The Empty Suit Hits the Books

The Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (alias "public editor") Barney Calame, today tackles an issue that's actually fairly interesting: the favoritism that the Times shows towards its hacks when they write books. As every reader knows, the Times always reviews its staffers' books, almost always favorably. Hell, six of the 61 Times "notable books of the year" were by Times people.

As usual, Barney's padded column addresses an open-and-shut issue by covering it with fog: focusing on "process," serving as conduit for lame excuses by Times bureaucrats, and signing off with a "gee they may wanna look at this and wouldn't that be nice?" fadeout.

First, Barney tackles the practice of the Times always reviewing its people's books. As a publisher quoted by Barney acknowledges, the worst thing that can happen to an author is to be ignored. Times people aren't ignored. Ever.

Well, you'll be happy to know that it isn't happening. As has happened several Times before, Barney follows in the tradition of Groucho Marx, who once asked, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes?"

It is happening, you say. Well, you're own two eyes are wrong. It isn't happening. Oh yes, it used to happen -- a Times books editor told Barney that "as recently as five years ago, Times writers 'pretty much automatically got reviewed.'" But it ain't happening today. Damn it!

Wait a second. How many Times-writer-author viewed books are not reviewed? I mean, like, none maybe? Shouldn't be too hard to find out. So, you really nailed him on that. Right, Barney?

Wrong. "[The editor] said that these days the section doesn't keep track of how many books by Times staffers are considered or reviewed."

No cub reporter, no Jimmy Olsen right out of j-school, would let himself be brushed off like this. But our Barney isn't a journalist, or even a parody of a journalist. He is a parody of a public editor! And a good one, I might add.

Barney continues in that vein for the rest of the column -- process and more process, with Times editors making carefully crafted excuses and Barney not being impolite enough to question anything they say, no matter how ludicrous.

Those 61 notable books having a bunch of Times people? "The editors said they don't give any special consideration to factors such as an author's staff position at The Times." And that's that. The Times editors have spoken, and Barney says no more.

Obvious examples of bias and conflict of interest -- the letters columns of the Book Review are filled with them -- aren't even mentioned by Barney. Unfair reviews by attack-dog Joe Queenan -- who never met a book he didn't hate and who notoriously was assigned to ridicule Klein's book on Hillary Clinton -- are, of course, not even mentioned.

The only example of a biased Times review cited by Barney is, laughably, a hundred-year storm -- a negative review of Maureen Dowd's recent book that was a rare example of a Timesperson not getting a flowery endorsement.

"Readers," our management shill predictably concludes, "it seems to me, are generally well served by the Book Review screening process."

Though it is absolutely not true that Times authors get special treatment -- despite what you see what your own two eyes -- the Times Sunday Book Review editor says he is considering simply notifying "readers of new books by Times staff." He says "we set the matter aside for various reasons"-- which Barney, of course, doesn't press him to reveal. "Perhaps the time has come to revisit this solution." Replies Barney, "I believe that it has." Barney, as usual, has no opinion, other than to endorse management's.

But what about the daily reviews, which are just as important. Barney? Barney? Aw, sorry, he's gone back to sleep on the divan. Barney's not touching that.

Anyway, that's it for another week. An egregious example of Times bias swept under the carpet. Sleep tight, Barney. You've earned your pay.

Sanitizing Hamas

The Hamas 'Military' In Action--Slaughtering Civilians

UPDATE, Dec. 21: Times editors explain why they whitewash terror groups. The reason: They do nice things! I kid you not.

Hamas won big on Friday in local elections on the West Bank, and that whirling you hear is the washing machine in operation -- the white-washing machine on 43rd Street. Media coverage of the elections uniformly downplayed Hamas's murderous character, but only the New York Times managed to write an entire front-page article on this group's victory without mentioning its claim to fame -- suicide bombings that slaughter civilians.

Yep. This needs to be emphasized: Every single media outlet that I located managed to mention Hamas's record of suicide bombings--except the Times. The Times has previously gone out of its way to whitewash Hamas -- see my item on a Steve Erlanger atrocity last month--and it will happen again. Hey, it's Times policy.

While tastefully omitting any mention of suicide bombings, the Times's Greg Myre turned over the podium to a Hamas "spokesman," who ranted that the election "shows that the Palestinians support reform, resistance and loyalty to the blood of the martyrs."

Myre, not to be outdone, said that Hamas had nominated "well-educated candidates with reputations for probity and piety" -- making them seem more like the College of Cardinals than a terror group that slaughters civilians. They're really good eggs: "Hamas runs many educational and charitable organizations financed with money from outside."

Oh, and all that "terrorism" stuff is just... well, it is just a matter of opinion, that's all. Hamas, Myre said, "is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union." Rest assured that the Times doesn't feel that way in the least.

You see, the Times believes that turning sixty-year-old women into hamburger is a "military" activity. Myre points out that Hamas "also has an active military branch, which it refuses to disarm." How naughty of them!

That's right, folks. In the view of the Times, suicide bombings against buses and discos and Passover seders, and firing inaccurate rockets into civilian areas, are "military" activities, pretty much as you may have experienced in the service. You know: rifle inspection, close-order drill, map exercises, blowing yourself up in discos, that kind of thing. Soldier stuff.

The Times just loves the "military"-- when it can use that word to sanitize Palestinian terrorists. (What's that old expression? "Send a salami to your boy in the disco-bombing army"?)

Meanwhile, over at Reuters, a hack named Mohammed Assadi portrayed Hamas as a cross between the Better Government Association and the United Way, praising its "corruption-free reputation as well as its charity network." However, even Reuters was able to squeeze in a reference to the group's "dozens of suicide attacks against Israel" -- a little bit of trivia that escaped the Times's attention. Ditto for the AP. Ditto for the Chicago Tribune. Ditto for the Washington Post. Ditto, ditto, ditto -- except at the Times and, I suppose, al-Jazeera and other Israel-basing news outlets.

Mind you, I'm not tossing laurels at any of these hacks. The AP, for instance, inserted a gratuitous reference to Hamas's "fierce resistance to Israel's occupation" -- glamorizing murder missions against civilians in places like the Tel Aviv beachfront. But even the AP managed to mention that Hamas is "responsible for dozens of suicide bombings." And only the Times sanitized the Hamas murderers as "the military branch."

