Swarns’ First Lady Fixation
4. Conservatives to Blame for Killings
3. 2009 GOP Wins Don’t Matter, But 2005 Dems Wins Were Big Deal
2. Hostile Coverage of Tea Party, Townhall Protests
1. Times Union Hypocrisy: Outsourcing High-Paying Union Jobs to Florida
=======================================
10. Swooning Over Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
The Times’ May 27 edition led with Obama's choice of Sonia Sotomayor for Supreme Court nominee, and the swooning began. Reporters Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny never directly acknowledged Sotomayor's liberal outlook, although there was more than enough in her judicial record (and her own words) to indicate her ideology:
Swooning began...what the hell does that mean? "The reporters never directly acknowledged Soto's liberal outlook"
Is the author suggesting that the Soto story shouldn't have been covered.
Judge Sotomayor's past comments about how her sex and ethnicity shaped her decisions, and the role of appeals courts in making policy, generated instant conservative complaints that she is a judicial activist. Senate Republicans vowed to scrutinize her record. But with Democrats in reach of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, the White House appeared eager to dare Republicans to stand against a history-making nomination at a time when both parties are courting the growing Hispanic vote.
What is the liberal bias above, and where is the link to the Times story?
The Times didn't directly label Sotomayor a "liberal,” but used the “conservative” label four times to describe Sotomayor's opposition. Her rise from a housing project in the East Bronx was called "a compelling life story" in a May 28 lead article, while Sheryl Gay Stolberg's gushing 5,000-word "Woman in the News" profile of Sotomayor on May 27 positioned the judge's rise as "Her up-by-the-bootstraps tale, an only-in-America story...."
Dem's don't usually use the word liberal to describe them selves....R's do it all the time, they're proud of it. "a compelling life story"....."Her up-by-the-bootstraps tale, an only-in-America story...."
Where is the bias?????
By contrast, the lead story of July 2, 1991 by then-White House reporter Maureen Dowd was curt in describing the riveting life history of conservative Clarence Thomas. Dowd dispensed with Thomas's rise from poverty in Pin Point, Ga., where he was raised by his grandparents, in two and a half paragraphs and suggested a cynical political motivation on the part of President George H.W. Bush. Thomas's life wasn't inspiring, but was merely "offered as inspiring" by the president:
Your man had to go back to 1991 to find something he thought was biased...and then he cites the "riveting life history of conservative Clarence Thomas"
Now who's being biased?.., riveting life story and conservative Clarence Thomas. And note the use of the word conservative.
The President and Judge Thomas struck the theme that the White House hopes will negate the inevitable criticism by civil rights groups about the nominee's dismissal of affirmative action as "social engineering." Mr. Thomas's life was offered as inspiring proof that minority members can pull themselves up from rough beginnings without special favors.
He doesn't say the Times published this...
The Times really got excited on July 10 with a front-page profile that invited NYC residents to swoon along with Sotomayor: "To Get to Sotomayor's Core, Start in New York -- Milestones in Work and Life, Set to a City's Rhythms."
I don't see any invitation to swoon....Here's the link, find the swoon invitation.... nytimes.com;
The paper devoted huge chunks of its print edition to a map of the five boroughs spotlighting how Sotomayor owned this town: Her first NYC apartment, her favorite pizza place in Brooklyn, and of course Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, home to her "beloved Yankees." And is there something uniquely New York liberal about Sotomayor being nice to janitors?
A daughter of the Bronx, Sonia Sotomayor claims the Brooklyn Bridge as her power-walking trail, the specialty shops of Greenwich Village as her grocery store, and the United States Court House as the setting for her annual Christmas party, where judges and janitors spill into the hallway.
Her passions run toward the Metropolitan Opera and the ballet, not to mention her beloved Yankees. She eats with friends at Nobu in TriBeCa and works off calories on a treadmill in her bedroom. She is not a rollicking sort, her sense of humor coming in a minor key, yet she holds friendships dear and is godmother to the children of lawyers and secretaries alike.
