Mediacrity

The Times' Belated Discovery of Incitement

2008-04-05T18:59:00.002-04:00

CAMERA has an excellent post that raises a relevant question about Steven Erlanger's article the other day on Palestinian incitement:

What took him so long? Why did he only address this issue when he was leaving the area?

CAMERA asks: "Did he not feel safe to report on incitement while he was working in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?"

Obviously not.

Moral Equivalence in the New York Times

2008-02-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

"A picture is worth a thousand words," goes the old saying, and the four pictures used by the New York Times today, in its article on the Dimona suicide bombing, made the following statement: that there is moral equivalence between the victims and perpetrators of terrorism.

The online version of the article is here, but it does not have the photo array that there was in the print edition. In print, the Times showed four photographs -- one of the suicide attack, one of Israelis in Dimona, one of the tearful mother of one of the bombers and the other of Arabs throwing stones at the Gaza-Egypt border.

In this farcical attempt at "even-handedness," the Times demonstrates its morally corrupt practice of showing equivalence between the victims of terrorism and the terrorists themselves.

It would be the same as showing a photo of the victims of Auschwitz and the poor grieving mothers of the SS men who committed the persecution. I can't think of a better example of the Times's biased coverage of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Fan Mail

2008-01-26T16:55:00.000-05:00

This came in the other day:

Hey, I came across your blog and have these thoughts:

The international solidarity movement is peaceful...dumbass. Try reading up on your history too. Your blog doesn't cite history well. They're called books. In English you read the words from left to right. Try using facts instead of repeating information you got from your minister or president. They're not always telling the truth. But, you jackass, right-wing fascist, douches seem to take their bullshit for reality. I can't wait for death, I'll finally be far away from people like you!

Have a nice Day! You suck,

I love it! Keep those cards and letters coming in, Moonbats.

Say That Again?

2008-01-26T16:45:00.000-05:00

We sometimes forget that newspaper reporters must report to editors who supposedly know more than they do, especially at newspapers like the New York Times. So pay close attention to this correction that appeared in the Times today:

Because of an editing error, a front-page article on Thursday about the entry of tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt after Hamas militants destroyed part of a fence at the border with Gaza described incompletely the events regarding Gaza and Egypt three decades ago. In that era, Egypt accepted the return of Sinai from Israel but declined to take back Gaza, not just the Gazan half of the border city of Rafah. The article also misstated, in some editions, the location of the border. It separates Gaza from northern Egypt, not southern Egypt.

This is really mind boggling. The foreign desk of the "newspaper of record" can't even get its facts straight on simple stuff like that?

With the Times messing up the small stuff, it's no wonder that it messes up the big picture, and continually underplays Arab terrorism against Israel.

The Times and the 'Killer Vet'

2008-01-22T16:55:00.000-05:00

The following blog post is reprinted with permission from Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project:

5219 words, and what do you get?
Another week older, and deeper in killer vet

With apologies to Tennessee Ernie, that’s how I felt while reading this week’s installment of the New York Times’ series “War Torn,” already torn to shreds from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to the New York Post to any sentient being in the blogosphere during the past week as transparent, statistically silly, dangerously damaging agenda journalism.

This week, the series delines the descent from Mormon alter boy to mentally wracked Iraq veteran to confessed murderer of his childrens’ mother. It’s truly chilling. The NYT’s points out the occasions where either the military, the VA or the Marine himself missed possible opportunities for stronger intervention. Like a macabre thriller, where the terrible ending is already known, one wants to yell out, “please help him.”

This week, the NYT’s points out:

Clearly, Mr. Smith’s descent into homicidal, and suicidal, behavior is not representative of returning veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. But among the homicide cases involving recent war veterans examined by The New York Times, Mr. Smith’s stands out because his identity as a psychologically injured veteran shaped the way that his crime was perceived locally and handled by local authorities.

His crime was treated compassionately, with consideration of his obvious remorse and the trials he’s seen. That’s commendable.

Really, not to take away from this story telling, it’s still not a telling story about our servicepeople serving.

The fact of the matter is that there’s a lesser incidence of violence upon return to civilian life than among non-serving civilians. See here for example.

The NYT’s choice of focus, however, is upon the rare exceptions, and at a forecast total tens of thousands of words, the size of a book. Instead, where’s the focus upon the statistically greater successes in adjustment among veterans, greater civilian career successes than non-serving cohorts?

When that happens on the pages of the NYT’s, we’ll be more willing to believe it has compassion for veterans rather than exploitation of a few’s sad trails.

— Bruce Kesler

The Gaza Crying Towel

2008-01-22T12:01:00.000-05:00

The poor, poor Palestinians are getting buckets of tears sloshing their way by the international news media, which has swallowed whole the line of propaganda sold by the Palestinians and their apologists.

Central to the weeping and wailing is that the poor, poor Palestinians are going without electricity. Isn't that awful? Thus we get this kind of weeping and wailing in the anti-Israel British media, such as the linked story originating in The Independent.

The BBC functioned, as usual, as a branch of the Hamas Ministry of Propaganda, replete with a photo essay showing dark streets and children weeping on cue. No parallel treatment was afforded the Israeli towns undergoing systematic terror rocket attacks.

The New York Times, naturally, supplied buckets of tears of its own.

No media outlet seems to be recording the obvious, which is: Since when is a country required to supply electricity to a country with which it is at war?

Excuse me, but did Britain supply electricity to Germany during the Blitz? Yet reporters at this same country expect Israel to do the same, despite the daily rain of rockets on Israeli border towns.

It's hard to find a better example of Palestinian media manipulation and bias against Israel.

The AP's Iraq Black Eye Grows Larger

2007-11-25T22:31:00.000-05:00

The following is from Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler, reprinted with permission from The Democracy Project:

The Associated Press tried to ignore the black eye it garnered for its repeated use of stories from Iraq by Jamil Hussein, created from whole cloth as disingenuous propaganda to discredit the US. As I wrote last January, “AP says UP Yours: Newspaper Unaccountability”:

The latest response by Associated Press executive editor Kathleen Carroll to the inability of any independent investigation to unearth the AP’s ghost informant, Jamil Hussein, should be headlined, “AP says UP yours,” instead of the E&P’s “Continues to Stand by Reporting.”
Ms. Carroll, apparently, feels well insulated from the public as she is from verifiable facts or accountability….
One wonders how to penetrate the insularity of such media barons like Carroll.
The Associated Press does not have an ombudsman, a representative of the public customers, nor does it present a complaint line, nor email addresses for its Board. The public’s sole recourse is via the owners of local newspapers who subscribe to the AP wire. It is only through that very attenuated route that a reader may hope to have any impact.

The US has now turned AP photographer Bilal Hussein over to the Iraqis for trial:

In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell explained the decision to bring charges now by saying “new evidence has come to light” about Hussein, but said the information would remain in government hands until the formal complaint is filed with Iraqi authorities.
Morrell asserted the military has “convincing and irrefutable evidence that Bilal Hussein is a threat to stability and security in Iraq as a link to insurgent activity” and called Hussein “a terrorist operative who infiltrated the AP.”

Now, comes this blast from the president and chief executive of Associated Press, Tom Curley, in defense of its photographer in Iraq, Bilal Hussein:

We believe Bilal's crime was taking photographs the U.S. government did not want its citizens to see. That he was part of a team of AP photographers who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for work in Iraq may have made Bilal even more of a marked man.
In the 19 months since he was picked up, Bilal has not been charged with any crime, although the military has sent out a flurry of ever-changing claims. Every claim we've checked out has proved to be false, overblown or microscopic in significance. Now, suddenly, the military plans to seek a criminal case against Bilal in the Iraqi court system in just days. But the military won't tell us what the charges are, what evidence it will be submitting or even when the hearing will be held….
Perhaps it is not surprising that the operators of the world's largest prison-camp network have found a way to provide access to due process in a form that actually looks more unjust than indefinite imprisonment without charges.
But this is a poor example -- and not the first of its kind -- of the way our government honors the democratic principles and values it says it wants to share with the Iraqi people.

Actually, quite a bit is known about Bilal Hussein. Michelle Malkin presents a useful summary, with Hussein's "convenient" photos, and John Hinderaker at Powerline neatly asks, “How stupid does the Associated Press think we are?”

The coming trial of Bilal Hussein may yet again exhibit why the Associated Press should both avoid Husseins, and should get new management with journalistic integrity instead of journalistic bombastity and self-righteous, self-defensive impermeability to following the facts.
— Bruce Kesler

A 'Guarantee' for Disaster.

2007-11-03T10:02:00.000-04:00

The New York Times lead editorial today on the upcoming "peach conference" between Israel and the Palestinians is either hopelessly naive or a bad joke.

Crammed in amid the usual Bush-bashing and pro-Palestinian spin we get these two nuggets:

A guarantee to use the full resources of the Palestinian Authority to help protect Israel from future terrorist attacks is also essential. . . After years of broken promises and bloodshed, Israelis and Palestinians must also agree on concrete steps that would show their people that life is changing for the better — now. These should include a Palestinian commitment to hunt down violent anti-Israel militants and a halt to Israeli settlements.

Sound familiar? It should, because this is precisely the formula for disaster that was laid down in the so-called "Road Map for Peace," which was ignored by the Palestinians from as soon as the ink dried.

Yet once again, the Times repeats the tired old formula of demanding that Israel take real, irrevocable action while the Palestinians only make "commitments" that they have never carried out and "guarantees" that are not worth the paper they are printed on.

David Duke Website Praises Ian Williams

2007-09-30T10:18:00.000-04:00

In my last blog I described how the Payola Pundit, UN consultant-correspondent Ian Williams, had rationalized the despicable behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an article in the Guardian Online.

Williams has received a note of appreciate from an appropriate source, the website of KKK racist David Duke. In an article entitled "Zionist propaganda machine wants you to believe that Ahmadinejad & Iran are our enemies," a Duke factotum noted Williams' article with approval. He also stroked an AFP correspondent who had been displeased that poor Mahmoud was getting a bad reception.

Perhaps Duke needs someone for consulting work?

Hey, Ahmadinejad Isn't So Bad!

2007-09-27T21:32:00.000-04:00

Count on the Payola Pundit, UN consultant-correspondent Ian Williams, to find something nice to say about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Williams retched out a piece in The Guardian Online saying that the Iranian dictator is not such a bad sort.

Over all, Williams was in fine form with this amoral garbage. His contributions lately have been sleep-inducing diatribes against the UN's new secretary geenral Ban Ki-moon, who Williams feels is not anti-American enough. Personally I think he is teed off because he isn't getting consulting work from the new administration, as he did under Kofi Annan.

Here's an excerpt from fifth rate hack's latest opus:

So, of what is Ahmadinejad guilty? He supports the death penalty? Anyone would think he was a Texas governor. Is the president of China ostracized for threatening to rain missiles on Taiwan, for not having elections, or for executing thousands of people a year? No, we give him the Olympics, and all the TV channels will be there.

In 1938, Williams would have been one of those people saying that Stalin was a great guy, and that Hitler wasn't so bad. After all, what was he guilty of? Supporting the death penalty?

Putting Lipstick on the Walt-Mearsheimer Pig

2007-09-24T14:08:00.000-04:00

The New York Times today has a full-page advertisement touting "The Israel Lobby" by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, which has gotten uniformly horrendous reviews from coast to coast.

A little embellishment is one thing, but Walt and Mearsheimer desperately tried to turn good reviews into bad ones, by absurdly selective and misleading quotations.

Here's the quote the ad uses from New Yorker editor David Remnick: "The strategic questions they raise now, particularly about Israel's privileged relationship with the United States, are worth debating."

Sure. But the ad leaves out that Remnick, no friend of Israel, felt that this book did a bad job of debating those questions and systematically twisted its arguments against Israel:

Where many accounts identify Osama bin Laden's primary grievances with American support of "infidel" authoritarian regimes in Islamic lands, Mearsheimer and Walt align his primary concerns with theirs: America's unwillingness to push Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. (It doesn't matter that Israel and the Palestinians were in peace negotiations in 1993, the year of the first attack on the World Trade Center, or that during the Camp David negotiations in 2000 bin Laden's pilots were training in Florida.) Mearsheimer and Walt give you the sense that, if the Israelis and the Palestinians come to terms, bin Laden will return to the family construction business.

It's a narrative that recounts every lurid report of Israeli cruelty as indisputable fact but leaves out the rise of Fatah and Palestinian terrorism before 1967; the Munich Olympics; Black September; myriad cases of suicide bombings; and other spectaculars.

Even worse was this brief quote from William Grimes of The New York Times: "Ruthlessly realistic."

In fact, Grimes was "ruthlessly realistic" in dumping on this book:

The general tone of hostility to Israel grates on the nerves, however, along with an unignorable impression that hardheaded political realism can be subject to its own peculiar fantasies. Israel is not simply one country among many, for example, just as Britain is not. Americans feel strong ties of history, religion, culture and, yes, sentiment, that the authors recognize, but only in an airy, abstract way.

They also seem to feel that, with Israel and its lobby pushed to the side, the desert will bloom with flowers. A peace deal with Syria would surely follow, with a resultant end to hostile activity by Hezbollah and Hamas. Next would come a Palestinian state, depriving Al Qaeda of its principal recruiting tool. (The authors wave away the idea that Islamic terrorism thrives for other reasons.) Well, yes, Iran does seem to be a problem, but the authors argue that no one should be particularly bothered by an Iran with nuclear weapons. And on and on.

And on and on is right. If these people can't even accurately describe the reaction to their own book, how can you trust the book itself?

The Times (Non-) Celebration of Indian Independence

2007-08-15T21:43:00.001-04:00

The New York Times today ran two op-ed pieces "commemorating" Indian independence predictably, by giving full flower to its pro-Muslim bias.