As a matter of fact, disregard what I said earlier about al-Jazeera. (Just setting you up for the punch line.) Even the notoriously pro-Palestinian, pro-terrorist al-Jazeera acknowledged that "the group had carried out numerous deadly attacks against Israel" and "carried out several bombings in Israel during more than five years of fighting." Congratulations, Greg Myre and the Times. You've moved out ahead of al-Jazeera in sanitizing terrorists.

As has been my usual practice when the Times bites the big one, I'm sending a copy of this item to the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame. Something else for you to ignore, Barney, while you shill for management and focus on trivia. On Sunday, Barney focused on the Times book review, and did his usual great public-editor parody.

UPDATE: In a dreadful piece in the Sunday paper, Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Steve Erlanger picked up where Myre left off, in what was little more than an extended love poem to Palestinian terrorism. As he has done before, Erlanger pays homage to Yasir Arafat, noting the terror chieftain's "binding charisma" and generally rewrites history, Times style.

"Arafat's decision to recognize Israel and negotiate with it over the 1993 Oslo accords, which allowed him to return from exile, did not produce a Palestinian state." What a pity. Gee, did maybe wave after a wave of terrorism, which turned the whole Oslo process into a joke, have something to do with that?

But Erlanger reserves his most flowery tributes for Hamas, with its "reputation for piety, its social-welfare network and its military wing." Again that word, Times-speak for blowing up civilians. Erlanger then proceeds to rewrite history again, adding that the "military wing" "carried out attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians."

Note the two lies here. "Carried out" -- as if it's history, and not an ongoing process thwarted by the Israeli military. And "soldiers and civilians." Hamas attacks are almost exclusively aimed at civilians, through that "suicide bombing" thing Myre wouldn't mention and Erlanger likewise tastefully leaves out.

It goes on and on like that, with Erlanger slanting his piece into a pro-Palestinian polemic, loyally mentioning the "troubled road map" but not mentioning why it is "troubled" -- the Palestinians won't dismantle terror groups as it requires.

Once again, the Times proves that when its ace Israel-based hacks are on the job, it can actually out-al-Jazeera al-Jazeera, and rewrite history in a manner worthy of Counterpunch.

Hate in the Letters Column

One thing you often hear from editors is that they are trying to "serve their readers" and be "responsive to the community." Unfortunately, sometimes dimwitted editors use that as an excuse to run hate letters by local crackpots. That was the case some months ago in Ithaca, which ran an op-ed piece by a local bigot, and more recently at the New London Day, as CAMERA's Snapshots blog observes.

The Snapshots piece links to a good article describing why editors have no obligation to open their letters columns to hate-pushing idiots.

A reader points out that one of the leading papers in the west, The Oregonian, pulled off a similar stunt by publishing the ravings of a local dope named Douglas J. Willbanks on Dec. 3. Commenting on an innocuous piece about some local's tour of Israel, Willbanks launched a wildly inaccurate tirade -- and the Oregonian blandly printed it:

"As much as I appreciate Nancy Haught's articles about the two trips to Israel, it is still not a complete story. You will never get a complete story by going on Jewish-sponsored trips.

"Part of the reason for this is that Israel prevents such trips from going into the Palestinian territories, where you have to go to see how "the other side" lives as a result of Israeli oppression. And you need to take the time to talk to the Palestinians who live day by day under that oppression.

"It is also extremely important that Americans know that as long as Israel continues to take Palestinian land while killing, beating, humiliating and arresting those Palestinians who resist, our nation's security will be at risk."

The Oregonian later printed responses pointing out the letter was inaccurate garbage, but that's no excuse. Newspapers have an obligation not to open their columns to lies.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Australia's 'Racial' Riots

One of the weirder aspects of the coverage of the riots in Australia, where youths have clashed with people of Meditteranean and Middle Eastern descent, is how the media have characterized the latter as "nonwhite."

For example, the Boston Globe today talked about "racial unrest in Sydney's beachside suburbs" in which "people of Middle Eastern descent were allegedly assaulted by whites in two other cities." The AP, in this report picked up by the New York Times, used similar terminology.
The Australian media seems to be most anxious to press this "racial" point, even when criticizing the rioters.

In a piece entitled, "White Australia Rules," The Age blithely perpetuated this odd racial terminology. In the context of discussing this "racial" issue, the piece notes an "increase in immigration from Mediterranean countries brought much larger numbers of immigrants from Greece and Italy, Malta, Yugoslavia and Lebanon to augment the unskilled workforce." So apparently anyone not from northern Europe is "nonwhite" in this view.

The BBC was not much better in its website, noting that "thousands of young white men attacked people of Arabic and Mediterranean background on Cronulla Beach."

It's important to keep this ridiculously polarized racial terminology in mind when examining Australian coverage of the Middle East.

As Honestreporting observed recently, reporting in the Australian media on the Middle East is systematically biased in favor of the Palestinians. As in the European media, there is a kind of post-colonial guilt syndrome at work here, in which complex conflicts are reduced to "white" and "nonwhite" -- with one being the villain and the other the enemy, depending upon whether you are a hooligan or a left-wing editor.

Branding all Arabs as "nonwhite" and all Israelis as "white" (notwithstanding the fact that at least half the population is Middle Eastern) is yet another reason why Australian and European journos skew their coverage of the conflict.

Today's 'Good News': Universities Get Saudi Millions

Great news today! Say, did everybody see the The New York Times? No? here's a link. A Saudi billionaire named Alwaleed bin Talal is giving millions of bucks to Georgetown and Harvard to establish Islamic studies programs!

"Harvard said it would create a universitywide program on Islamic studies, recruit new faculty members in the field, provide more support for graduate students and convert rare Islamic textual sources into digital formats to make them widely available," said the Times.

Zowie! Just what American universities need: More Islamic studies. And the name of Georgetown's new H.R.H. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding is really catchy. Hey, I'm psyched.

Might have been nice if the Times story didn't read like a press release, and if Islamic and Middle Eastern studies programs didn't become hotbeds of anti-Semitic propaganda -- as Campus Watch has documented. But hey, no reason to get into any of that stuff. Celebrate!

Syria: No Jews Allowed

A reporter is denied entry to a country solely because of his race, color, or religion. Sound like a great story, don't you think? And it is -- and it is happening. But the country is Syria, the reporter is a Jewish gent named Aaron Klein, Jerusalem Bureau Chief of WorldNetDaily -- and the silence has been deafening.