Your critic spends as much time on Soto as the Times bio of her.... Where's the bias??
Mary Katharine Ham, blogging at the Weekly Standard, caught the self-congratulation in a detailed take-down of the Times New York City-centric pseudo-sophistication:
This is the kind of ostentatious, self-conscious bean-counting of the disadvantaged with which only urbane liberals can be comfortable, both in their personal lives and public policy. Are Sotomayor's relationships illustrative of her character? Sure, and they reveal she's a basically decent person (just like many federal judges -- even some of the strict constructionists!). Unless, of course, Sotomayor approaches her relationships in the same way the New York Times reporter writes about them -- collecting blue-collar chits and counting friends of color as karmic cool points.
He's still "swooning" over Sotomayor.....what gives? I think he likes her....
=================================
9. Ignoring Left-Wing Scandals ACORN and Van Jones
The following is from the op-ed page....
ACORN scandal? What ACORN scandal? In his September 27 column "Tuning In Too Late," New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt criticized his paper for its lack of coverage of the scandal involving left-wing housing activist group ACORN.
Hoyt summarized the famous video sting in which ACORN workers at several branches across the country were caught on camera giving advice on child sex trafficking and tax evasion to a gaudy pimp and a hot-pants prostitute (actually young conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles). The tapes, whose gradual release was masterfully mediated for maximum impact by Andrew Brietbart of BigGovernment.com, resulted in ACORN being cut off from federal funding and losing its ties to the Census Bureau and IRS. Yet the Times took little interest in the scandal and the consequences, as Hoyt admitted:
But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from ACORN, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes -- closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser -- suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs. Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.
The paper also missed the outcry over Obama environmental adviser (and 9-11 “Truther”) Van Jones, who resigned the night of September 5. That came after days of controversy (ignored by the mainstream media) after the Gateway Pundit blog dug up proof of Van Jones having signed a “911Truth.org” petition in 2004 questioning whether the Bush administration "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen." The Times didn't run a print story on the matter until Van Jones resigned his administration post.
The Times' initial print story September 6 on Van Jones’ resignation, "White House Adviser on 'Green Jobs' Resign," wasn't fully satisfying either, with reporter Sarah Wheaton framing the matter in partisan terms:
In a victory for Republicans and the Obama administration's conservative critics, Van Jones resigned as the White House's environmental jobs "czar" on Saturday.
Is that statement untrue?? Biased? Calling a victory for the R's is biased....you should be thrilled.
Managing Editor Jill Abramson had previously admitted the paper was "a beat behind" in its Van Jones coverage, but blamed the Labor Day weekend and denied any bias.
A news item from the op-ed page???
=================================
8. Editor Sam Tanenhaus, Cheerful Undertaker of the Conservative Movement
More from the op-ed page....
As editor of both the Times Sunday Book Review and Sunday Week in Review sections, Sam Tanenhaus is an influential cultural force. His slim 2009 book, “The Death of Conservatism,” garnered much attention from a liberal media eager to herald, well, the death of conservatism.
There were huge hints about the book's hostile anti-conservative slant on the back cover, which featured blurbs by such dubious friends of conservatism as journalists Chris Matthews and Jane Mayer. One of the more dishonest passages from “Death” was spotlighted by The Weekly Standard magazine. Here's the passage:
The primary dynamic of American politics, normally described as a continual friction between the two major parties, is equally in our time a competition between the liberal idea of consensus and the conservative idea of orthodoxy. We see it in the Democratic Party's recent history of choosing centrist, explicitly nonideological presidential candidates (Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama), as contrasted with the Republicans' preference for ideologically committed ones (Goldwater, Reagan, George W. Bush).
The Standard writer scoffed:
The sophistry here is breathtaking. Tanenhaus not only conflates his own political preferences with the American "center." In order to prove that only the Democratic party nominates "centrist, explicitly nonideological" men for the presidency, Tanenhaus (1) puts Obama -- Barack Obama! -- in the "centrist" camp, and (2) totally ignores Democrats Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Al Gore, as well as Republicans Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, and John McCain.