The top article is a softball piece focusing on the author's personal history (as if anyone other than himself would care) and exclaiming "For me personally, the 60th anniversary of independence, while worthy of note, is not of the utmost importance." So what's he doing writing an article about it?

The reason is to say what a wonderful place Pakistan is: "Pakistan now has private television stations that refuse to let the government set the news agenda. It has a Supreme Court that has asserted its independence for the first time, restoring a chief justice suspended by the president. And it has an army under physical attack from within and in desperate need of compromise with civil society."

The bottom article is written by an Indian, but don't expect it to say anything nice about India. The entire focus of the article is on the divisions between Hindus and Muslims. On a petty note, the author says that Punjabi refugees from Muslim oppression "cheated their tenants." That's on the basis of the author's personal experience with his landlords! Amazing, or maybe not amazing, that this foul bigotry found its way past Times editors.

But not amazing at all when you consider the Times's well-known pro-Muslim bias.

Mississippi on the West Bank

2007-08-11T10:40:00.000-04:00

The New York Times today gives us a vivid reminder of its disconnect from reality in the Middle East, as well as its expected pro-Palestinian bias.

An atrocious front-page article by the reliably anti-Israel Steve Erlanger describes a "segregated" - as in Bull Connor and antebellum Mississippi and KKK - road on the West Bank.

The poor, poor Palestinians can't travel into Jerusalem unless they have proper permission. Horrible! Segregation! Apartheid! How could those bad bad Israelis do such a thing? The animals!

Little things such as terrorism or the day-to-day bloodletting did not intrude into the picture Erlanger painted. The road will eliminate the need for checkpoints, and is only a few miles long, but that is not mentioned in the article.

But then, right above the continuation of the article on an inside page, we have another article by the same reporter explaining why the road is needed. A Palestinian decided to grab a gun from a security guard in the Old City of Jerusalem, and went on a shooting spree. This is precisely the kind of terrorism that makes it impossible to allow West Bank Palestinians free access to the Old City.

If they weren't killing people there would be no need for roads without exits or separation barriers. But Erlanger makes no mention of the Jerusalem shooting spree in his article on the road.

That would allow reality to intrude, and reality is a concept that does not exist in the Times's coverage of the Middle East. Better to paint a picture of Bull Connor and Mississippi of 1960.

That Dubious Soldier in Iraq

2007-07-24T10:17:00.000-04:00

Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler reports in The Democracy Project:

Thomas Lipscomb, veteran investigative journalist and publisher, who has debunked many a canard, looks askance at both The New Republic’s gullible inking of absurd invented charges against American forces in Iraq and at the lack of depth in the Weekly Standard’s skepticism.

Lipscomb wrote to the Washington Post’s media columnist, Howard Kurtz, who couldn’t make heads nor tails out of the matter. Lipscomb wonders where are any military veterans among these titans of journalism, who could directly and immediately see through the absurdity of the TNR piece and provide immediate truth.

For that matter, why not let their fingers do the walking, right to the Pentagon, and ask the operator to connect them with someone with military experience. Instead, days pass, until a blogger -- a Marine Reservist and a student at Columbia University in New York City, presently in Iraq interviewing the troops -- gets a Public Affairs officer in Iraq to reply courteously that the TNR piece is BS.

As Lipscomb says, this isn’t about politics; it’s Journalism 101.

Below, Lipscomb’s email to Howard Kurtz:

Looks like The New Republic has been had again. And this time it is so obvious it is embarrassing.
Of course with journalists today being the gentle allergic-to-combat darlings they are on both left and right... they can't be expected to know something as simple as there ARE no "square back" 9mm cartridges... or that anyone who tries cute tricks like the "diarist" describes with a Bradley has a very good chance of flipping his vehicle like a turtle exposing his lightly armored belly or leaving himself an immobile target in enemy country.
And BTW there is a crew aboard this Bradley with him that is not really interested in taking those kinds of risks with the putative "private"
Not really a situation to "enjoy" now... is it?

Perhaps instead of trying get this kind of crap "fact-checked, to the extent possible" (whatever that means) some of these publications could actually take advantage of some expertise available right in their hometown in DC... It is just a local call away.

Many journalists use it all the time. It is called the Department of Defense.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is some background on my own military experience:

As a 1203-1204 MOS Armor officer I know a little bit about armored vehicles and I climbed in my first Bradley back in the Fulda Gap in Germany before the Berlin Wall came down.
As a former captain of an Army pistol team as well… I also know more than a little about 9 mm rounds. And there are a lot of reasons why 1) round cartridges which allow equal pressure of the expanding gases in all directions cause fewer jammed weapons and 2) The military is trying as hard as it can to get rid of cartridges all together.

NO ONE wants to screw around with SQUARE cartridges that are far more likely to jam in combat than the ones that already cause enough grief. We learned the hard way with the early models of the M-16 in Viet Nam. We found too many dead soldiers and marines with their rifles partially disassembled to clear an ammunition blockage.

Of course who would EVER expect a New Republic editor or a Weekly Standard editor to check with the Infantry School at Benning or the Armor School at Knox… or the Ordnance testing ground right there in Maryland which are responsible for the capabilities and adoption of weapons systems, when they could “fact check” with Google… or Wikipedia for that matter?

KEEP ON THIS HOWIE… it will be fun… Happy to get you some experts if you wish… .

Where do they GET these kids? Doesn’t anyone know how to report and fact check a source with stories too good to be true anymore?

Lipscomb adds:

Franklin Foer, the editor of The New Republic is so gaga about his pseudonymous “Scott Thomas” that he calls him “an amazing resource—a guy who’s on the front lines, who has a gift for observation and can write,” which may well be true. What is clear from the current controversy is that “Thomas” is a lousy reporter, and Foer’s notion that he had Thomas’s work “"fact-checked, to the extent possible" is either a lie or a confession of terminal incompetence by Foer. However “amazing” Thomas is as a “resource” he is also clearly “incredible” as well. And if Foer had done the most elementary fact-checking on the details of Thomas’s reporting with military experts, rather than Thomas’s buddies, he would never have run the piece currently under fire. Clearly the current Editor of The New Republic doesn’t know beans about how to authenticate the work of his writers… Marty Peretz should give his revolving door over there one more spin and fast.
Meanwhile, The Weekly Standard is full of indignant blather from Editor Bill Kristol, but fails to do a thing to advance the story or blow it by having it gone over by its own experts. Here is an obvious target…as recounted in the Howard Kurtz column today: “The diarist described how soldiers in a mess hall had openly mocked a woman -- he wasn't sure whether she was a soldier or contractor -- whose face was severely scarred from an injury presumably suffered in Iraq: "The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall, her half-finished tray of food nearly falling to the ground."

The fact is that the military today is almost as infested with “politically correct” monitoring as an Ivy League college. That incident would not have gone unnoticed or unreported by commissioned or noncommissioned officers and it would have occasioned a pile of paperwork. This incident could in no way be regarded as a normal event in a mess hall with hundreds of people present, any number of whom spend their nights worrying that they too might be horribly disfigured in Iraq.

Making jokes about the disfigurement of a man, or particularly a woman, in a mess hall is about as unlikely an event as might be imagined, as Scott Johnson correctly noted in Powerline. There would have been a paper trail with a lot of asses to cover and if Foer had the mess hall identified correctly, this would have been an easy thing to authenticate.

The Weekly Standard contents itself with a blog posting from a PAO officer at Falcon Base in Iraq, where the offense supposedly took place. It simply passes on this official communication and does no work on its own.

Great!... The New Republic can’t fact-check, The Weekly Standard can flounce indignantly, but it doesn’t do any fact-checking either, and now The American Spectator employs a staffer who likes to get his name in the papers who thinks fact-checking in looking something up on Google.

With the policy question of American involvement in Iraq squarely on the table, this is the kind of reporting we are supposed to rely upon? Is it any wonder that periodical circulation is collapsing and advertising is drying up?

— Bruce Kesler

'Quetions of Justice'?

2007-07-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

A New York Times article in the Sunday edition is headed "Charge Against a Player Raises Questions of Justice." Obviously we have a serious miscarriage of justice brewing here, according to the headline.

In fact, what you have is an allegation of child molestation handled in as gentle a way imaginable. Seems that a football player at Oklahoma State was accused of molesting a 12 year old girl.

Okay, a person is innocent until proven guilty and all that. But what's the "question of justice?" If you read down through the article, you see that the defendant is black and the victim is white, and then the following:

Benjamin Dennis, president of the N.A.A.C.P. in Texarkana — whose population is roughly 60 percent white and 37 percent black — said that some of the city’s black residents were concerned about the handling of the case, particularly the delay in trying the four men.
“If they were guilty, then the evidence should have been presented in a timely fashion,” he said. “They should have been tried, and if convicted, sentenced. Justice should have been administered at least.”

Huh? That's it?

Interesting to compare the Times's handling of this case with its famously misguided handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case, where it branded the defendants guilty before they were tried. Here a defendant has been pronounced railroaded without a scintilla of evidence.

The New Times Ombudsman is a Bad Joke

2007-07-10T14:20:00.000-04:00

Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler writes as follows on his Democracy Project website:

I interrupt my summer vacation (wife & boys in Europe for a month, while I relax/zone-out at San Diego beaches) to bring you this unsurprising newsflash: The New York Times’ ombudsman is another bad joke. Clark Hoyt, of distinguished Leftward-bias MSM background, continues the sad record of major newspaper ombudsmen failing to research their opinions, thus failing to fulfill their function of being an independent check upon the quality of their newspaper’s journalism, instead just adding another layer of incompetent journalism.

I’ve made a minor hobby of dissecting the pretense of ombudsmen as protectors of journalistic quality, dealing with some of its most prominent. (My latest, here, also has links to the previous.)

Minneapolis’ John Hinderaker of Powerline blog, not having the lotusland weather of my home San Diego to lull him, applies his sharp lawyerly eye to Clark Hoyt.

…The administration is blaming al Qaeda for violence in Iraq, to the "virtual exclusion of other sources;" al Qaeda is the "single villain." Hoyt doesn't seem to have done any research to bolster this claim….
I decided to test that claim by reviewing the press releases that the Multi-National Force has put out so far in July. There are a total of 87 press releases, which I thought would be a representative sample, as well as, obviously, an up to date one.

I found that only 29 of those 87 press releases mentioned al Qaeda at all; 58, or two-thirds, made no reference to that organization. Further, of those that attributed violent acts to some enemy of the U.S. and the Iraqi government, 37 mentioned persons other than al Qaeda; e.g., "insurgents," an "extremist group," an "IED cell," etc. So, far from focusing on al Qaeda to the "virtual exclusion" of other groups, 55% of the time, the military does not mention al Qaeda at all.

The factual statements on which the Times' Public Editor premised his entire analysis were simply false, and easily shown to be so.

However, it appears that no one at the Times thought it was worth taking two hours (as I did) to review IOF press releases to see whether the Public Editor's assertions could withstand scrutiny. It's odd: they have a huge budget, while we have no budget at all and don't even do this for a living.

Hinderaker continues to dissect and expose Hoyt’s ignorant and incompetent bias. The post should be archived for its documented indictment.

Hoyt ends his column with the admonition:

Military experts will tell you that failing to understand your enemy is a prescription for broader failure.

Allahpundit does an excellent job of doing that, missed by Hoyt’s left-eyed perspective, and the New York Times’ editorial for withdrawal regardless of consequences.

UPDATE:
A distinguished journalist friend, with whom I sometimes agree and sometimes not, contacted me about the above post. His experience with Hoyt speaks to a careful and scrupulous editor of my friend's columns. My friend disagrees with my characterization of Hoyt as having a "Leftward-bias." Hoyt's friends prefer to view him as a "skeptic."

That may be so, or just reflect that "skeptic" is a new short-hand for bias against the administration, particularly when a similar skepticism is not applied toward the Left.

Regardless, Hoyt's column could have done with careful fact-checking and editing, which in his new position as NYT's ombudsman is not applied. Skepticism is either a two-way, indeed omnidirectional, street, or it's a euphemism for bias.

— Bruce Kesler

Israel, 'Colonialism,' and 'Reality' in the Times

2007-07-08T11:16:00.001-04:00

The New York Times Magazine has a cover article today on Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister, and it is an outstanding example of the newspaper's anti-Israel bias. It was a perfect companion piece for the full-page Times editorial today. calling for unconditional withdrawal surrendering the country to al Qaeda and Iran.

The author is Roger Cohen, a former Times foreign desk bureaucrat now exiled to the International Herald Tribune, noted for his anti-Israel bias and he lived up to that reputation in the article. His bias colors the entire article.

Thus Hezbollah and Hamas, the former being the "A Team" of terrorism and the latter being the originator of dozens of suicide bombings, are not terrorists at all but merely have been "branded" as such.

Thus Resolution 242 demands "total withdrawal" to the pre-'67 lines (which it does not, as CAMERA pointed out today).

Even though Cohen acknowledges that "a Palestinian return en masse would condemn the Jewish state" (to extinction, though he doesn't use the word), and even though he acknowledges that "Livni is only stating the obvious," he asserts that "Whether such bluntness is helpful is another question. Palestinians are not about to trade one of their biggest chips up front."

In another words, the problem is not that the Palestinians are making an unreasonable, ridiculous demand that they should drop, but that it is Israel that is being unreasonable and ridiculous by refusing to negotiate its own descruction. He reinforces that nonsensical point with a quote from a Palestinian propagandist that "Livni wants us to do is give up before we start negotiations.”