Here's a story on the subject from WorldNet. Klein, who also hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, had planned to enter the country from Jordan, and was refused. The following discussion ensued, according to the article:

Klein spoke to an official from the Ministry of Information in Damascus who declined to provide his name. At first he refused to suggest why Klein had been singled out and prevented from entering the country. Later, however, he asked:
"What religion are you?"
Klein said he refused to answer. "You know what you are," said the official.

Where's the hue and cry from the journalism community? Where's the media? Where's Romenesko? Where's Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press? Where's etc. etc. and etc.? They're all AWOL, and it's pretty disgusting.

The AP's 'Truth' Problem

A story that moved on the AP wire this morning exemplifies a problem that this wire service, which is supposed to be "objective" and stuff like that, has with a concept called "the truth."

The headline: "Israel Continues Crackdown on Palestinians." So what happened? Mass arrests and detentions? In fact, the story says, "Israel rounded up 19 Islamic militants in the West Bank on Friday and pounded the Gaza Strip with artillery fire, pressing forward with a crackdown in the wake of a suicide bombing at a shopping mall this week."

As you can see, this is a "crackdown" not on amorphous "Palestinians" but on "terrorists." After all, Islamic Jihad is a terrorist group by any definition, and has been officially branded as such by the U.S. government. The artillery fire was aimed at launching sites used by terrorists to fire inaccurate missiles into civilian areas. So why not say "terrorists"? It's more accurate and precise than "Palestinians," which implies a massive crackdown on the whole population.

The story goes on to say that the Palestinian Authority has ordered "arrests" -- and that "the action [sic] by the Palestinian security forces fall far short of Israeli demands that Islamic Jihad be dismantled altogether."

Yet the story itself says that the arrests are a charade -- "low-level operatives, university leaders and even high school students" -- and even the dumbest AP intern knows that the "arrested" never stay "arrested" for very long. Also, sustained and effective action against Islamic Jihad and other terror groups is not just an Israeli "demand" -- it is a Palestinian obligation under the first phase of the Road Map for Peace. Why not say so?

Then we have this odd wording: "In other violence, Israeli troops Friday caught a Palestinian teenager who had strapped explosives to his body." No, there was no "violence." What you had here was a thwarted suicide bombing. Why not say so?

What we have here is very simple -- the AP is not telling the truth, because doing so would offend the Palestinians. The problem with this approach is that telling the truth is the AP's job.

Trackposted to: Bloggin' Out Loud, Is It Just Me?, Right Wing Nation, Stuck on Stupid, The Business of America is Business, Liberal Common Sense, Customerservant.com, Jo's Cafe, Basil's Blog, TMH Bacon and Southern Yankee

The UN Press Corps Shafts Bolton -- Again

US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton is proving to be a forthright opponent of UN duplicity on terrorism. But you haven't read about it because the sleazy, co-opted UN press corps has been ignoring it. We have an excellent example of that today.

As I reported in an item last night, Bolton issued an unprecedented statement yesterday blasting the Security Council for failing to condemn the suicide bombing in Netanya, Israel. According to VOA News, he blamed Algeria for quashing the measure. Bolton lashed out at the Council for "failing to speak the truth."

Bravo Bolton! This has never been done before. But apart from VOA News, this forthright action by Bolton received no coverage whatsoever. Not even the wire services picked it up. Nothing in any major newspaper this morning -- nothing in the New York Times, Washington Post or any other major media outlet. That's because it placed Bolton in a favorable light. And that will never do -- not for a UN press corps that is in the pocket of UN bureaucrasts -- accepting UN work assignments and "honoraria" and turning a blind eye toward the hacks that do so.

The coziness of the UN-media relationship was exemplified this past Friday, with the annual UN Correspondents Association dinner. The guest of honor was Kofi Annan and the co-chairs of the event were the far-left hacks Ian Williams and Tony Jenkins -- both of whom were at the center of the UN correspondent payola and immigration law scandals. Williams is the famous Payola Pundit, who took money from the UN while shilling for Kofi in various publications. Jenkins hosts a UN-produced fake news show and has been accused of threatening other correspondents with revocation of their credentials.

Bolton has laudably broken the mold by pressing for organizational reform and strong action against terrorism. Time for him to take action against the UN corrupting the media and producing fake news. One thing you can be sure: If he does anything along those lines, you can bet the UN press corps won't report it.

UPDATE: More on the Bolton record that you won't read about in the media.

Let's See if This Makes the Papers

John Bolton issued a statement earlier today lacerating the UN Security Council for failing to issue a statement condemning the suicide bombing in Netanya. Here's a VOA piece.

Bolton blamed Algeria, VOA said, "for quashing the measure by objecting to a passage urging Syria to close offices of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claims responsibility for the attack. 'Other governments had questions about particular language. We were perfectly prepared to engage in discussions about constructive suggestions, but Algeria categorically refused to name Syria and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,' he said.

"The U.S. envoy later read the text of the statement to reporters, and lashed out at the Council for what he called 'failing to speak the truth.'" Sounds like the kind of thing one can say about the media, if you ask me.

Let's see if this gets any pickup in the newspapers tomorrow, and how they spin it if they do. Bolton came in for a lot of lumps during the confirmation process, but he's shaping up as just the kind of guy the UN needs to knock heads together -- hard.

Two Must-Read Reports

Accuracy in Media yesterday has a chilling report on efforts by radical Arabs to gain influence over the U.S. media. That can be found here.

Also, historian Judith Klinghoffer recounts how slimy Saudi billionaire "prince" Waleed bin-Talal pulled strings at Fox to water down a news report.

Whitewashing a Terrorist

Media reporting today of the acquittal of terrorist fund-raiser and cheerleader Sami Al-Arian was, as usual in such cases, sensitive and caring. Readers at breakfast could finish their eggs in peace, not knowing that al-Arian had begged a Cleveland audience "to create a Palestine 'from the river to the sea,' concluding: 'Thus is the way of jihad. Thus is the way of martyrdom. Thus is the way of blood, because this is the path to heaven.'"

The above quote is, of course, from FrontPage Magazine. Such comments were tastefully pruned from stories that appeared in the AP, Washington Post and -- to save the predictably worst for last -- the New York Times.

The Times's Eric Lichtblau was not content to simply omit references to the blood-curdling character of this creep's activities. Yep, you can always expect the Times to go that extra mile. It is, after all, Times policy. Instead, Lichtblau droned on and on with quotes from al-Arian's supporters, noted approvingly that al-Arian had worked "in support of Palestinian independence" (Times-speak for "killing Jews") and threw in this hunk of baloney:

"In the mid-1990's," Lichtblau reported, "news coverage of Mr. Arian drew attention to his opposition to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and led some critics to label the University of South Florida as 'Jihad U.'"