Left-wing PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers interviewed Tanenhaus September 18, where he insulted the modern-day conservative movement, calling it "a politics of vengeance." Tanenhaus, indulged in conspiracism, declaring of the 2000 election matching Bush and Al Gore: "... the conservatives on the Supreme Court stopped the democratic process, put their guy into office."
Challenged by Moyers on the book's title, Tanenhaus ludicrously insisted: “The paradox of conservatism is that it gives the signs, the overt signs of energy and vitality, but the rigor mortis I described is still there.”
On October 1, Tanenhaus discussed "The Death of Conservatism" with Reihan Salam on Slate's Book Club feature and used a well-known lefty vulgarism, deriding anti-tax protesters as "tea-baggers."
Even today the right insists it is driven by ideas, even if the leading thinkers are now Limbaugh and Beck, and the shock troops are tea-baggers and anti-tax demonstrators.
As an editor with a wide field (both literature and politics), does Tanenhaus really not know the vulgar origin of the phrase "tea-baggers"?
Tanenhaus also thinks Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush “probably” committed “impeachable offenses.” Appearing once again on Charlie Rose's PBS chat show October 28, he insisted:
With Nixon, with Reagan, and with George W. Bush -- decided there should be no constraints on the presidency at all. And we had three presidents in those three instances -- Nixon, Reagan, and Bush -- who committed impeachable offenses probably. And we had Democratic presidents who seemed to understand the limitations of power, and we had moderate Republicans who understood that -- Gerald Ford, Dwight Eisenhower, the elder Bush.
all of the above is about Tannenhaus, an editor for the Times
================================
7. Birthers vs. Truthers
The radical 9-11 "Truth" movement -- people who believe President Bush either had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks or plotted them himself -- got a fair hearing from the Times back in 2006. The paper even marked their cause as brave and patriotic: “Some participants see an American tradition of questioning concentrated power.”
But three years later, anti-Obama "Birthers" were harshly criticized and marginalized for a far less incendiary suggestion: That Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States.
Media reporter Brian Stelter's July 25 story, "A Dispute Over Obama's Birth Lives On in the Media," questioned those questioning Obama's birth certificate and thus his eligibility for the presidency:
The conspiracy theorists who have claimed for more than a year that President Obama is not a United States citizen have found receptive ears among some mainstream media figures in recent weeks.
Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the country's most popular talk radio host, Rush Limbaugh, told his listeners on Tuesday that Mr. Obama "has yet to have to prove that he's a citizen."
Reporter Jeff Zeleny on August 5 made it clear the anti-Obama "birthers" were nutty and “false” about their "fringe conspiracy theory."
The birther nonsense is not considered "news fit to print", the Times will never touch shit like that...
By contrast, reporter Alan Feuer in 2006 treated the left-wing nuts who believe Bush orchestrated 9-11 with something approaching affection:
Here's the link......find the affection, if anything he's calling them jerks <?i>
[Group press director Michael] Berger, 40, is typical of 9/11 Truthers -- a group that, in its rank and file, includes professors, chain-saw operators, mothers, engineers, activists, used-book sellers, pizza deliverymen, college students, a former fringe candidate for United States Senate and a long-haired fellow named hummux (pronounced who-mook) who, on and off, lived in a cave for 15 years.
lololol......that's approaching affection?? LOL
===============================
6. Obituaries: Ted Kennedy vs. Jesse Helms
A stark double standard in marking the deaths of two prominent politicians: The death of towering liberal Democratic senator Sen. Ted Kennedy was marked by a 6,000-word obituary by John Broder that ran August 27: "Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies."
Broder's opening paragraph:
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77.
Contrast Broder's respectful tone with the snarling opening sentence from Steven Holmes' obituary for Sen. Jesse Helms on July 5, 2008, under the headline "Jesse Helms, Unyielding Beacon of Conservatism, Is Dead at 86."
Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86.
You want to talk about bias?.....here's the link to that story. It was very kind to Helms...
Steven Holmes' obituary for Sen. Jesse Helms
nytimes.com
================================
5. Reporter Rachel Swarns’ First Lady Fixation
Reporter Rachel Swarns, aka Michelle Obama's lady in waiting, pumped out many pieces of hagiography on the first lady in 2009, each more flattering than the last.
A February 11 story, "Michelle Obama Extends Vogue Tradition," set the theme of Michelle Obama, Superwoman: “Michelle Obama, who has juggled news conferences and parent-teacher conferences, will appear on the March cover of Vogue, a spokesman for the magazine said Tuesday.”
On March 11, Swarns praised the first lady for fighting the "obesity epidemic" in "Michelle Obama's Agenda Includes Healthful Eating."
In her first weeks in the White House, Mrs. Obama has emerged as a champion of healthy food and healthy living.
To Swarns, Ms. Obama is like Goldilocks's porridge: not too hot, not too cold, but just right:
In fact, Mrs. Obama cheerfully admits to an occasional hankering for fast food. It's all about eating in moderation, she said, emphasizing the kind of flexibility that might make it easier for people to relate to her message.
A March 12 story, "A White House Effort to Aid Women and Girls," celebrated an executive order from President Obama creating a White House Council on Women and Girls. Swarns' "reporting" could have come straight off a press release:
The White House celebrated women on Wednesday.
President Obama signed an executive order creating a White House Council on Women and Girls, to help eliminate the challenges faced by women and girls and to ensure that cabinet level agencies coordinate their policies and programs that affect women and families.
In a May 16 story headlined “Mrs. Obama Visits Students as Motivator in Chief,” Swarns covered Mrs. Obama inspiring young people in D.C. schools back in May, where "the students welcome her with astonishment." So does Swarns.
Swarns was clearly delighted when Michelle Obama took an active role in the health care debate in her July 19 swoon-a-thon, "First Lady Steps Into Policy Spotlight on Health Care."
After several months of focusing on her family, her garden and inspiring young people, Mrs. Obama is stepping into more wonkish terrain.
=================================
4. Conservatives to Blame for Killings
Online columnist Judith Warner's June 11 entry, "The Wages of Hate," linked the murder of abortionist George Tiller and the killing of a security guard at the Holocaust Museum to conservative talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. That's not to be confused with the totally different column in the June 12 edition of the paper by Paul Krugman
Krugman is a columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist
, "The Big Hate," which linked the Tiller and Holocaust Museum killings to Beck and Limbaugh.
Warner wrote:
Like Scott Roeder, the man charged in the shooting of the Wichita, Kan., doctor George Tiller nearly two weeks ago, James von Brunn, the white supremacist charged with killing a guard in an attempted shooting rampage at the Holocaust museum in Washington on Wednesday, doesn't have any current, overt links to extremist groups. Yet his violent hatred -- of Jews, blacks, the government -- echoes throughout the universe of right-wing extremists, who just a few years ago hailed and revered him as a "White Racialist Treasure."....White supremacist groups are vastly expanding. And right-wing TV rhetoric, thoughtless in its cruelty and ratings-hungry demagoguery, is helping feed the paranoia and rage that for some Americans now bubbles just beneath the surface.
Frank Rich's June 14 column
Frank Rich is a columnist..
, "The Obama Haters' Silent Enablers,” plowed over the same ground, using the murders to advance the argument that right-wing rhetoric was reaching toxic levels. Rich cited a discredited, vet-smearing Department of Homeland Security report as "tragically, prescient” and said of some rhetoric by conservative actor Jon Voight:
This kind of rhetoric, with its pseudo-Scriptural call to action, is toxic. It is getting louder each day of the Obama presidency. No one, not even Fox News viewers, can say they weren't warned.
I don't think I have to go any further....you won't read it anyway....suffice to say, you've been squashed |