Obviously the Palestinians are living in a dreamworld and cut off from any semblance of reality. Any fair-minded journalist would have pointed that out. But we are not dealing with a fair-minded journalist here. We are dealing with the New York Times. "

"But Livni can be relentless," Cohen says immediately after the Palestinian quote, using the Yiddish expression "nudnik" or nudge. He clearly means that it is Israelis like Livni, and not the Palestinians, who are being unreasonable and stubborn for forcing the Palestinians to "give up before we start negotiations" by dropping an insane demand.

He then uses vague innuendo to lambaste Livni and Condoleezza Rice, saying each "sometimes appears to lack the subtlety of wisdom." So now it "lacks wisdom" to negiate your own destruction.

Then, concluding his disapproving discussion of rejection of this cherished but admittedly impossible demand, comes the coup de grace:

I believed in Livni’s good faith, her energy, her honesty, her determination. What I was not sure about after our first meeting was her grasp on reality.

Isn't this amazing? Remember that what he is talking about here is not Livni's insistence on a Palestinian state--a Utopian goal if ever there was one--but her insistence on stuff like Israel not insisting on self-destruction. "The fact is, Israelis and Palestinians have parted company. I could see little evidence that Livni, for all her lucidity, was any exception to this," says Cohen, driving home the point.

As is commonplace in the Times, Cohen equates Palestinian obstinate rejection of Israel's existence with Israeli obstinate insistence on its existence. To the Times, both are just two coequal forms of "being obstinate," making no distinction between the two. It is not only amoral and hopelessly biased, it is simple-minded and plain stupid.

But you have to remember that this is calculated, malicious stupidity. The malice finally bursts open in a crucial paragraph on the poor poor Palestinians of the West Bank, in which Cohen tearfully describes "checkpoints where Palestinians see themselves reflected in the stylish shades of Russian-immigrant Israeli soldiers. If you are looking for a primer on colonialism, this is not a bad place to start."

This didn't just sneak past the copy desk, mind you. The editor of the magazine proudly took out the "primer on colonialism" quote and used it as a "pull quote" in boldface in the print edition of the magazine, to be sure that we did not overlook that vile display of bias.

Though ending with a quote from unreasonable, reality-starved Livni, the real stars of this article, as usual, are the poor poor Palestinians and their reasonable, "moderate" leaders. This is a splendid example of how the Times skews its coverage of the Middle East, with a bias and a contempt for Israel that is always simmering just below the surface.

The New York Times Rewrites Middle East History

2007-06-21T09:06:00.000-04:00

A page one story in the New York Times today, discussing how Tony Blair may become a special Middle East envoy, contains the following passage:

While Mr. Olmert cautioned against moving too fast on “final status” issues, he said he planned to look for ways to empower Mr. Abbas, administration officials said, including releasing tax revenues that Israel had been keeping from the Palestinians.
But the lack of a link between the tracks — final status versus Palestinian institution-building — is the crux of why previous attempts at peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have been unsuccessful.

Excuse me? Are you saying that the relentless Palestinian suicide bombing campaign hasn't had anything to do with it?

Or the double-dealing and refusal to accept Israel's existence?

Or Yasser Arafat refusing to ink a deal with Clinton and Barak?

Or any of the thousand and one other reasons lying solely and exclusively in the Palestinian victim mindset?

It is this subtle propaganada, tossed in to Times stories without even a second thought (or intervention from editors) that lies at the very heart of the Times's systematic bias against Israel.

You saw even more of that yesterday, when the Times allowed its op-ed page to become a forum for the lies of a Hamas terrorist.

Don't expect the Times's new Empty Suit "public editor" to give a damn about any of this, any more than his useless predecessor Barney Calame.

Welcome, Conservative Voice Readers

2007-06-14T12:16:00.000-04:00

Am honored that my item on the New York Times a few days ago has been reprinted on your fine website.

The Times Laments "America in Decline"

2007-06-11T08:25:00.000-04:00

The New York Times today has a front page article on the last episode of the HBO series The Sopranos. But, this being the Times, it was more than just a review--it was an attack on America.

The decline and fall of the Sopranos — Tony; his wife, Carmela; and the rest — served as a parable of America in decline, yet week to week the series was also just a gangsters’ tale, with lots of graphic sex, gruesome violence and most of all a sense of humor.

Note the totally unnecessary reference to "America in decline." That may be Alessandra Stanley's personal opinion (she is a Times reporter, so what do you expect?), but it has no place in a TV review unless you are Counterpunch, the Daily Worker, or the New York Times.

This is not the first time the Times has allowed the political radicalism of its arts critics to creep into their articles.

Two years ago, I pointed out that architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff did the same thing in an article on Ground Zero. He used that platform to attack America as "a society that has turned its back on any notion of cultural openness" and "an empire enthralled with its own power."

If you have a problem with this, don't bother to complain to the newly appointed Empty Suit, "public editor" Clark Hoyt. His inaugural column, on Sunday, follows the Barney Calame tradition of serving as a public relations conduit for Times editors.

The subject of his column was the Times' failure to put the JFK terror plot on page one. Hoyt tackled the subject in Calamesque fashion by interviewing the editors and swallowing their excuses.

Don't worry, Clark. Just two more years before you can go back to your divan.

The Media Mourns Six Day War Anniversary

2007-06-05T10:44:00.000-04:00

The media commemorated the 40th anniversary of Israel's smashing victory in the Six Day War much as you would expect: by bemoaning that it ever happened. The alternative, Israel's destruction, is given hardly a shrug.

Typical was the New York Times, which ignored the anniversary completely in its news pages and ran an op-ed piece by left-wing Israel historian Tom Segev. In an exercise of ridiculous Monday morning quarterbacking, Segev suggests that Israel admits that Jordan attacked West Jerusalem. But Israel, he argues, should have responded by simply "struck back at the Jordanian army" and then daintily withdrew.

Using the same retroactive reasoning, Segev says that somehow this would have spared the West Bank of its subsequent Islamic fanaticism--as if a show of weakness ever quelled Arab public opinion.

The French AFP news agency highlighted, of course, a protest by the microscopic Israeli antiwar movement. A typical line:" Several hundred hardline settlers currently live in the city [of Hebron] under army protection, often clashing with their 170,000 Palestinian neighbours." "Clashing with" is media-speak for "being attacked by."

Another AFP story quoted PA president Abbas as saying that a Palestinian state would reverse the '67 war defeat, which is certainly true as it would mean the end of Israel.

"Despite all the difficulties, however, our revolt was equal to this defeat, the memory of which we hope will be erased by ending the occupation of Arab and Palestinian territory and by establishing our independent state," the "moderate" Abbas was quoted as saying.

The BBC sounded the same note from the first paragraph: "Israeli and Palestinian peace activists have been holding protests to mark 40 years since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war."

Amid all the hand-wringing came the Jerusalem Post, quoting historian Michael Oren on new evidence showing that the Arab armies intended to destroy Israel.

In an interview on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the outbreak of war on June 5, 1967, Oren said his research of documents in Arab countries had revealed clearly that the Arabs had planned to destroy Israel.
Although this seems obvious to Israel sympathizers who hold to the traditional story of the Arabs' responsibility for the outbreak of war, the intervening decades have seen the promulgation of a myth that Israel was not really in danger.

"The biggest myth going is that somehow there was not a real and immediate Arab threat, that somehow Israel could have negotiated itself outside the crisis of 1967, and that it wasn't facing an existential threat, or facing any threat at all," said Oren, who is a senior fellow at the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies at Jerusalem's Shalem Center and author of Six Days of War: June 1967. He noted that this was the premise of Tom Segev's book, 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East. "What's remarkable is that all the people alleging this - not one of them is working from Arabic sources. It's quite extraordinary when you think about it. It's almost as if Israel were living in a universe by itself. It's a deeply solipsistic approach to Middle East history."

Be sure to go to the Jerusalem Post website and read this. You can bet the mainstream media won't pick up on it.

Why the Democrats Can't Be Trusted on Israel

2007-06-04T16:15:00.000-04:00

A Financial Times article the other day shows why the Democratic Party cannot be trusted on Israel. No American newspaper has touched this.

Superficially, the Democrats seem to show no daylight between them and the Bush administration. The FT points out that "As recently as 1999 and 2000, it was acceptable for Bill Clinton, a Democratic president, to talk about “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank” as an obstacle to peace. Mr Clinton frequently referred to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in the same vein. That is no longer mainstream."

But here's the payoff:

“The plain fact is there is no upside for candidates to challenge the prevailing assumptions about Israel,” said one of their advisers, who asked not to be named. “The best strategy is to win the White House and then change the debate.”

In other words, the best strategy for friends of Israel is to be sure the Democrats don't win the White House.

Goodbye, Gold Star Moron

2007-05-30T10:32:00.000-04:00

Hail and farewell to Cindy Sheehan, the harebrained moonbat who made a career out of spitting on the memory of her slain son. The New York Times, as is its wont, published a lengthy tribute to the Gold Star Moron, and the rest of the media was not far behind.

Predictably, the Times account deified the dowdy Sheehan as the "face of the antiwar movement," and downplayed her wacked-out positions, not mentioning her anti-Semitic attacks on Israel and support from David Duke.

The Times basically turned over the podium to Sheehan and allowed her to rant about "the empire of the good old US of A." It even published, on its website, a link to her farewell on the Daily Kos.

Goodbye, Gold Star Moron, and good riddance.

The Media's Silence on Tenet and Arafat

2007-05-03T08:42:00.000-04:00

George Tenet's new book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, has received lavish publicity - a segment on 60 Minutes, a front page story in the New York Times, and generally lavish coverage in the mainstream media. But here is one thing you haven't read: Tenet is devastatingly critical of Yasser Arafat.

As reported in the Jerusalem Post today, Tenet "places most of the blame for the breakdown of the security plan bearing his name and other efforts to stop the violence after the outbreak of the second intifada on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat."

"Almost always, that last impenetrable barrier to peace had the same name: Arafat," he writes in his 576-page memoir, of which an entire chapter is devoted to the late PA chairman. . . . "Arafat always wanted one more thing, and one more thing was never enough because what he really wanted was for the peace process to be ever-active and eternally unresolved," according to Tenet.

An even more outrageous omission is the media's failure to report his endorsement of the Bush Administration's shunning of Arafat:

He says that the White House was right not to push for greater diplomacy with the Palestinians once Bush entered office, as it was apparent little could be done with Arafat in power.

"He got what he could from us [through the Oslo process], and from that point on gave little back," Tenet says. "Therefore - and it was a view I supported - there would be no more letting him in the front door."

I'm not faulting the media for focusing on Tenet's revelations on the Iraq war. But not one word on any of these insights? If Tenet had been favorable to Arafat, I'll bet it would have been splashed all over the front pages.

Will the Media Cover Hamas 'Kill All Americans' Sermon?

2007-05-02T11:42:00.001-04:00

The Jerusalem Post online edition, quoting from MEMRI, today recounts a speech by a top Hamas official that is about as bloodthirsty as you can imagine. Here is an excerpt from the report:

Ahmad Bahr began: "'You will be victorious' on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] 'you will be victorious,' but only 'if you are believers.' Allah willing, 'you will be victorious,' while America and Israel will be annihilated. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America's nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere."
Bahr continued and said that America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims "'will be victorious, if you are believers.' Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel."
The Hamas spokesperson concluded with a prayer, saying: "Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. [italics added] Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent down His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet, defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them."

Will the mainstream media be covering this bloodcurdling exhibition by a top official of the Palestinian Authority? We'll be watching.

A Story You'll Never Find in the Grey Lady

2007-05-01T17:09:00.000-04:00

There are literally thousands, of course, but one stood out to a regular reader of this blog. It is an article in the New York Sun about a historian of the Vietnam War named Mark Moyar.

Moyar is a graduate of Harvard and Cambridge with a prodigious academic record. Says the Sun: "Before he had even begun graduate school, he had published his first book and landed a contract for his second book. Distinguished professors at Harvard and Cambridge wrote stellar letters of recommendation for him."

Yet Moyar can't find a job. Why? Because he is a conservative. The Sun reports:

A contrarian among most Vietnam scholars, he does not believe it was a mistake for America to have gone into Vietnam. In carefully argued prose using previously unexamined sources, he marshals support for the "domino theory." His scholarship and books have received great reviews and marked him as a rising star.

But that's not good enough for academia, which has shut him out. A better example of acadmia's liberal orthodoxy is difficult to find.

So a Reporter Wanders Into a Bookstore....

2007-04-27T13:10:00.000-04:00

The front-page article in the New York Times today on George Tenet's new book (in which he blasts the Bush administration; hence the front page article) contains a line that reads almost like a joke in an old nightclub routine. "So a reporter wanders into a bookstore..."

Says the Times, "The 549-page book, 'At the Center of the Storm,' is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war."

So the Times got an advance copy, obviously. No! No! says the Times. Its reporter just happened to be wandering through a bookstore and lo and behold, there it was. "A copy of the book was purchased at retail price in advance of publication by a reporter for The New York Times."

But the book is not available on Amazon or in bookstores just yet.

There's nothing wrong or unethical about the Times getting an advance copy of the book, so as to publicize it. That's what obviously happened here, though apparently the Times actually paid for its copy. Why conceal the truth?

More Mealy-Mouthed Shilling from the Empty Suit

2007-04-22T14:18:00.000-04:00

Going out with a whimper

The Empty Suit, New York Times "public editor" a/k/a spokesman Barney Calame, wind down his disastrous two-year term as public editor today, with a typically mealy mouthed column that says absolutely nothing about the Times' coverage of the Duke Universtiy rape case.

Calame "revisits" the infamous Aug. 25 article in whcih the Times essentially lynched the Duke University defendants. As usual, he says nothing in particular and churns out the usual patented Calame Whitewash: "I found that the past year’s articles generally reported both sides, and that most flaws flowed from journalistic lapses rather than ideological bias."