That's just factually incorrect. It was, of course, the "Palestine from the river to the sea" rants that put Arian and his academic sanctuary on the map. Misinforming readers -- hey, that's what the Times is all about, nowadays.

As has been my usual practice when the Times bites the big one, I'm sending a copy of this item to the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame. Something else for you to ignore, Barney, while you shill for management and focus on trivia.

Trackposted to: Stuck on Stupid, Basil's Blog, TMH Bacon

A Little Girl's 'Troubles' Put Her in Coma

A really odious bit of journalism in the New York Times today. For an article on a monstrously abused -- as in put her in a coma -- little girl, some brainless boob slapped on this headline:

"Custody and Abuse Cases Swirl Around a Troubled Girl on Life Support." What's wrong with "abused"? What's wrong with "beaten to a pulp"?

"Troubled" implies that this girl, all of 11, was a drug addict or otherwise screwed up, and not the helpless victim of a family of monsters.

The story goes on to dwell too long on the self-serving defense that this child was "troubled" and "self-harming," while failing to explore why her baby sitter failed to drop a dime when she saw the loving auntie "kick [the child] down the cellar stairs three times in a row." Was she waiting for No. 4?

You know, things like this make me wonder: Does anyone actually read this stuff before they run the presses?

A New Word for 'Nut': 'Contrarian'

The Good Old Days: Clark in Iraq

The New York Times rewrote the dictionary today in a puff piece on Ramsey Clark, the nauseating former Lyndon Johnson crony who never met a mass murderer or Third World dictator he didn't like.

"In Defending Hussein, an American Contrarian Seeks to Set the Historical Record Straight" is the title of the gag-inducing story by John F. Burns. Clark, Burns says, is "one of America's more renowned contrarians" -- a word ordinarily used in finance to describe an investor who buys stocks that are out of favor. I've never heard it used to describe despicable shysters who make a habit of defending the mass-murders in Rwanda and Slobodan Milosevic.

Burns mentions Milosevic and a bunch of other mutts, but leaves out the Rwanda killers and, more recently, the Palestinian terrorists sued in a U.S. court by the family of a victim. The main focus of the piece is what a great guy Clark is, and how the poor dear has to pay out of his own pocket when he flies around defending mass-murderers. He ignores how Clark has become a mouthpiece for ANSWER and other far-left groups.

Contrast this sniveling cream puff with the informative piece Christopher Hitchens wrote in Slate just a few days ago.

Interesting how the Times has degenerated to the point that third-rate hackery, such as this swill from Burns, is considered routine -- and how it is no great surprise that you can get better stuff with just a couple of clicks on the web.

Annals of Poaching: Ripoff in Progress!

Poaching: An old and honored pursuit!

I am a vain sort of bloggie, I guess, so I have Google Alerts tells me when anyone on the web mentions this blog. Today, Google Alerts told me that some fellow was stuck for a title for a media "website" was thoughtful enough to take this one! Wasn't that lovely of him?

Get ready for "Mediacrity, the hottest and most talked-about new online content available on this or any other network or service."

It goes on: "As you probably don't even know, Mediacrity is a scathing indictment of all media, and yet, all we do in it is just list their f---g URL's and e-mail addresses and then sit back and let them fall under the weight of their own dishonesty, innaccuracies, distortions and lies."

Good idea! Original too.

Anyway, this person, "M---R---" (I think I'll spare him the publicity) really ought to watch his language (and spelling). Oh--what have we here? Seems that "f-word" thing is his business!

Apparently he runs a thing out there called the "M-- R-- Network." (Creep's name expurgated.) "Each day, M--- R---- personally tests all the porno gifs on his network in order to guarantee total satisfaction to each of his members."

It says at the bottom that the website was last updated in 1999, so I guess the ideas haven't been coming in hot and heavy. Maybe in 2011 he'll come up with another "original idea." Hey, I got one. How about a magazine, M--R--? You can call it "Playboy"!

More Hypocrisy on Payments to Reporters

The orgy of media hypocrisy over payments to Iraqi journalists continues, with sanctimonious editorials in the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.

Here's the Times's pontification:

"The State Department trains Iraqi journalists how to be independent and fair; at the same time, the Defense Department contracts with an organization that secretly pays Iraqi publications to print stories making the American occupiers look good. As often happens with propaganda, when daylight exposes the secret, the stench is overpowering," says the Times.

The WaPo spewed forth similarly.

Fine. If these two papers feel so strongly about the "stench" of paid-off reporters, why hasn't either written a single word about payments to UN correspondents by the UN and pro-UN organizations? Here's some reading matter for the UN media: Click here and here, guys. Those links will bring you to articles in Accuracy in Media and FrontPage Magazine. There's a lot more, but these two organizations broke the story.

Outrageous, isn't it? So why not write about it?

The Empty Suit Watch: Barney Pads and Shills

The Suit: Whew! Another week over!

Today the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame, devotes the first half of his column to a serious problem at the Times -- how the paper covers itself. In his usual padded, fill-up-the-column-without-saying-anything prose, Barney makes a good point: "the difficulty of covering yourself can shortchange readers."

Barney's suggestion? The Times, he says, should supplement its coverage of stories involving itself by linking to other news sources on the Times website. As if readers with web access don't know how to use Google and are too brainless to find coverage better than the Times's.

What makes this whole thing even sillier is that the real problem is, of course, Calame himself. It is the job of a public editor to backstop coverage of the Times, particularly when one of those frequent Times scandals arise. Instead, Barney functions as a management shill, as he did by piling on Judith Miller, when he does not simply ignore issues of bias, accuracy and ethics that come up every day.

The rest of the padded, padded, padded column is filled out by a leisurely discussion of one of the most obvious examples of anti-Bush bias recently -- a front-page photo array on Nov. 21 of President Bush walking into a locked door. Funny, huh? There were, of course, complaints. "All these reader complaints and suspicions spurred me to explore how the decision was made to run the photo sequence on the front page," says Barney.

Of course. Process! Barney loves to write about process, because that turns over the podium to the self-serving excuses of Times editors. And Barney, of course, swallowed those excuses whole. I'll be coming to that. But first let's briefly explore what a real newspaper ombudsman would have done.

Barney didn't have to indict managment. All he had to say was that this photo spread was excessively large, whatever the excuses offered, and feeds perceptions that the Times is anti-Bush.