That's typical. No matter how dramatic the evidence, the Suit never finds evidence of ideological bias.

What the Suit forgets is that a series of notorious "journalstic lapses," all taking place on the same side of the ideological spectrum, is a prima facie case of ideological bias.

Calame winds up his two-year term as public editor this month. The general view of journalism critics in the mainstream media is precisely what I was saying two years ago: that he is little more than a shill for Times management.

Good riddance, Calame.

UPDATE: Here is a terrific blog post from Durham that sums up the situation nicely:

Sunday, Times public editor Byron Calame published his review of the Times coverage of the lacrosse case. It avoided any comprehensive analysis of the coverage, faulted Duff Wilson’s August 25 story but offered no convincing explanation of why the story was so flawed, and provided a basic message of “no harm, no foul” in the Times’ mishandling of the case.

The article that a good public editor might have written appeared in today’s Chronicle, penned by Iza Wojciechowska. “In the year since the story first broke,” wrote Wojciechowska, “The Times has been criticized for printing news with a slant favoring Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and for drawing out the amalgam of sex, race and class issues that contributed to the case’s prominent position in the national spotlight.”

Two Lynchings

2007-04-13T12:43:00.000-04:00

The media in recent days has been going bananas in its coverage of two lynchings: the Duke University "rape that was no rape" case, and the hypocritical pile-on of Don Imus for using the same "racial terms" that are common in rap lyrics.

The New York Times, as usual, stood out like a sore thumb.

While reporting the withdrawal of charges on the front page, the Times did not report its own tawdry record in hyping that story. Fox News observed that "nowhere did it mention a Times exclusive from last August in which the paper said: 'While there are big weaknesses in (prosecutor) Nifong's case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury. In several important areas, the full files, reviewed by The New York Times, contain evidence stronger than that highlighted by the defense.'"

The shameful hypocrisy of the Imus crucifixion was a kind of team sport enjoyed by the entire media. Rush Limbaugh, a target of Imus, said:

"To me, this really isn't so much about Imus," Rush said. "Imus is who he is, and everybody has always known who he is. It's more about the people that have propped Imus up and have looked the other way over all these years over all these things, and it's about a lot of hypocrisy in the 'drive-by' media.”

No such furor followed Imus' anti-Semitic remarks just five months ago. As The Forward noted at the time,

“I remember when I first had ’em on a few years ago,” Imus said. “The Jewish management at, whoever we work for, CBS, were bitchin’ at me about it.” WFAN is a subsidiary of WCBS radio.

“We had a meeting in my office,” Imus continued. “They were furious, but of course I don’t care what they say and never have.”

At this point, the show’s executive producer, Bernard McGuirk, a regular on-air presence, said of the Blind Boys, “Even if you wear a beanie, how can you not love these guys?”

“I tried to put it in terms that these money-grubbing bastards could understand,” Imus replied. “I said: ‘They’re handicapped, they’re black and they’re blind. How do we lose here?’ And then a light bulb went off over their scummy little heads.”
Imus co-host Larry Kenney, an impressionist who appeared earlier in the program as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, then said: “They probably were trying to push a more Semitic group on you. I don’t know, maybe the Paralyzed Putzes of Poland, or something like that.”

“You can’t believe what goes on behind the scenes, at least with me with these people,” Imus said. “And fortunately, I don’t care.”

The reaction? There wasn't any. Yet four words got his career tossed in the can.

It's hard to find a better example of political correctness, double standards and hypocrisy run wild.

The 'Chilling Effect' of Common Sense

2007-04-08T22:36:00.000-04:00

Don't you think it would make this country safer if illegal immigrants are allowed to roam unhindered around the country -- without the police to worry about?

That preposterous mindset can be found, not in some Moonbat rag but in this Associated Press story out of San Francisco.

Seems an "activist attorney" by the bay wants a judge to compel "San Jose police to follow state law and turn suspects who might be in the U.S. illegally over to immigration authorities. "

Horrors!

Aside from the usual left-wing pap, we get the following:

Mark Silverman, director of Immigration Policy for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said the filing could have a "chilling effect" on immigrants' cooperation with police.
"It could actually endanger public safety," Silverman said.

Imagine that. Arresting illegal immigration is bad for our safety. What the AP misses is that this policy applies to arrested people. The cops would not be obliged to check the immigration status of anyone who drops by the station house.

The AP let this nonsense pass uncontradicted.

Not a Racial Killing?

2007-04-05T16:51:00.000-04:00

If you don't think this country is totally consumed by political correctness, particularly on racial issues, think hard about this:

A young couple, students from the University of Tennessee, were victims of a carjacking and were kidnapped, raped, tortured and eventually murdered by five people. Read this gruesome account:

According to reports, (the man's) penis was then cut off before he was shot several times and set on fire, all while his girlfriend watched. His body was then dumped alongside train tracks. Christian was kept alive and gang-raped multiple times over a span of four days. Her breast was cut off while she was still alive and her kidnappers sprayed cleaning fluid into her mouth to cleanse it of DNA. Her body was then put into a garbage can.

The attackers were of a different race.

Now, if the victims were black and the perpetrators were white, this would be front page news around the country. But the victims were white and the alleged perpetrators were black.

This atrocity has been ignored by the media. Note this analysis in the Conservative Voice.

If you can find a better example of PC gone haywire, let me know.

'Wrong Man Fattah' Does it Again

2007-03-26T10:43:00.000-04:00

Hassan "Wrong Man" Fattah, the New York Times reporter and Hezbollah sympathizer famed for the famous Abu Gharib wrong man screwup, is at it again. This time his journalistic genius is turned to the always heart wrenching tale of the poor, poor Palestinian refugees.

As Wrong Man would have it, these are a group of deeply wronged pacifists who would be more than happy to start other lives elsewhere. In Fattahland, not a single word is given to the destruction of Israel.

Forget everything you've been reading. All Israel has to do is to admit that it is to blame for their "plight" -- Israel and not the Arab nations who kept them in camps for six decades. Then that will make everything nice and go away.

What's amazing is not that the pro-Palestinian Times runs this pap, but that it does so from a reporter with a proven record of incompetence.

The Times Hugs 'Mayor Moonbat'

2007-03-22T17:16:00.000-04:00

Mayor Moonbat pressing the flesh at hate-America rally

The New York Times today gave a big fat hug - in the form of a front page puff piece - to what must surely be the oddest mayor in America, the Moonbat mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson.

Kirk Johnson says, "Rocky Anderson may not be the most liberal mayor in America. But here in the most conservative state, he might as well be."

"Liberal" seems a mealy-mouthed way of whitewashing a mayor who is guest of honor at an "anti-war" rally where anti-American slogans were shouted. That rally followed a "death to Israel" rally that was even worse.

This is typical of the mainstream media's coverage of states like Utah, where Republican sentiments and support of the war run strong. The media focuses on the small handful of nuts and moonbats, no matter how grotesquely unrepresentative.

The Best of 2007

2007-03-17T01:12:00.000-04:00

Mediacrity has been named among the Best Blogs of 2007 by the Jewish Press, alongside the New Republic, National Review, Instapundit, our friends at Israpundit and other notables.

Does that make us a "titan," as we were kindly called by Sultan Knish?

Absolutely!

The Times Inaugurates 'Palestine'

2007-03-16T17:31:00.000-04:00

The pro-Palestinian prejudice of the New York Times is so deeply ingrained that it can be found in articles on the arts and now, even otherwise good articles on the Middle East.

We see that in an article that ran on the front page today, on a new gang of anti-American terrorists operating out of a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon:

The arc of Mr. Abssi’s life shows the allure of Al Qaeda for Arab militants. Born in Palestine, from which he and family were evicted by the Israelis, Mr. Abssi, 51, said he stopped studying medicine. . .

Apparently "Mr. Abssi" is from Palestine, Texas, and his family had an Israeli landlord who evicted them from their apartment. It has to be. In 1956, when "Mr. Abssi" was born, there was no place name called "Palestine" on any map available outside of the Arab world.

Maybe the Times meant Jordan or Egypt, but that would remind the reader that those two esteemed Arab countries did not give Palestinians the statehood they suddenly thirsted for after 1967.

Also there is the question of this "eviction." How did that happen? Did Israel just serve an eviction notice on the Abssi clan or did they just pick up and leave during the Six-Day War?

The point is that there was and, thank heavens, is no "Palestine," thanks to the bloodthirstiness of "Mr. Abssi" and his ilk.

The Times Sanitizes a Muslim Extremist

2007-03-11T16:28:00.000-04:00

The New York Times today contains a lengthy front-page article on how foreign-born and native Muslims are getting cozy with each other and interacting. Isn't that just grand? What the Times leaves out, however, is the sordid background of one of the main players in this intrafaith reconciliation: Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid.

An expose on this man in Discoverthenetworks.com points out all the things the Times left out. He organized an anti-war demonstration while the wounds were still festering on Sept. 22, 2001, and has authored some extremist polemics described in the article.

The prospect of unity between foreign-born and domestic Muslims also has implications for the war on terrorism that the Times doesn't touch. Domestic Muslims were indicted last year in a terrorist plot, and studies have shown that terrorist influence among imprisoned Muslims.

And this the Times celebrates?

More 'Scare Quote' Bias

2007-03-03T10:12:00.000-05:00

One of the ways the media puts across its agenda is through the use of "scare quotes," which are quotes that surround words and phrases to convey a kind of raised eyebrow.

The perennially biased French news agency AFP uses scare quotes constantly in slanting its Middle East coverage, as happened today in a dispatch about Israeli patrols of the Dead Sea:

JERUSALEM (AFP) - The Israeli navy last week reportedly completed trials on the possibility of carrying out regular patrols on the Dead Sea.

The tests were conducted in a bid to prevent infiltration by "terrorists" and the smuggling of weapons from Jordan, the country's privately run Channel Two television said.

The word "terrorists" is put in scare quotes so as to convey the view that Israel isn't interested in terrorism, but in flexing its muscles for no good reason and putting a scare in the poor poor Arabs.

Kerry and Swittboats, Again

2007-03-02T15:02:00.000-05:00

The mainstream media is again giving John Kerry a pass on the thorny issue of his dissembling about his Vietnam War record.

An outstanding analysis can be found in the Democracy Project, in an article by Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler that I am replicating below:

Hardly anyone pays any serious attention to John Kerry anymore, having repeatedly demonstrated his buffoonery.

However, John Kerry is still a United States Senator, holding powerful committee positions for the Senate’s majority party. The liberal allies of his points of view in the media are still the dominant chroniclers and influencers of public views. Thus, Kerry still has substantial influence on current policies and opinions that will shape our future.

The latest example is the Senate Foreign Relations committee hearing on the nomination of Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium. John Kerry demanded that Fox, who donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, renounce “the politics of personal destruction." According to the Associated Press report, “Kerry said the incident raised questions about Fox's fitness to serve as an ambassador.” The AP report continued:

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a presidential hopeful and chairman of Tuesday's hearing, said he found Fox's responses "unsatisfying." He said he would have preferred if Fox admitted it was a mistake to contribute to the Swift Boat group.

The AP reporter inserted his view that the Swiftee charges against Kerry’s military record in Vietnam were “unsubstantiated allegations.”

Kerry, Obama, and the AP reporter, thus, perpetuate one of the most egregious misrepresentations of history in modern journalism.

With extremely little exception, the major media refused to investigate the testimony and depositions by almost all of the veterans who served with Kerry in Vietnam. Despite certain Kerry claims, like his invented Cambodia excursion, being absolutely proven false, and substantial evidence that many of his other self-exaggerations were also false, the major media during the 2004 campaign and since have adopted the word “unsubstantiated” to describe the Swiftees’ charges and evidence.

Investigative columnist Thomas Lipscomb detailed much additional evidence substantiating the Swiftees’ charges. Lipscomb, who was also the founder of Times Books, which published the hardcover edition of the Pentagon Papers, brings an important perspective to this media malfeasance. In an interview with me, Lipscomb says:

When the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, it cost the New York Times a fortune in running the complete records in newsprint and, subsequently, in a published book edition. The New York Times thought it in the best interests of the public to draw its own conclusions from the evidence the New York Times had compiled.
The strange case of the John Kerry military records, which he had promised to release publicly, is that three great news organizations conspired to withhold them from the public. Not only did Kerry not make his military records public as promised, but three of the largest news organizations in the world gave him protective coloration by withholding them. All the public received were summaries in the opinions of the three news organizations, which had already shown an appalling inability to analyze the Kerry military records.

There’s nothing more dangerous to the future and to history than the failure to reconcile the facts of the past.

In an age when it is practically free to publish on the Internet the records as given to the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe, it is even more disgraceful to withhold them, against every tenet of modern and transparent journalism.

The public still doesn’t know whether John Kerry released his complete military records. John Kerry has refused to release his Vietnam diary. John Kerry, rather than go into a court – if he believes himself slandered -- and be subject to discovery, just along with his allies in the media hide behind their unsubstantiated charge of “unsubstantiated” against the Swiftees who exposed Kerry’s lies and exaggerations.

As Instapundit’s law professor Glenn Reynolds recently wrote:

”Swiftboating" seems to mean the disclosure of truths that are, er, inconvenient for Democrats.

One might add, inconvenient to the history of defeatism that congressional Democrats are currently trying to write into our history, as they did in Vietnam.

— Bruce Kesler

The Media Misses on Lebanon Bombing

2007-02-14T13:26:00.000-05:00

The New York Times today has a pretty good article, by Times standards, on the bombing of a bus in Lebanon yesterday. You can read it here. Pretty good except for a big elephant in the room that the Times didn't notice: the fact that the victims were Christian and the perpetrators were obviously from Hezbollah.