Instead Barney acts in full management-shill mode, sides with the editors in kneejerk fashion and blames Bush, saying that Bush's two seconds of joking about it justified the Times turning over a good portion of its front page to embarassing the president. The "president hamming it up," Barney concluded, "validates the news judgment of Times editors that the scene was basically amusing rather than snide, and appropriate for the front page."

Are you surprised? Remember: They don't call him a "parody of a public editor" for nothing.

UPDATE: As blogger Norman Oder points out in his comment below, the Times's coverage of its real estate deals is a whole lot worse than Barney here says it is. That's our Barney!

A Case of 'Accidental' Plagiarism

Erlanger: It was all an accident!

An editor's note in the New York Times yesterday demonstrates the lengths to which the Times will go out on a limb for its error-prone, biased Jerusalem bureau chief, Steven Erlanger.

It's not very long, so, what the heck, I'll run it in full:

An article in The Arts on Monday described the films of the Israeli director Amos Gitai, the subject of a retrospective by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. It included two paragraphs, about Mr. Gitai's background and goals, that were virtually identical to a passage in an article by Michael Z. Wise in the August issue of Travel + Leisure magazine.
The Times reporter, who had portions of the electronic version of Mr. Wise's article in his computer, inadvertently mingled them with his own notes from an interview with Mr. Gitai, and then used some of them in the Times article without attribution. The material from the magazine should have been credited to it.

Don't you hate it when that happens? Hell, how many times have you walked into Wal-Mart with a shopping bag from another store and "inadvertently mingled" stuff that you pick off the shelves? I mean, it's an "accident," right? Yet those meanie store detectives nab you in the parking lot and toss you in jail.

Fortunately, Steve works for the Times, where he is a good corporate soldier in the anti-Israel department, as we have noted here and here and here and here and here and.... gee, my wrist is starting to hurt. So it's good to see that the Times is isn't just turning a blind eye to his sloppy, biased reporting. Looks like thievery is OK as well, as evidenced by his being caught with his hand in the till and the Times acceping his "dog ate my homework" excuse.

Attaboy, Stevie! You got away with it again!

Skewed Reporting on a Hate Crime

Williams: An Awfully Sweet Guy!

Today the New York Times devotes gavel-to-gavel coverage -- a front-page article and an op-ed piece -- to one of the burning issues of our day: A cold-blood murderer of four people is about to be executed. Oh no. Save him! Save him! The op-ed piece is typical mushy claptrap, replete with phony analogies to colonial-era executions of burglars, but the front page piece, at first blush, was just ordinarily bad.

Seems the murderer in question, Stanley Tookie Williams, has done a lot of really jim dandy things since he slaughtered four people at a motel and a 7-Eleven store in California in 1981. He has written children books! He has lectured youth groups by phone! Why, maybe he should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize (snicker, snicker)! Hey, he has been. I'm serious. Pardon me while I throw up.

Anyway, reading this story I didn't think it was all that execrable, until a reader pointed out something the Times left out: These were hate crimes. According to National Review Online, quoting court testimony, "When an accomplice asked Williams why he had shot [the victim in the 7-11], Williams explained that he didn't want to leave any witnesses. The accomplice would also later testify that Williams told him he killed [the victim] 'because he was white and he was killing all white people.'" Prosecutors also say he referred to the Asian-American victims of his motel slayings as "Buddhaheads."

Golly. Kind of important, don't you think? Gee. Why did the Times leave that out? Did, maybe, the reporter not want to spoil the PR campaign being waged by this creature, who still proclaims his innocence despite an Everest of evidence? Apparently the Times hack who wrote this garbage thought it was more important to paint this cucaracha as having an "intellectual air" than pointing out that he was offing people because of their skin shade. Would the Times extend this same courtesy to a Klansman?

Also, there is no evidence in the piece that any effort was made to contact the families of the victims. Of course, that would have interrupted the sympathetic flow of the narrative. So would reporting that, as the NRO piece points out, Tookie's son "Stanley Williams Jr., 30, is currently serving a 16-year sentence in California for second-degree murder. Sometimes the apple falls very close to the tree indeed."

"I want to live," papa murderer is quoted as saying. Yeah, so did your victims, guy. (Ever hear of the expression "Burn in Hell," by the way?) Throw the switch, Arnie.

As has been my usual practice when the Times bites the big one, I'm sending a copy of this item to the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame. Something else for you to ignore, Barney, while you shill for management and focus on trivia.

The Washington Post also joined the Williams PR bandwagon, in a piece of crud you can read here.

While we're on the subject of hate, by the way, here's an item I did the other day on a noxious Internet hate-spreader -- an Islamofascist who was promoted by a rock-dumb local publication.

Trackposted to: Don Surber, Bright & Early, Jo's Cafe, Political Teen, TMH's Bacon Bits, Basil's Blog, Random Yak, Right Wing Nation, Third World County, Cao's Blog, Is it Just me?, Stuck on Stupid

More Double Standard on Fake Journalism

UN fake news: Not on the radar screen

An eagle-eyed reader calls my attention to an article in the Los Angeles Times today that describes the practice of the Army paying soldiers to write articles. "Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country," said the Times story.

That is, we are led to believe, bad bad bad! But if it is bad, why doesn't the LA Times and the rest of the media write about another institution -- the United Nations -- doing the very same thing? It's a pervasive practice that has been exposed by Accuracy in Media and FrontPage Magazine -- but very little has appeared on the subject in the mainstream media, including the LA Times, the NY Times and Washington Post.

For example, CNBC runs a fake-news talk show called UN World Chronicle, without prominently describing it as produced by the UN propaganda ministry -- as journalistic standards demand. The show is ordinarily hosted by Tony Jenkins, an obscure hack who is a big man on the UN campus, as ex-president of the slimy, scandal-ridden UN Correspondents Association.

The Nation's UN correspondent, the anti-US polemicist Ian Williams, gained notoriety earlier this year for his sleazy practice of taking money from the UN while writing puff pieces on it for various publications. He still boasts about his work for the UN on his website, even as he constantly defends the UN in the media as an unbiased "journalist."

Barely a word on any of this rampant UN correspondent sleaze has appeared in the media, except for Fox News. The UN correspondent group, meanwhile, has clutched Jenkins and Williams firmly to its bosom -- with these two creeps running the annual UNCA dinner, which will be on Dec. 2. Get this: "UNCA Awards ceremony presided by H.E. Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations," says a semi-literate press release announcing the dinner.