The rest of the media also pussyfooted over this rather obvious fact. The Chicago Tribune made the point clearer. The AP said that the bombing took place in the "Christian heartland."

But why not just say what happened, which was that Muslims killed Christians? What is wrong with the MSM that it cannot get its teeth around that obvious fact?

This is part of a pattern of coverage that downplays Islamic terrorism aimed at the shrinking Christian communities of the Middle East.

What Does the New York Times Correct?

2007-02-04T11:55:00.000-05:00

Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler has the following excellent analysis of the corruption of correction procedures at the New York Times. It is cross-posted from his website, The Democracy Project:

Few bother to dig through the dead wood and crippled thought at the New York Times, and its wire service customers do not see its occasional corrections that appear after gross errors. Thus, the New York Times’ prominent postures or the attention and misunderstanding originally created do their damage.

Last week, I demonstrated the error of the premise of the New York Times mischaracterization of the American Jewish Committee as a “conservative advocacy group” as lead paragraph support by the NYT's leftist reviewer belittling a critique of Israel-attacking Jews.

David Bernstein at Volkh.com drew my attention to the following “correction” by the New York Times, and adds his comment.

Posted by David Bernstein: N.Y. Times Issues Correcton re American Jewish Committee: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_02_04-2007_02_10.shtml#1170593602

An article in The Arts on Wednesday about an essay titled
"'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" on the Web
site of the American Jewish Committee referred incorrectly to the
committee. Its stance on issues ranges across the political
spectrum; it is not "conservative."

Well, that's better, and given that the AJC identifies itself as
"centrist," it's about all we can expect. But don't be fooled, as Ilya
pointed previously, the AJC's stance on issues does not "range across
the political spectrum"; it is consistently mainstream liberal,
including on Israel-related matters.

Maybe, if enough Vietnam veterans lived in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and socialized with New York Times editors, the New York Times would have gotten around to correcting its repeated erroneous mischaracterization of the Swiftees’ documented charges as “unsubstantiated” and gotten around to actually investigating and reporting, rather than being a transmission organ for Kerry.
— Bruce Kesler

Bethlehem Christians Break Silence on Muslim Oppression

2007-01-26T12:18:00.000-05:00

One of the media's biggest Christmas stories, year after year, is how the poor poor Christian Arabs of Bethlehem are being treated nasty by the big bad Israelis. The IRIS blog today points out that the true story, which is Muslim oppression of Bethelehem Christians, is finally coming out.

Click here for the IRIS blog entry. Shove that in the local media's face next time you read one of their patented stories on "Israeli oppression where Jesus was born."

Clint Eastwood's Politically Correct Pap

2007-01-21T11:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a movie to put on your "don't see" list: "Letters from Iwo Jima," Clint Eastwood's politically correct humbug.

In this movie the Japanese are the good guys and the U.S. Marines are the bad guys. The Marines shoot prisoners casually and the Japanese give their last dose of morphine to a U.S. POW. While the movie shows Japanese killing a captured American, it is done as hot-blooded retaliation for use of flame-throwers.

In fact, as was pointed out in the Free Republic a few weeks ago, the scene with the compassionate treatment of Americans was totally fictional. Japan's brutality toward POWs, including American POWs on Iwo Jima, and civilians everywhere is a matter of historical record. Remember the Bataan Death March? The Rape of Nanking?

Shame on you, Clint Eastwood.

Senate Democrats Assault Democracy

2007-01-20T17:45:00.000-05:00

This is really off the topic of this blog, which is media bias and hypocrisy, but I was struck by the Democratic offensive against democracy in the Senate this past week. (Hat tip to Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project, who wrote a fine article on this subject.)

In a display of rank hypocrisy, Democrats in the Senate are pushing a measure that would require that people who contact 500 or more to write their congressperson or senator must register as a lobbyist.

So you and I must do that if we email 500 people to write their congressman on a particular issue. That is a restriction on democracy at its worst. The Democratic Party, which is always pushing "democracy," should be ashamed of itself. Fortunately the effort failed.

Inside Beltway Tops Inside Iraq Reeporting.

2007-01-15T14:39:00.000-05:00

The following post is from Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project, and is cross-posted from that very fine website:

Iraqslogger has been featuring a daily count of major newspaper reporting on Iraq, of how many articles are written by commentators in the U.S. versus how many originate from Iraq. Today’s score, for example, “U.S. Papers Sunday: 25-0.” The subtitle, “The Battle in Washington Eclipses the War in Iraq.”

The New York Times and Washington Post are stuffed with Iraq-focused reporting, analyses, and commentaries – 25 in all. Yet, amazingly, not a single one of those original stories comes from Iraq itself (in fairness, there’s a Baghdad-datelined AP report in the NYT). Why? With 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, Iraqis and Americans being killed there every day, and with the U.S. troop presence costing American taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a day, Americans deserve and need meaty reporting from the war zone daily. And I pity the newspaper correspondents risking life and limb in Iraq only to see their editors opt not to include a single original story from Iraq in the huge Sunday papers (two days straight for the NYT).

Much of this commentary is interesting, and some even positive or constructive. But, when that’s all we get fed by our major media, we are both divorced from a realistic, first-person understanding of the conditions in Iraq, and are more easily swayed by the emotions or bias of editors and commentators ten-thousand miles away from the realities.

Between the dangers of battlefield reporting, the expenses that major media are unwilling to spend, and when they do report from in country so much is derived from often suspect stringers, the American people receive incredibly little original reporting of field conditions, combat results, or the “good news” of reconstruction successes.

Lay on top of that the focus of editors on “inside beltway” and domestic opinion, and their own usually liberal views, as an added filter, and it’s as if all you know of what’s on TV is second and third-hand comments by someone who read a newspaper TV critic’s review of a TV show and is discussing the reactions of other TV critics.

CNN’s Reliable Sources had an interesting exchange (this excerpt delivered to Instapundit) between the Washington Post’s media critic, Howard Kurtz and UPI reporter Pamela Hess. [HT: Antimedia]

KURTZ: Pam Hess, has the sending of 20,000 additional troops gotten a fair hearing in the media or has it gotten caught up in this wrenching, emotional debate about whether the war itself was a mistake?
PAM HESS: I think it's gotten caught up about it, and the debate about it is actually all wrong. What reporters know and what Martha says is that 20,000 really isn't that big -- isn't that big a jump. We're at 132,000 right now. It's going to put us even less that we had going in going across the line.
What we're not asking is actually the central question. We're getting distracted by the shiny political knife fight. What we need to be asking is, what happens if we lose? And no one will answer that question. If we lose, how are we going to mitigate the consequences of this?
It's so much easier for us to cover this as a political horse race. It's on the cover of "The New York Times" today, what this means for the '08 election. But we're not asking the central national security question, because it seems that if as a reporter you do ask the national security question, all of a sudden you're carrying Bush's water. There are national security questions at stake, and we're ignoring them and the country is getting screwed.

This style of reporting, this focus on domestic opinion horseraces, to the neglect of original in-the-field reporting, is not unique to the war in Iraq, or to the newspapers.

For example, the Joyce Foundation sponsored a study by the University of Wisconsin Newslab and the Midwest News Index of the month after Labor Day’s, 2006, TV reporting in the Midwest. An average of 36-seconds per half-hour newscast was about the election, and 63% of that was “strategy and horserace stories [versus] substantive issue coverage.”

If Vietnam was the “television war,” where we at least saw some little of what was happening there, Iraq is the “stringer and editor” war, where we can’t even see with our own eyes and are dependent on those who only tell us what they want us to think.

— Bruce Kesler

Media Rules of Engagement

2007-01-14T20:00:00.000-05:00

The following post is cross-posted from the Democracy Project, and is by Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler:

Those who argue that strict rules of engagement for our military forces are necessary to counterinsurgency, not to mention our core values, even when it means losing on the battlefield, have not applied near as much scrutiny to the rules of engagement by our major media.

The “fog of war” or “war is hell” defenses of troops at the front are dismissed by war opponents or armchair purists, but the same and worse is accepted from the major media. Yet, the major media operate under many similar foggy impediments but have chosen to be safer in the near and far rear, so they actually have less defense.

Both the military and the major media have rules of engagement, in the case of the media from journalism’s and their own organization’s standards. In many cases, although their defenders might argue as relatively few as among the troops, the major media have operated outside or against their rules of engagement.

Our troops are held personally accountable. Our media more rarely are. This isn’t just a matter of tit-for-tat or relative justice. It goes directly to the heart of the West’s ability to even wage war.

In war as waged by Western governments today, the homefront is at least as important as the battlefront, particularly when our homefront’s resolve is a primary target of the foe.

There’s a valid argument of experience that homefront support, and non-hostile media reporting and commentary, will follow from battlefield success. But, what’s missed is when the major media emphasizes the negative to the downplaying of the positive, in effect becoming adjuncts of the foe. The primary defense is the new media on the Internet, which while increasing in public counter-attention still is but a fraction of the major media’s reach and influence.

The current case of the Associated Press and its exclusive “Jamil Hussein” source is highly indicative. The stories spread by the Associated Press to its thousands of media customers around the world are highly suspect, and their primary source even moreso, but with little exception the AP’s customers have swallowed them and not demanded the AP live up to its rules of engagement. The evidence of the AP fouling journalism’s rules of engagement presented on the Internet are largely ignored or dismissed by the major media.

For a handy summary of the known facts, please see “The Latest & Greatest on Jamil Hussein.” Then, ask yourself how much of this you’ve seen in your local newspaper. Also, ask yourself how often you’ve seen in your local newspaper every rumor or allegation of our troops stepping over real or imagined lines of rules of engagement. Kinda a one-sided war, huh?

— Bruce Kesler

The Times Trashes O'Reilly

2007-01-13T11:14:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has only reviewed a Bill O'Reilly book once. That was in 2004, when it slammed his "O'Reilly Factor for Kids" in a hatchet job entitled, "The Pinhead Factor." It has reviewed none of O'Reilly's other books even after they became best-sellers.

In tomorrow's New York Times Book Review, online today, there is finally a "review," if you can call it that, of O'Reilly's "Culture Warrior." It also review a favorable new book about O'Reilly by Marvin Kitman. Even though he is self-identified as a liberal, Kitman believes he has been maligned in an unjustified fashion. The Times will simply not let just comments pass without showing its sneering liberal bias in full flower.

The Times book review says snidely that the Kitman book wants to turn O'Reilly "into a towering figure in some ways reminiscent of Edward R. Murrow, whose legend, we are told, was built on the “opinionated positions he took in his news reports.”

No good, says reviewer Jacob Heilbrunn. He thinks O'Reilly is a a "thug, fraud, gasbag, windbag and demagogue." Heilbrunn attributes those adjectives to unnamed "detractors" but obviously embraces them himself.

He then turns briefly to O'Reilly's new book "Culture Warrior," which is supposedly also the subject of this book but Heilbrunn has only potshots here too. It "offers the trademark bluff and bombast that make up his pronouncements."

This polemic disguised as review ends by saying "No matter what this apostle of mediocrity and banality says, sparkling water and George Clooney are not menaces to the American way of life."

I don't think O'Reilly ever said anything of the kind, but dishonesty as well as bias are daily fare at this once great newspaper. This review is Exhibit A.

Carter Center Members Resign Over 'Apartheid' Atrocity

2007-01-11T18:46:00.000-05:00

Fourteen members of the Carter Center resigned in protest today over the recent literary atrocity by the worst president since Harding.

It was a harsh letter:

Dear President Carter,

As members of the Board of Councilors each one of us has been proud to be associated with the Carter Center in its noble struggle to repair the world. However, in light of the publication of your latest book Palestine; Peace Not Apartheid and your subsequent comments made in promoting the book, we can no longer in good conscience continue to serve the Center as members of the Board of Councilors.

In its work in conflict resolution the Carter Center has always played the useful and constructive role of honest broker and mediator between warring parties. In your book, which portrays the conflict between Israel and her neighbors as a purely one-sided affair with Israel holding all of the responsibility for resolving the conflict, you have clearly abandoned your historic role of broker in favor of becoming an advocate for one side.

The facts in dealing with the conflict are these: There are two national narratives contesting one piece of land. The Israelis, through deed and public comment, have consistently spoken of a desire to live in peace and make territorial compromise to achieve this status. The Palestinian side has consistently resorted to acts of terror as a national expression and elected parties endorsing the use of terror, the rejection of territorial compromise and of Israel's right to exist. Palestinian leaders have had chances since 1947 to have their own state, including during your own presidency when they snubbed your efforts.

Your book has confused opinion with fact, subjectivity with objectivity and force for change with partisan advocacy. Furthermore the comments you have made the past few weeks insinuating that there is a monolith of Jewish power in America are most disturbing and must be addressed by us. In our great country where freedom of expression is basic bedrock you have suddenly proclaimed that Americans cannot express their opinion on matters in the Middle East for fear of retribution from the "Jewish Lobby" In condemning the Jews of America you also condemn Christians and others for their support of Israel. Is any interest group to be penalized for participating in the free and open political process that is America? Your book and recent comments suggest you seem to think so.

It goes on like that for quite a while. Be sure to click the ADL link above for the full text.

The resignations have received some neutral coverage, such as this AP story. It will be interesting to see if the mainstream media covers this very significant development, or buries it.

Stacking the Deck at The Times

2007-01-07T13:17:00.000-05:00

The side by side articles today on page ten of the New York Times, both by Steven Erlanger, are excellent examples of the Times's blind spot toward Palestinian violence and doubledealing, and the newspaper's tendency to overemphasize Israeli "misdeeds."

The article on the left, a "news analysis," describes the supposed slipshod performance of Ehud Olmert. He is described in this article as a bumbling, dumb, schlimazel who is kicked around by the renegade Israeli military. Olmert is violating the road map to peace, please note.

The article on the right describes how the valiant Mohammed Abbas is taking on Hamas, which has created something called the "military police." No mention is made of the road map or the fact that the very existence of the terror group Hamas in the government spits in the eye of the road map.

Two articles, both by the same reporter, showing both ends of the same pattern of bias. If there is a better example of the Times tilting its coverage of the Middle East, I cannot find it.

The Creative Destruction of the Newspaper Industry

2007-01-06T13:15:00.000-05:00

In this article reprinted below, Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project provides a sharp analysis of the future of the newspaper industry:

Back when I was an exec at Crown Zellerbach, a Fortune 100 company, I told others that a buy-out artist could scoop up the company for pennies on the dollar of assets and cash-flow, break it up for sale, and pocket a hefty profit. I was poo-poo’d. After all, CZ was a 100-year old leader in the pulp & paper industry, although lately a laggard. In 1984, Sir James Goldsmith did what I predicted, to large gains. This was typical of the wake-up call delivered throughout American industry in the ‘80’s.

Today, the same tide of creative destruction is beginning to reach the shores of newspaper beaches.

As the term was coined,

Creative destruction, introduced in 1942 by the economist Joseph Schumpeter, describes the process of industrial transformation that accompanies radical innovation. In Schumpeter's vision of capitalism, innovative entry by entrepreneurs was the force that sustained long-term economic growth, even as it destroyed the value of established companies that enjoyed some degree of monopoly power….

The current example of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune newspaper fits the mold.

(With HT to Powerline for the link) The Star is almost worth more dead than alive, due to its real estate and other holdings.

Basic point is that the printing plant and it's "expansion land" is still worth it's original $100 million. As for the Metrodome six blocks I'd guess that that is worth $100 million to $200 million. Let's take the middle, $150 million. With the printing plant that's $250 million. Throw in a few other "non core newspaper" assets and you have half of the $530 million purchase price. That would put the Star Tribune and it's "core" square block office building at $265 million. Apparently the Star Tribune gets over $100 million per year in "net revenues".

The purchasers of the Star are experienced vulture capitalists. (WSJ.com subscription required)

Avista mightn't be a household name, but its founders, Thompson Dean and Steven Webster, have been well known in the buyout community for more than a decade. They ran a group that generated returns of about 50% from buyout investments for Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, which was acquired by Credit Suisse in 2000. The pair left Credit Suisse 18 months ago to start Avista, which they hope will manage $1.5 billion....
Mr. Dean wouldn't address whether Avista will slash costs or lay off employees. "Newspapers have to recognize that they are operating in a different environment, with different pressures, declining readership and advertising pressures," he says. "We have to get additional revenue growth and do things more efficiently, but that may not be about staff cuts."

They’ll get a hefty return from an investment that may net out at only about 2 ½ times cash flow, a fraction of the cost of cash flow return from other investments.

Avista has brought in an experienced newspaper publisher, Chris Harte. (A Democrat, if anyone is wondering whether the editorial line at the Star will change. In 2001, he considered a Democrat challenge to Maine’s Senator Collins.) Chris Harte and Avista are keeping the current management of the Star, Avista harvesting the cheaply bought cash flow, and Harte making the usual promises of revival expected of a new leader.

However:

Avista has promised to invest in the Star Tribune, and to retain its publisher, Keith Moyer, and its top management. But industry observers worry that it might have to cut costs if advertising or circulation revenue don't improve.
Mark Neuzil, a journalism professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, said the deal could be a prelude to a classic "strip and flip" for profits, or it could herald the beginning of more public newspapers going private to avoid the pressures of Wall Street.

If other newspapers try to go the going-private route, they’ll only be throwing good money after bad, to the extent they try to hold their dead-tree monopoly. If they have any long-term future, it’s in Internet delivery of news, where they have to compete with new entrepreneurs and deliver a product the readers want and view reliable.

The all-but-private (due to super-preferred stock) New York Times just sold off another chunk of itself to funnel it into keeping the Gray Lady floating, and trying to get returns from still small but at least growing Internet news businesses.

The New York Times Co. it sold its broadcast group, including nine television stations, for $575 million to private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners in order to concentrate on its newspaper business….
New York Times Co. Chief Executive Janet Robinson said in a statement that the sale would allow the media company to focus on the "development of our newspapers and our rapidly growing digital businesses."

Most newspapers are between the rock and the hard place: Keep churning out unreliable reporting that readers increasingly don’t buy, in order to maintain their ideological stranglehold on American news, or be bought out and otherwise be consigned to capitalism’s ash heap.

— Bruce Kesler

The $670 Million Ombudsman

2007-01-04T18:51:00.000-05:00

Another sterling article from Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler, of the Democracy Project:

Kate Parry is the ombudsman for the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper. As the paper says

Kate is the Star Tribune's reader's representative, ensuring your voice is heard in the newsroom and providing a window for you on how the newspaper makes decisions.

The readers’ voices, apparently, have not been heard well enough by either the newsroom or by her, nor has she explained how or why a critical local story was ignored by her paper. Parry’s role as ombudsman, if exercised as an ombudsman should, might have alerted the Star Tribune’s management and reporters that they were not fulfilling their responsibilities sufficiently to keep the paper viable.

The New York Times’ commentary on the recent fire sale of the newspaper for $530-million, at a $670-million loss from its $1.2-billion purchase price:

Sure, the consolidation of department stores and the flight of classified ads to the Web hurt big metropolitan dailies like The Star Tribune. This summer’s downturn in overall newspaper advertising landed hard on the paper, with ads off 6.1 percent in the last year from the year before.

The McClatchy Company, which bought the paper’s parent company with a great deal of fanfare in 1998 for $1.2 billion, looked at those numbers — and the fact that it had lost 26,000 or so daily readers since it bought the paper — and decided to sell the paper for $530 million.

It’s a wider problem than in Minnesota. As Media Week reported:

Goldman Sachs said in a research note that the paper's sale price—far below what McClatchy paid for it in 1998—underscores the industry's falling circulation and advertising fortunes.

I’ve frequently written about ombudsmen. (See here for the links to my dissection of three of her leading peers.) Particularly, see this one for a discussion of the roots and self-proclaimed, although little enough seen, standards for ombudsmen. For example: (ONO = Organization of News Ombudsmen)

Chuck Stone, professor at the University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism, and for several months ombudsman at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in a 1998 speech appearing at the ONO site, expresses the role of the ombudsman as “the responsibility to help newspapers achieve five goals.”
First, “making newspapers necessary…as the most dependable and comprehensive dispenser of information.” Second, “to always be exciting” responsibly about the news without “scatology, pornography or sex-obsessed reporting.” Third, to “help newspapers achieve [a] superiority of information….governed by the highest credibility that is made possible by our reliance on the acronym, FEAT – fair, evenhanded, accurate and thorough.” Fourth, “Ombudsmen are the only professionals on the newspaper whose sole responsibility differentiates the new media – the Internet, Online, etc. – from the old media. In a sense, ombudsmen are custodians of accountability.” Fifth, “Ombudsmen can be critical to maintaining and even enhancing a newspaper’s credibility….I cannot recall any period when readers held newspapers in such low esteem.”

Congress and the Securities & Exchange Commission have seen fit to elevate internal controls to the highest importance for America’s corporations, and senior executive culpability if insufficient. The ombudsman at America’s newspapers was supposed to serve as an important internal control. The purpose of internal controls, I can say as a Certified Internal Auditor early in my career, is both proper recording of transactions and the efficacy of operations.

It is abundantly clear that most ombudsmen most of the time have gravely failed their internal control, and journalistic, responsibility. It would be going too far to hold Kate Parry responsible, alone, for the reporting and business failure of the Star Tribune, for the loss to its owners of $670-million, as her bosses all the way up appointed and tolerated her. But, she should definitely be one of those in the dock.

Powerline blog is one of the nation’s most widely read and respected, all of its three bloggers being careful lawyers and two in the Minneapolis area. In numerous detailed and documented posts by Scott Johnson at Powerline, he exhibited the indictment of prospective and now newly elected local Congressman Keith Ellison. For example, in “Keith Ellison for Dummies,” Scott Johnson summarized much of the evidence that Ellison was untruthful about his radical connections to Islamist groups.

Instead of undertaking any investigation of these assertions, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has simply reported the assertions and repeated them as facts ever since. Yet each of these assertions is demonstrably false. Their falsehood is easily established by newspaper accounts documenting Ellison's activities, speeches and beliefs over the relevant period of time….
The steadfast refusal of the local Minnesota media to examine Ellison’s public record in the course of his congressional campaign represents a striking case of nonfeasance, incompetence and willfully averted eyes that is a story unto itself.

Or, here, Scott Johnson exhibits “The Friends of Keith Ellison,” at whose convention Ellison recently spoke:

According to the invaluable report of the Chicago Tribune, the Muslim Brotherhood operates in the United States as the Muslim American Society. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross's "MAS's Muslim Brotherood problem" expands on the meaning of MAS's relationship to the Muslim Brotherood. Like the Muslim Brotherhood and the MAS, the Islamic Circle of North America promotes the establishment of the Islamic system of life. According to Steven Emerson, the ICNA also has close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The two groups -- MAS and the ICNA -- hold a joint annual convention. This year's joint annual convention in Dearborn welcomed -- who else? -- Minnesota Fifth District Rep.-elect Keith Ellison as its keynote speaker. The Detroit Free Press reports on Ellison's speech this past Sunday night:
"You can't back down, you can't chicken out, you can't be afraid, you got to have faith in Allah, and you got to stand up and be a real Muslim," Detroit native Keith Ellison said to loud applause.
"Allahu akbar" -- God is great -- was the reply of many in the crowd.
Surely one of these days some bigfoot journalist will ask Ellison what branch of Islam he adheres to in reconciling Islam with the Democratic platform on abortion rights, homosexual rights, the rights of women and the like. Perhaps some bigfoot journalist might then ask a question or two about how Ellison's branch of Islam views the legal equality of Muslims and infidels and the supremacy of the United States Constitution over Sharia law. Until that time, we will have pay attention to the friends of Keith Ellison for the light they may shed on his views on these subjects.

Or, here, Scott Johnson’s fellow Powerline blogger John Hinderaker asks:

So one would think that it might occur to a reporter to ask Ellison: what variety of Muslim are you? What mosque do you attend? Where does your branch of Islam stand on Sharia? What do your imams preach? And, where does your enthusiasm for cop-killing fit into your religious principles?
No such questions, needless to say, will be forthcoming.

Or, here, Scott Johnson posts a follow-up on an editorial from Investors Business Daily posing whether there was a connection between Ellison and the “flying imams.” Ellison immediately demanded to meet with the airline.

The Investors Businesss Daily editorial formulated its hypothesis regarding the Ellison connection to the flying imams this past Wednesday. Within 48 hours Ellison has taken the first steps to prove the shrewdness of the editorial's hypothesis that the underlying incident was fabricated for the benefit of an agenda to be advanced by Ellison. I'm afraid that it's time to scream bloody murder before the flying imams and their friends in high places turn the incident into the means by which citizens are disabled from taking reasonable action to defend themselves from apparent danger.

Where has the Star Tribune and Kate Parry been through all this, on its doorstep, and much of the investigation work served up to it? AWOL, that’s where.

I wrote Scott Johnson this morning to follow-up, questioning where Kate Parry has been on this – should be – high-profile issue. Scott Johnson’s response:

I think she probably wrote a column on the Star Tribune Ellison coverage saying they were getting flack from both sides and therefore they had done a good job.

A search of the Star Tribune’s website shows Kate Parry referring to the Ellison matter only once, the day before the election. Here’s all she had to say about Ellison:

How involved was Fifth Congressional District DFL candidate Keith Ellison years ago in the Nation of Islam -- a group whose anti-Semitism he now repudiates?

Parry follows that by having the effrontery to say, “As near as I can tell, the newspaper could not write too much about this election.”

What about the Star Tribune’s reporting or commentary, for critical or investigative reporting?

A search of the paper’s website only shows non-editorial line columnist Katherine Kersten’s column discussing Ellison’s support and defense of local criminals, of radical political bents.

This is not an isolated example of Kate Parry and the Star Tribune’s closed-eyes and closed-mindedness. As Scott Johnson wrote me:

On her beat, basically, the Star Tribune does no wrong….The longest exchange I had with her goes back to the column Nick Coleman wrote that was devoted to trying to get me fired from my job. She came up with excuses for Coleman that even he wouldn’t cite….[Another example] Her treatment of the plagiarism issue on the editorial page is a great example. It’s off her beat – which is the news pages. She originally weighed in critically of the paper and cited Power Line, if not favorably, at least not critically. The second time around, the tone of her reference to us changed perceptibly in a way that I thought was laughable.

Kate Parry’s most recent column touts “A fresh way to talk about newspapers and news websites: Starting Jan. 2, readers can discuss coverage at the Omblog.”

At Omblog, readers will also be able to point their fellow readers toward something in the newspaper that shouldn't be missed.

The examples are all of a liberal’s agenda.

Kate Parry and the Star Tribune are in common with much of American journalism.

No more than I want to withdraw from the United Nations do I want to see major newspapers or their ombudsmen disappear. They are doing that to themselves. Instead, I want to see them rededicated and true to their missions.

— Bruce Kesler

Mother of Mercy, Is This the End of the Empty Suit?

2007-01-03T21:26:00.000-05:00

Et tu, Keller?

The Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman Barney Calame, has been such an unmitigated disaster that he's barely worth mentioning any more. His predictable defense of the Grey Lady has become old news.