Imagine a Pentagon correspondent dinner "presided by" Don Rumsfeld. The screeching could be heard from here to Baghdad. It's just another example of the gross double standard at work here.

Trackposted to: Third World County, Stuck on Stupid, Rempelia Prime, Right Wing Nation, Don Surber, Bright & Early, Adam's Blog

Uncork the Champagne! It's Palestine Day at the UN!

Hurrah! Hurrah! Let the festivities begin! Yes, folks, today is Palestine Day, as officially proclaimed by the East River Debating and Terrorist Cheerleading Society.

What, never heard of it? That's because the UN's bloated propaganda ministry doesn't want you to know about it -- not if you're an American taxpayer who forks over the biggest portion of the annual tab for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. May not be very much money but, hey, wouldn't pretty much anything be too much?

This nauseating commemoration of a totally execrable cause, is, of course, just another example of how the UN continues to be twisted around the little fingers of its Arab and Moslem members. Strangely, though, there is no mention of this on the main English language UN web page, even though this day of pro-Pal frolics was authorized by a General Assembly resolution just last year. Nothing in the daily news summaries churned out by the Ted Turner-funded UN Foundation, either. Gee, you'd think they were ashamed of it, or something.

True, if you look hard enough, you can see a press release saying that Kofi Annan "called for renewed action by Israelis and Palestinians to meet their obligations under the Road Map peace process, which calls for parallel steps by both parties toward a final agreement."

Wow. Does he really mean that? I mean, wouldn't the Palestinians actually have to dismantle terror groups, as called for in the first phase of the Road Map? Can't be. The New York Times doesn't write about that except when Israeli obligations are involved. So let's not talk about that. This is a day for "solidarity"!

In addition to Kofi's speech and the press release thereon, "a dance performance, a film screening and other activities are scheduled to mark the Day of Solidarity at UN Headquarters."

The Palestinian people have sabotaged, through systematic terror, every effort that has been made to give them an actual state. But doggone it, at least they've got a film and nice speeches and a special day of their very very own. So come on now, guys, celebrate! Dance!

The IHT Scores an 'Analytical Scoop'! Not.

Oreskes Bites the Big One -- Again

When New York Times career bureaucrat -- and proven failure -- Michael Oreskes was shipped overseas to take over the International Herald Tribune, he made a pledge. Oreskes told MarketWatch that the lagging, near-bankrupt IHT would shore up its failing editorial product by getting "analytical scoops."

Instead we've seen one blunder after another -- and still another one lately that is a real doozy. As CAMERA's Snapshots blog reported, on Friday the IHT let Palestinian "negotiator" Saeb Erekat lie about the size of Israeli's army. Erekat calls it the fifth-largest in the world -- when it is not even fifth-largest in the Middle East! (Hat tip: IRIS.)

Sure, it is an opinion piece -- but the Times still has an obligation to not let gross factual errors creep by. The Times has acknowledged that, by the way, several times.

What makes this failure to fact-check particularly unforgiveable is that Erekat is a serial liar.

Way to go, Mike Oreskes! With more "scoops" like this, the IHT may go the way of that other enterprise you drove into the ground, the Times/Discovery Channel. Meanwhile, how about a big, fat, correction?

Myre Fries the Facts on the Gaza Greenhouses

The New York Times today, in a story by the ever-unreliable Greg Myre, describes how the Palestinians are finally squeezing a harvest out of the greenhouses left to them in Gaza by their former Jewish inhabitants. Only problem is that the greenhouses were damaged by the Palestinians, in an orgy of self-destructive violence that received widespread publicity, such as this.

That's what happened, and Myre does briefly mention the Palestinian looting. But -- totally disregarding the historical record -- his story lays the blame for the greenhouses' destruction at the feet of the Jewish Gaza farmers, and not the Palestinians.

It's not as if this happened a zillion years ago, for heaven's sake. It was only this past September, and the media was filled with articles on the Palestinian rampage through the greenhouses. The MSNBC piece, linked above, reported at the time that "Palestinians looted dozens of greenhouses. . ., walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip."

Myre ignores this widely publicized lootingfest, saying instead that "when the Israeli farmers started leaving, they took their most valuable equipment with them, and some greenhouses were damaged or destroyed."

Note the deliberately fuzzy syntax. "Were destroyed"? Why not say, "Palestinian mobs damaged or destroyed them"? Nope, that would be contrary to Times policy of downplaying Palestinian violence. It also provides, deliberately I think, the mistaken impression that the Jewish farners "damaged or destroyed them."

He then says:

James D. Wolfensohn, the envoy for countries involved in Middle East peacemaking, cobbled together a group of wealthy Jewish Americans who pledged $14 million in compensation for the Israeli farmers provided that they left the greenhouses intact. The deal was reached just days before the settlers were evacuated, and it is not clear that it prevented much additional damage to the greenhouses.

Myre presumably had passing grade in high school English. If not, his editors did. Their sloppy syntax had a clear intent -- to unfairly, and inaccurately, blame Israelis for the destruction of the greenhouses, instead of the Palestinians who ripped them to shreds.

As has been my practice with the last few Times items, I'm sending a copy of this item to the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame. Something else for you to ignore, Barney, while you shill for management and focus on trivia.

The Empty Suit Watch: Barney Hits the Ice

The Suit: Skating Over Thin Ice

I have been critical of the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame, for allegedly ignoring important issues and instead focusing on trivia and running reader letters as he waits for his contract to run out.

Boy was I wrong!

Today, the Suit dusts off his cobweb-covered "Web Journal" to tackle a vital issue of the day. Let's see if you can guess what it is from the following four choices:

1. The fallout from the Judith Miller mess, in which he has ably served as management lapdog.
2. One of the several dozen issues, ranging from foreign policy to domestic issues, highlighted by TimesWatch as an example of bias.
3. The Times's biased coverage of the Middle East, most recently this atrocity, or perhaps the editorial, not yet corrected, that misstated the origins of the Intifada.
4. Hockey.

Did you guess...... hockey? Give that reader a cigar. Yes, you guessed correctly. In his column today, backdated (as usual) to Nov. 23, Barney responds to this urgent reader concern: "a paucity of coverage of his favorite hockey team by The Times."

As in every other issue touched by the soothing hands of Barney Calame, that too is an area in which you, dear reader, have nothing to worry about. Barney relayed a response from the sports editor to a reader letter that, he assures us, "might be interesting to other sports fans and readers of The Times."