Bad as he is, apparently he is not bad enough. The New York Observer reports that he may be out the door. His predecessor, Daniel Okrent, "was a sharp critic who raised hackles and then won respect during his 18-month term. In contrast, Mr. Calame has been a bit more like that other Barney, the friendly purple dinosaur—and not entirely unlike Snuffleupagus, the once-invisible creature of Sesame Street." But even that wasn't bad enough for the Times. The NYO says executive editor Bill Keller may abolish the position.

Good idea. A bad ombudsman is worse than none.

AP to Readers: Drop Dead

2007-01-03T21:17:00.000-05:00

Another excellent post from Mediacrity contributor Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project:

The latest response by Associated Press executive editor Kathleen Carroll to the inability of any independent investigation to unearth the AP’s ghost informant, Jamil Hussein, should be headlined, “AP says UP yours,” instead of the E&P’s “Continues to Stand by Reporting.”

Ms. Carroll, apparently, feels well insulated from the public as she is from verifiable facts or accountability.

Michelle Malkin replies to Carroll’s accusation that bloggers in the U.S. are not on the scene, and thus ignorant, by announcing her own embed in Iraq. Malkin, also, invites the AP’s Carroll:

Ms. Carroll, why not leave your "air-conditioned office...thousands of miles from the scene" and find out for yourself if "Jamil Hussein" is who AP says he is? Or is it the "do as I say" standard for bloggers and "not as I do" for MSM news executives in their high-rise offices in Manhattan?

As I noted, Carroll apparently herself has little foreign reporting experience and none in combat.

One wonders how to penetrate the insularity of such media barons like Carroll.

The Associated Press does not have an ombudsman, a representative of the public customers, nor does it present a complaint line, nor email addresses for its Board. The public’s sole recourse is via the owners of local newspapers who subscribe to the AP wire. It is only through that very attenuated route that a reader may hope to have any impact.

But, how does that actually play out. You write to the editor, and almost certainly the letter is ignored or maybe edited down to a comment on the letters page. You contact the newspaper’s ombudsman, if it is one of the relatively few that has one, and hope that this reader representative pays any attention. Even if the ombudsman does pay attention, he or she is relatively toothless, outside of a very occasional shot at the newspaper’s treatment of an issue.

I’ve written many times about the eunoch role of newspaper ombudsmen. My first blogging was two guest posts at Don Luskin’s blog, Conspiracy To Keep You Poor And Stupid, here and here, exposing the inept pretense of two leading ombudsmen. My first post at Democracy-Project exposed the pretense of another leading ombudsman.

To report back to you just how little impact these, and other reports, have had, today’s New York Observer tells us that the New York Times’ executive editor Bill Keller may eliminate the position of Public Editor. The first and second Public Editors have very occasionally taken on the Grey Lady’s journalistic failures, but more usually busied themselves with comments on grammar and acting as rationalizers or apologists for the editorial line. It appears that Keller can’t even stand the occasional in-house reprimand. Indeed, Keller’s quotes in the New York Observer tell us all we need to know about whether the Public Editor is seen as a reader representative or mouthpiece for Keller and company.

“Over the next couple of months, as Barney’s term enters the home stretch, I’ll be taking soundings from the staff, talking it over with the masthead, and consulting with Arthur,” meaning publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., wrote Bill Keller, The Times’ executive editor, in an e-mail to The Observer.

Notice, Mr. Keller makes no mention of input from or consideration of the reader.

Ms. Carroll, Mr. Keller, your local newspaper editor (with rare exception): Is it any wonder that your readership is rapidly falling, when you care so little about your readers? The arrogance and frequent lack of real care for providing your readers with reliable information are well understood by readers, who are taking their trade elsewhere.

— Bruce Kesler

A Blog You Must Visit

2006-12-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

It's called The JAG Hunter, and its mission is to promote proper and fair and coverage and treatment of our soldiers in Iraq.

Rethinking Jimmy Carter

2006-12-27T12:24:00.000-05:00

With special permission from Bruce Kesler of the Democracy Project, I'm cross-posting below Bruce's excellent essay on the worst U.S. president in recent memory:

Much of the commentary upon the passing of President Gerald Ford debates his decision to pardon President Nixon for his Watergate break-in cover-up: whether it healed to move forward, or whether it missed an opportunity to make more explicit the rule of law for his successors. There’s another pardon that isn’t discussed, which may have had more lasting effects: the Ford and President Carter approaches to amnesty and pardon for Vietnam war draft dodgers and deserters.

President Carter’s abdication of the even minimal responsibility for one’s actions demanded by both President Ford and the public has had more lasting deleterious effects for America than the pardon of an already punished Nixon.

The consensus reflection upon the life of President Gerald Ford is that he led by an exceedingly decent, honorable and honest life, and that at a most trying and divisive time in our history he calmed tensions for the nation to go forward. I couldn’t agree more. The Moderate Voice offers a broad sampling of the reflections. One, by “Captain” Ed Morrissey of CaptainsQuarters blog, is referred to as a “must read,” and as usual for the “Captain” it is.

Regarding the pardon of President Nixon, most see the need for this healing, with Nixon having paid the price of loss of office being seen as adequate punishment. Some on the Left see a lost opportunity to further damn the electorate that overwhelmingly elected him. These critics revile Nixon, and Ford, for seeking a “peace with honor” finale to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam. They ignore the consequences of their post-Watergate abandonment of U.S. pledges of aid to South Vietnam, including the death and concentration camps suffered by millions, and the encouragement to adversaries elsewhere against a weak-willed America that continues to this day.

To get a better appreciation of the arguments, one might consider the Ford and Carter approaches to amnesty and pardon for Vietnam era draft dodgers and deserters. Ford offered a healing plan that was consistent with America’s post-war treatment of draft evaders and deserters, conditioned by pledge of allegiance to America and two-year’s service. The Left held out for an unconditional pardon, which they largely got from Carter.

I was part of this debate at the time. In the March 3, 1972 The Daily Pennsylvanian, I wrote an op-ed in the University of Pennsylvania newspaper (where I was a post-Vietnam service grad student) opposed to unconditional amnesty. It caught the eye of Freedom House, where an expanded version was published in the March-April 1973 Freedom at Issue magazine. This caught the attention of the Los Angeles Times, who reprinted it in their Sunday, March 25, 1973 opinion section. (My piece was given twice the space as the opposing view by Jean-Paul Satre!)

I noted that a Gallup poll in 1972 found only 7% in favor of unconditional amnesty. I showed that most of the unconditional amnesty supporters came from a “premise of intolerance. Not only are the evaders and deserters to be welcomed back, but they are to be welcomed as heroic resisters of a nefarious policy of purposeful genocide.”

As late as February 23, 2001, James Webb (before his devil’s deal with the Kos’ian descendants of the decision by Carter to pardon Vietnam era evaders and deserters) wrote in the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Carter's first official act as president was to pardon, en masse, all those who had been or could be charged with draft evasion during the Vietnam era. Motivated by the ever-present desire of American politicians to "heal the wounds" of the Vietnam War, and beyond doubt manipulated by the army of antiwar McGovernites who had seized control of the Democratic Party, Mr. Carter's gesture had the symbolic effect of elevating everyone who had opposed the Vietnam War to the level of moral purist, and by implication insulting those who often had struggled just as deeply with the moral dimensions of the war and had decided, often at great sacrifice, to honor the laws of their country and serve….
Nor did President Carter's abuse of power end with the pardoning of draft evaders. Some had criticized this blanket amnesty as having made class distinctions between college boys who were "enlightened" enough to oppose the draft and blue-collar boys who had gone into the military and then either seen the light regarding the war or suffered the supposed abuses of the military system. Liberal groups and antiwar politicians assailed the "inequities" of military justice and the "randomness" of its characterization of service when one left the military, despite the fact that 97% of those who served during Vietnam had been discharged under honorable circumstances. Within weeks of pardoning all the draft evaders, Mr. Carter invoked his powers as commander in chief and ordered that the "bad paper" military discharges of hundreds of thousands of deserters, malcontents and nonperformers be mandatorily upgraded, so long as they met one of six easily attained criteria.

Again President Carter had upset a delicately balanced apple cart among the Vietnam generation. By wiping the slate clean for those who had dodged the draft or created problems while in the military, he signaled to those who had served honorably during a horribly emotional period that their self-discipline, loyalty, wounds and even deaths did not matter….

These acts resonate when one evaluates Bill Clinton's incessantly arrogant presidency, from the endless string of conscious and serious abuses of power to the "conversion" of White House furniture and china on his way out the door. For what we are seeing are the echoes of a pervasive elitism, from people who were taught when young that the laws that applied to their countrymen did not necessarily apply to them.

— Bruce Kesler

U.S. Media May Hope Haditha Charges Are Dismissed.

2006-12-26T17:27:00.000-05:00

The following superb article is cross-posted from the Democracy Project, with the permission of its author, Bruce Kesler:

For two reasons, the U.S. media may hope the Haditha charges against eight Marines are dismissed, or don’t come to trial.

First, it will allow those within the media who write that the U.S. is guilty of atrocities, an evil plan gone awry, or even just that the whole engagement is a tragic miscalculation, to claim that the U.S. military doesn’t care or is engaged in a cover-up.

Second, the U.S. media would avoid itself possibly being put on trial for its shortcomings in coverage of the Iraq war. To the extent that the prosecutors’ case relies upon the Iraqi stringers and suspect “witnesses” used by U.S. media, their case will be both weak and will publicly expose the grave shortcomings of the U.S. media’s operations in the Iraq war zone – in effect, functionally often acting as useful adjuncts to our enemies and the secure and free future of Iraq and the region.

As I wrote last June:

Among the only hard facts known is that the military took this incident seriously from the start by launching an investigation so thorough that even the hostile Iraqis in that village have given it respect. That’s more than media commentators give to our nation, its military, or the handful of Marines actually involved by trotting out inapplicable and inappropriate comparisons to My Lai, an exception itself, in order to bemoan and undermine our entire mission in Iraq. They can say all they want that they are trying to uncover facts, and they are, but the prominence and surrounding fluff is simply irresponsible.

There are four interrelated aspects to the outcome of the charges:

Did the Marines exceed the rules-of-engagement? The prosecutors chose charges of unpremeditated murder, excess force and lack of care for civilian casualties, or 2nd degree in civilian courts, and an additional charge of negligent homicide for one Marine, lack of care, equivalent to manslaughter in civilian courts. The accusation of premetitated revenge for the IED slaughter of one of their comrades was not supported by their investigation. For a discussion of rules-of engagement, see here.

As one military law expert says:

The prosecution must be able to conclusively state "what happened, why did they do what they did, why did they use force and did they believe they were being engaged," said Col. Dave Wallace, who teaches law of war at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

Here, I wrote about the Marines’ side of the story:

For two-weeks the newspapers and TV of the world have been filled with heart-rending but conflicting narratives by Iraqi “witnesses” to a Marine massacre at Haditha. Editorialists and columnists, even ones not hostile toward the Iraq war or Marines, have stampeded to fill their space with a little obligatory caution or caveat as they condemn the Marines for a massacre, for going off the handle, for overreacting to the stress of war.

Now, for the first time, one of the Marines directly involved has spoken up. The Washington Post, to its credit, carries his description of events on the front-page.Rules of engagement were followed, as the Marines chased terrorists through the houses where they’d purposely hidden among civilians. This is in an area known for hostile and harboring civilians. Civilians were killed.

With all regrets for that, at least no further Marines were killed by holding a cotillion that some armchair commentators imagine would be appropriate. (I’d like to see them dance in any dangerous circumstances like these.)It well may be possible that there’s more to be found out and to clear up.It’s well past time the media waited to find out before jumping to more conclusions, and harming the honor of our Marines, our country, and our ability to wage a war.

If they don’t, their purpose is very clear.

What is the evidence? The military says this was its most extensive investigation possible. There’s little reason to doubt that. However, in the absence of the families of the Iraqis allowing exhumation of the bodies, much reliance is upon after-the-fact examinations of photos and the scene, along with questioning of self-declared witnesses whose testimony has for some changed over time and is contradictory among others. Further, some had preknowledge of the attack upon the Marines and ties to the enemy. (A summary of the weaknesses of known evidence is here.)

I wrote about some of the witnesses self-contradictions, and reporting, here:

Sounds like a "cover-up" of a conspiracy to me, the cover-up by the MSM lynch mob and the conspiracy by the Iraqis culpable or seeking to undermine America's forces.

What is the trial risk? In any case, there are many trial risks, or litigation risks, which may tilt the judgment one way or the other. The prosecutors’ charges exceed what was expected by military law experts. Their aggressiveness may be a pre-trial ploy to scare the Marines and their attorneys into a plea deal. Another military law expert says he is surprised by the aggressiveness of the charges:

Gary Solis, a former staff judge advocate at Camp Pendleton who now teaches military law at Georgetown University, said the charges announced Thursday appear very aggressive.

"They say that the Marine Corps takes very seriously its obligation to conduct itself in accordance with the law," he said during a telephone interview….Solis said he expected the troops accused in the shooting deaths of the Iraqi civilians would face manslaughter and not murder charges.

"I was very surprised by the aggressive nature of that charge," he said, adding that that will be much harder to prove than manslaughter.

Lastly, to what extent has the evidence accumulated been tainted by the reporting of the events of that day and its aftermath? Here’s where the U.S. media may find itself on trial.

The next step in the case is for the prosecutors’ case to be reviewed by Lt. General James Mattis, Marine commander for Iraq. He will decide how the case will proceed:

Now that the charges have been filed, the clock is ticking on the judicial process. Barring any requests for delays by the defense, the government has 120 days to start court-martial proceedings against the men if Mattis deems a court-martial is the proper course to follow.
The public's first look at the government's case could come in pretrial court sessions [emphasis added] known as Article 32 hearings, which are the rough equivalent of a preliminary hearing in civilian courts.