Actually Barney is correct. The Times sports editor ends his dissertation on coverage of hockey by saying, "We hope you'll enjoy our coverage as the season progresses." And you know, that same sentiment can be applied to the Empty Suit. He sure is "enjoyable," in the sense of being unintentionally (or perhaps, maybe even intentionally?) funny.

Barney certainly is the best satirist and parody writer around, as he makes believe he is a newspaper ombudsman. Only problem is that his "season" -- his contract -- with the Times has another year and a half to run. And it sure is starting to drag.

Erlanger "Rebukes" Israel

Erlanger: More One-Sided Pap

New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Erlanger picks up a couple of favorite Times Sulzberger Template themes today -- Israel is groaning under the weight of criticism, and the Road Map for Peace is worth mentioning only when it concerns Israel, not the Palestinians.

Erlanger takes a routine, unpublished report by the European Union containing ritual criticism of the Israeli security fence, and blasts it out of all proportions as reflected by the inaccurate headline, "Europeans Rebuke Israeli Jerusalem Policy." Erlanger reports that "The European Union's diplomatic representatives in East Jerusalem and Ramallah have sharply criticized Israel's policies in East Jerusalem, saying they 'are reducing the possibility of reaching a final-status agreement on Jerusalem that any Palestinian could accept.'"

Uhh.... the only problem is that Israel was not "rebuked" or even "criticized." To do that, after all, you have to communicate with the rebukee/criticizee. But as you can see from the story, this was an "unpublished" report that was not even given to the Israelis-- because the Europeans decided this was not a good time to rebuke Israel! It's right there in the story.

In fact, it was leaked to Erlanger by "someone who wanted to publicize it," -- and an Israeli official only commented on it after he was told about it by Erlanger.

So the EU didn't "rebuke" Israel at all. In fact, a more accurate headline would be "Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Rebukes Israel."

In the course of his "rebuke," Erlanger fails to mention the word "security" even once, and uses the loaded Moonbat term "separation barrier" in referring to the fence that has sharply reduced the number of suicide bombers.

Also, Erlanger once again makes a reference to Israeli obligations to the Road Map while never referring to Palestinian obligations. (You know, to do minor, unimportant things like dismantle terrorist groups.) "Road Map illiteracy" when it comes to Palestinian duties is Times policy, one that Erlanger and deputy foreign editor Ethan Bronner painstakingly defended in a letter to a reader that I wrote about some weeks ago.

As has been my practice with the last few Times items, I'm sending a copy of this item to the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame. Something else for you to ignore, Barney, while you shill for management and focus on trivia.

Seashells, Plastic Mermaids -- and Internet Hate

A reader brings to my attention this cute little item in City Link magazine, a publication of the Tribune Company-owned Sun Sentinel in South Florida that calls itself "South Florida's premier youth culture magazine." In an item on the "best" places in the area, under "Best Place To Buy Tacky Souvenirs," the magazine picks the Peter Pan souvenir shop in Delray Beach, Florida:

You would never know from their business that Alex and Mona Seredin, the current owners of this 54-year-old store, hail from Canada. Stepping inside Peter Pan brings you back to 1950s South Florida, when walking catfish flopped across the roads and your nearest neighbor was likely to be an alligator. This store offers hundreds of pieces of coral, seashell jewelry, straw hats and embroidered T-shirts with Florida themes.

Cute! What the item leaves out, however, is its proprietor's real claim to fame -- which is peddling hate, not "tacky souvenirs." Alex Seredin is the author of literally thousands of crudely anti-Semitic screeds on Internet Usenet boards, commonly referring to Jews as "kikes" and "long noses." Seredin recently opined that Jews "have no right to a country except six feet under," and recommended that "Palestinians expel all the bloody kikes."

Suggestion to City Link: Next time you profile a "tacky" souvenir shop owner, run the name in Google. You might find that more than just the souvenirs are "tacky."

Good Sense in India vs. Stupidity at the Times

Apropos my item earlier today on an erroneous, typically slanted New York Times editorial on Ariel Sharon, it is interesting to contrast that with an editorial that appeared today in The Pioneer, an Indian daily newspaper.

The Pioneer opined, in an editorial entitled "Perils of Moderation":

. . . Unfortunately, the commonplace wisdom that moderation is a pre-condition for settling conflicts does not hold good when one is dealing with murderous, Islamist terrorists of the Hamas variety who only understand the language of superior force. Mr Sharon has no doubt made it plain that he would not talk to a Palestinian Government that included Hamas. The latter, however, may have to be included in the Government if it does well in the elections to be held on January 25, 2006. Should this happen, Mr Sharon will realise what many following the beaten track on which he has embarked have done in the past - moderation does not pay against terrorism.

Interesting that people in New Delhi get clear-headed analysis like this, while New Yorkers are subjected to typical Times drivel.

Big Boo-Boo In the Times

Big, fat boo-boo in the New York Times today, and it will be interesting to see what if anything is done to correct it.

The lead editorial, predictably urging Israel to make concessions and not saying a thing about Palestinian obligations, repeats the old canard that Ariel Sharon "detonated the Palestinian intifada when, surrounded by hundreds of policemen and soldiers, he visited the plateau in Jerusalem that the Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary and the Jews call the Temple Mount."

Uh-oh. Major screwup, folks.

The historical record is clear: the intifada was "detonated" by Yasir Arafat, as part of the latter's pattern of seeking to obtain in violence what could not be yielded at the bargaining table. As quoted today in an excellent item in Soccer Dad, The Atlantic pretty well laid that old lie to rest in an article a couple of months ago. The magazine's source was authoritative: Mamduh Nofal, former military commander of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

After recounting how Arafat had previously used violence to get his way, The Atlantic reported:

The second intifada also began with the intention of provoking the Israelis and subjecting them to diplomatic pressure. Only this time Arafat went for broke. As a member of the High Security Council of Fatah, the key decision-making and organizational body that dealt with military questions at the beginning of the intifada, Nofal has first-hand knowledge of Arafat's intentions and decisions during the months before and after Camp David. "He told us, 'Now we are going to the fight, so we must be ready,'" Nofal remembers. Nofal says that when Barak did not prevent Ariel Sharon from making his controversial visit to the plaza in front of al-Aqsa, the mosque that was built oil the site of the ancient Jewish temples, Arafat said, "Okay, it's time to work."

Now, Times editorial writers are not especially bright or well-informed. But they could hardly have missed a widely publicized story that appeared on the cover of The Atlantic just two months ago. At the time it appeared, I said that the Atlantic piece was a must-read. But even if the Times's subscription to The Atlantic had lapsed, it has long been clear that Arafat orchestrated the intifada and that Sharon's visit was a shabby pretext. (Again, Soccer Dad proves, in this October 2004 item, that a blog has a better grasp of history than the mighty Times editorialists.)

I'd say a correction is in order, and that the traditional Times method of fixing major boo-boos, a letter to the editor, will not suffice.

As has been my practice with the last few Times items, I'm sending a copy of this item to the Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a "public editor") Barney Calame. Something else for you to ignore, Barney, while you shill for management and focus on trivia.

UPDATE: Good sense in India vs. stupidity at the Times.

Trackposted to:
Adam's Blog
Choose Life
Conservative Cat
Euphoric Reality
Pursuing Holiness
Third World County
Stop the ACLU

Krugman: Get Out of Iraq Because I Say So

I don't read Paul Krugman's column very much for a variety of reasons. Today I rediscovered why I don't.

His column today (unavailable except to lucky Times Select subscribers) basically is an anti-war polemic that, reduced to its essentials, says as follows: "The U.S. should get out of Iraq because I say so."

The title is "Time to Leave." OK. Why? What new evidence do you have or new arguments can you make, Paulie old boy?

OK.... let's see:

"A solid majority of Americans now believe that we were misled into war." You read it here first!

". . .the war is also destroying America's moral authority." Goodness, where does he come up with all these original ideas? (This one is my fave. The U.S. has always been so beloved across the globe! Some people actually believe that.)

"Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so, we're better off leaving sooner rather than later." That makes sense. Better to have that heart attack today, pop. Eat eggs!

It goes on like that. One tired argument after another. Krugman provides no analysis worth mentioning, quotes not a single person. I mean, zilch. And they say blogs are superficial. Hell, at least we try to say something new.

Speaking of which, I apologize for not doing that. Plenty of people have written about how Krugman stinks on ice, so I guess this item isn't saying much that's new.

Shilling for the UN -- It Runs in the Family!

The center of a UN correspondent immigration-law scandal, whose hubby is a kneejerk defender of the UN in the media, has surfaced in what I suppose might be called the family business -- the United Nations!

Anora Mahmudova, wife of the Payola Pundit, the UN media trainer-correspondent Ian Williams, recently churned out a "news dispatch" for a UN website.

Cozy! Her hubby Williams is one of the most slavish defenders of the UN in the media. Even though he boasts on his website that he has conducted media training sessions for UN hacks, he still shamelessly postures as a "journalist" in the media and in speaking engagements.

Williams (the gorgeous creature to the left) just made an appearance at a university out in Michigan, where he was billed as a "UN journalist," to babble on about how the U.S. should be nicer to the UN. (I wonder if he ranted on about how the UN is too pro-Israel, as he did in one recent column.)

Mrs. Williams is famous in her own right. Earlier this year she was nailed by Front Page Magazine for working for UNCA despite not having proper immigration clearance. FrontPage and Accuracy in Media also described the pervasive practice of UN correspondents such as Williams getting UN work while covering the UN, in Williams' case for The Nation.

Sure enough, Mahmudova seems to be following in that famiy tradition. In the Maximsnews website and in various other places, including the official UN correspondent directory, Mahmudova is listed as "BBC World Central Asian Service correspondent in the US and at the United Nations."

So we seem to have a family tradition in the making here. Congratulations!

The Empty Suit Watch: Barney Gets Innovative!

The Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman (a/k/a/ "public editor") Barney Calame, is always coming up with new and creative ways of carrying out his mandate, which is to make believe that he is serving as an in-house journalistic watchdog. In the past, he has filled out his column with the journalistic equivalent of balsa wood -- reader letters and trivia -- while ignoring the many blatant examples of bias and inaccuracy.

Today, Calame rolled out a new one: take a controversial subject, in this case anonymous sources, and pick a few softball examples to make the point that everything is OK and gosh darn it, Times editors are on the job!

"Anonymity: Who Deserves It?" is the title of Barney's column today. "It seems like a good time to assess the state of confidential sourcing at the paper," says Barney. Really? So what's going on and have you got to say, Barney my man?

Well, it seems that there is not too much activity on that front. We don't have egregious examples of bias such as I pointed out yesterday. You don't have a Times film critic using a review to bash Israel. There's an entire website, Timeswatch, that does nothing but examine the very worst examples of Times bias. Any of the stuff on Timeswatch ever addressed by Barney here? Of course not. That's not his job. No, that would not fulfill Barney's mission: to serve as a parody of a public editor.

So today, Barney fills his column in mind-numbingly pedestrian fashion. He cites a couple of examples of anonymous sourcing that are mildly, and I do mean mildly off-base... and some ones that are not mildly off-base, and some that are OK.... and... and .... zzzzzzzzzz.

Bottom line: Everything is under control. "There's a daily conversation on sources," says a Washington editor.

Terrific! But how about a daily conversation on bias too? How about a systematic examination of your coverage of subjects, such as its coverage of Iraq and Washington politics and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, where the Times stacks the deck every day?

Sorry. I was engaged in a bit of fantasy there. For a moment I thought I was dealing with a real newspaper ombudsman, and not a parody of one.

Barney's conclusion: The "[two top editors'] commitment to top-level oversight, and to providing sufficient editing attention to ignite those 'daily conversations' about sources, has to be sustained long after the recent clamor over the paper's use of anonymous sourcing has faded away."

Yep, got to work hard to keep the Times's reputation shiny. Everything is ship shape, folks. All the bias you see in the Times every day? Ain't happening. Just your imagination. That's Barney's World.

Another Must-Read Piece

This one is in the New York Sun (unavailable except to subscribers, alas). The piece, by Nofit Amir, describes how Islamic fundamentalism gulls journalists, with the recent Amman bombing cited as an example:

Most journalists. . . refuse to look at terrorists' religious creed, preferring secular explanations instead. Al Qaeda avidly provides secular explanations, knowing that these have a greater potential of dividing its enemies than religious ones do. If journalists don't start going to the books that terrorists are reading or the sermons they are hearing, they will continue to miss the real story.

This is the kind of sharp analysis you won't read anywhere else, and it is another good reason to read the Sun. However, I sure wish they'd make their newspaper available online. The Times does it. So do the other NY papers. The Sun should too!

(Or, second-best, they could give me a free online subscription.... hint... hint....)