After those hearings, Mattis will receive a recommendation on whether the cases should be sent to military trials, known as courts-martial, or to administrative hearings, which are less serious and do not result in jail time. He also will have the option at that point of dismissing or altering the charges.

As emphasized above, how good an evidentiary case the prosecutors actually have is still unknown.

Here’s a key point: Much of the proceeding and outcome of the case will be shaped by Lt. General James Mattis. The L.A. Times offers some useful insights.

Lt. Gen. Mattis is well known for upholding the Marine tradition of fire discipline. In 2003, as commander of the 1st Marine Division, he led troops into Iraq. To each Marine and sailor he provided a one-page order telling them to destroy Iraqi forces but to show compassion for civilians and prisoners: "Engage your brain before you engage your weapon."

Recently, Lt. Gen. Mattis (“nicknamed ‘Mad Dog’ by his troops, prefers speed and a relentless attack style”) reminded his Marines their mission is threefold, to train Iraqi forces, win over civilians, and to kill the enemy, an especially difficult combination, as he admits:” In an e-mail to The Times this week, he referred to the ‘morally bruising conditions of Iraq’ where it is often difficult to distinguish friend from foe.”

In a recent trip to Marine outposts in the expansive Al Anbar province, Mattis talked to Marines about training the Iraqi army and winning support from civilians. But he also mentioned the insurgent threat in the province.

"This is not sectarian violence," he told them. "This is Al Qaeda in Iraq. We expect you to kill them."

Lt. Gen. Mattis is also known for allowing the military justice system to unfold, and tempering justice with battlefield realities.

Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, who brought the criminal charges in the Haditha case, has shown no reluctance to take hard-nosed actions against Marines.

Mattis, commander of the Marine Corps Forces Central Command, in 2003 initiated an investigation of the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by Marines. The investigation, which came before the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, led to the court-martial convictions of a sergeant and a major in the death of a prisoner and to a revision of Marine procedures for handling prisoners.
He also ordered the investigation that led to murder charges against Lt. Ilario G. Pantano in the 2004 killings of two Iraqis, probably the most high-profile case of alleged misconduct by Marines until the November 2005 deaths of 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha. Pantano was acquitted.

But Mattis' handling of a case involving the town of Hamandiya, in which seven Marines and a Navy corpsman were charged with dragging an Iraqi from his home in April and killing him, suggests that he is willing to show leniency for junior enlisted Marines who admit wrongdoing. In an e-mail to The Times this week, he referred to the "morally bruising conditions of Iraq" where it is often difficult to distinguish friend from foe.

The Hamandiya case also suggests that he may be less willing to be lenient with more senior enlisted personnel for not showing leadership. All eight defendants in Hamandiya were charged with capital murder, which could have brought the death penalty.

Mattis allowed four of the eight to plead guilty to reduced charges and receive sentences of 12 to 21 months in the brig. He vetoed the military judge's recommendation that the four be given dishonorable discharges.

The four defendants with greater seniority and allegedly more culpability in the killing are to stand trial next year.

Lt. General Mattis has also displayed his awareness of another critical battlefield in Iraq: the information war, which in this pre-Christmas interview he says the U.S. media has abdicated to the enemy.

Mattis: I was talking to a lieutenant in Haditha, he told me that because they are now all connected nowadays in their FOBs, he could read stories about Haditha. He said, 'I guarantee you there has not been a reporter in Haditha in my last two and a half months here.'

We're seeing, I think, an unwitting passing of the enemy's message, uncritical, unwitting passing of the enemy's message because the enemy has successfully denied the Western media access to the battlefields.

I'm not sure what Lloyds of London is charging now, I think it's over $5,000 a month insurance for a reporter or photographer to go in. But the murder, the kidnapping, the intimidation means that, in many cases, we have media folks who are relying on stringers who are Iraqi.

Now you can have any kind of (complaint) about the American media or Western media you want, but there is at least a nod, an effort toward objectivity. The stringers who are being brought in, who are bringing in these stories, are not bringing that same degree of objectivity.

So on the one hand, our enemy is denying our media access to the battlefield, where anything perhaps that I say as a general is subject to any number of interpretations, challenges, questions, but the enemy's story basically gets there without that because our media is unable to challenge them. It's unwitting, but at the same time, it can promote the enemy's agenda, simply because there is an apparent attempt at objectivity.

Reporter: Would you like to see more Western media there then?

Mattis: Oh, we would be happy to have more Western media out there. We've had Al-Jazeera out with our troops.

To the extent that the prosecutors’ case relies upon the reports of the events by U.S. media, instead of hard forensic evidence, the U.S. media will be on trial.

I’ve written repeatedly about the problems of reliability presented by the U.S. media’s reliance upon stringers and of veracity presented by reliance upon unqualified sources.

For example, here:

So, why hasn’t the U.S. media been investing the resources needed to adequately cover the whole story in Iraq? Cheapness. It costs upwards of $30-thousand a month, above wages, to keep an American reporter in the field in Iraq.As a recent analysis of media economics points out:"[N]ewspapers remain a surprisingly robust business and generate tremendous amounts of cash every year….[N]ewspaper chains have become relentless in their pursuit of cost-cutting. Although much of this has been bad for the art of journalism, it has been very good for the bottom line."Turning responsibility for what the American people hear to inexpensive Iraqi stringers is simply grossly irresponsible. Galloway [Joe Galloway, recently retired military correspondent for Knight Ridder] tells me that many aspire to be good journalists, and many are undoubtedly brave. However, we just don’t know their loyalties in too many cases.

In Editor & Publisher, I wrote:

If truth is journalism’s goal, cheapness within journalism undermines it. Embedded reporter Paul McLeary wrote in Columbia Journalism Review not long ago, “In Iraq, the untold stories pile up, one by one by one,” because “there just aren’t enough of them [journalists] to give the conflict its due.”I turned to Joe Galloway’s 41years of experience in military reporting to see what can improve military-press relations. Some 692 journalists embedded during the invasion of Iraq. Interviews by the Institute for Defense Analysis reported, “The participants’ overall assessment was that it was successful and that it benefited the military, the media, the public, and the military families.”

Yet, the program has withered to several dozen embeds today.Why? Galloway [who is opposed to the U.S. engagement in Iraq] says there’s “growing resistance from the military to [those] embeds” it considers negative. Meanwhile, the $30,000 or more per month (above wages) cost of supporting reporters in Iraq is more than most media organizations want to spend, even though this is a major war and more important than many other beats.Media bureaus in Baghdad now operate largely through inexpensive Iraqi stringers. I asked Galloway how such Iraqis are vetted for reliability. Galloway said that in the case of Knight Ridder, the bureau chief is fluent in Arabic as her primary check.

Hardly sufficient cause for confidence!

Here’s three posts (here, here and here) about Iraqi sources relied upon in the reporting from Haditha, who hardly offer confidence in their charges against the Marines. Read them.
Surely, the defense attorneys are reading them. If the Haditha charges go to trial, this may be quite a trial – and the U.S. media’s failure to take proper care in a war zone be exposed, moreso than among the Marines.

— Bruce Kesler

Carter Lies About 'Prayer Meeting' That Wasn't

2006-12-15T09:52:00.000-05:00

In an article yesterday on aging bigot Jimmy Carter, the New York Times began a report by telling how Carter was engaged in a peaceful, touchy-feely "discussion" with some rabbis in Phoenix. The chitchat ended with a warm-hearted Jew-hug, according to Carter.

"'We ended up holding hands and circled in prayer,' Mr. Carter said in a telephone interview from Phoenix, adding that the rabbis requested the meeting to discuss his book," said the Times.

In fact, that was a lie. The Phoenix board of rabbis had called the meeting to rake Carter over the coals for his "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" swill. One of the rabbis involved wrote a letter saying:

The executive committee of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix met with Jimmy Carter for more than an hour, not to “discuss” his book, as you report he said, but to speak on behalf of the greater Phoenix Jewish community and share with him the very serious concerns we have regarding his book.

Mr. Carter referred to our praying together. In essence, it was a closing invocation for peace in the world but was not intended and should not be construed as representing any agreement or conciliation by us with Mr. Carter’s position.

In fact, the opposite is true.

His use of the word “colonization” to describe Israel’s policies in the West Bank, without any consideration for the security concerns of the Israeli government, shows his bias on the issue.

This warranted a correction or an editor's note, not a letter. It is typical of the softball media coverage of Carter's screed.

A Day of Joy in Moonbatland

2006-12-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

John Bolton, arguably the best UN envoy in recent history, announced today that he is stepping down. The National Review Online has a good analysis.

This is a happy day in Moonbatland. Let the rejoicing commence!

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The Latest Islamist Outrage in the U.S.

2006-12-04T14:59:00.000-05:00

Muslim taxi drivers at Minneapolis/St. Paul airport are refusing to "transport alchohol." Read this excellent commentary in the Conservative Voice.

There's also a great discussion of the "flying imams." Check it out.

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Still More on the Imams

2006-12-02T11:47:00.000-05:00

The blogs are all over the "flying imams" story. Look at this roundup here.

When will the mainstream media acknowledge that their previous coverage of this story was wrong?

Why does Pajamas Media break this story and not the establishment press?

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More on the Flying Imams

2006-12-01T23:07:00.000-05:00

One story I've neglected in my hiatus is the "flying imams," in which six Muslim clerics were removed from a US Airways Minneapolis-Phoenix flight a couple of weeks ago for "praying." Discrimination!

Michele Malkin tonight has the latest, quoting Pajamas Media:

Pauline revealed to the Pajamas Media that the six imams were doing things far more suspicious than praying - an Arabic-speaking passenger heard them repeatedly invoke “bin Laden,” and “terrorism,” a gate attendant told the captain that she did not want to fly with them, and that bomb-sniffing dogs were brought aboard. Other Muslim passengers were left undisturbed and later joined in a round of applause for the U.S. Airways crew. “It wasn’t that they were Muslim. It was all of the suspicious things they did,” Pauline said.

Let's see if the media picks this up. Don't count on it.

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The AFP Goes Beserk Over Israeli 'Rock Throwing'

2006-11-21T11:01:00.000-05:00

This article that came fluttering over the French news agency AFP today is tbe best example I could find recently of the egregious bias that afflicts media coverage of Israel.

Note the title: "Israeli protestors throw stones at UN commissioner's convoy." Imagine the suffering! Poor, poor, UN officials being bombarded with stones, blood splattering, injured people filling the hospital.

Actually, if you look closely, you find that somebody maybe threw something at a car, and nobody was hurt. Even a UN spokesman downplayed the incident as it was, which was a big fat nothing.

Meanwhile, three Italian aid workers are kidnapped and that gets the same amount of coverage from the AFP.

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Despair Not!

2006-11-01T07:34:00.000-05:00

Mediacrity has been on extended leave, but is returning in a few weeks. Keep those cards and letters coming!

Speaking of cards and letters: my apologies to people who may have emailed me as my former e-mail at hotmail is kaput. Any e-mails sent to me were unfortunately deleted. Please note my new e-mail address: mediacrity@gmail.com.

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Calame: Terrorists and Victims are Two Peas in a Pod

2006-09-10T11:03:00.000-04:00

The Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman Barney Calame -- the widely-reviled, worthless "public editor"-- today grappled with the Times's legendary, institutionalized bias toward Israel for the first time in his disastrous tenure at public editor. Barney's cowardly mess of a column today was a jaw-dropper to end all jaw-droppers.

Barney "examined" Times coverage of the Lebanese conflict, long after it would do any good, by not examining the coverage. Yes, my friends. He paid absolutely zero attention to any of the prose emanating from the Times, instead deciding to look at all the purty pictures, with not a word on the actual coverage.

Even with that absurd self-imposed limitation, Barney's verdict -- stop the presses! -- is that all is well. The Times presented far more photos of the Lebanese side because of the conflict, taking at face value the Lebanese assurances that the "civilian" death toll in the conflict were not Hezbollah. They all vanished into thin air, I guess.

None of this is a jaw-dropper so far. Even left-wing media commentators acknowledge that Barney is a kneejerk defender of the Times bureaucracy, after all.

The jaw-drop point was reached at the end of his column, where Barney provides the following following nauseating moral equivalency:

A final thought on morality. Some supporters of Israel, who contend that Hezbollah wants to destroy that country and invaded to trigger the latest fighting, have asserted that morality should be considered by The Times in deciding what pictures to publish. But I can’t accept their questioning — on the basis of the goals and motives they attribute to Hezbollah — of the validity of a photograph that could arouse sympathy for the Lebanese. The obligation of The Times is to provide a fair and accurate perspective on the fighting and its impact in both pictures and words — presenting both the good and evil that armed conflict can bring.

Terrorists and victims, in other words, are two peas in a pod. Morally equivalent.

I wonder whether early defenders of Calame like Donald Luskin would like salt or pepper on their crow.

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A Tepid Response to Palestinian Thuggery

2006-08-19T11:11:00.000-04:00

The Palestinian kidnapping of Fox news correspondent Steve Centanni and camerman Olaf Wing is now in its fifth day, and it's interesting to note the flabby response from both the media and so-called journalism "protection" organizations -- which are usually quick to condemn Israel and the U.S. authorities in Iraq.

The usually garrulous Committee to Protect Journalists issued a tepid statement expressing "concern," and the media generally has kept its distance. The New York Times, typically, buried a tiny reference to the kidnapping in a news roundup two days later. Obviously the Times was hoping that Centanni would be swiftly released, and delayed mentioning the kidnapping in the hope that it could report news of his release at the same time. Mustn't upset the myth of Palestinian moderation!

Another big problem with the kidnapping, from the standpoint of pro-Palestinian mouthpieces like the Times, is that it is part of a pattern of Palestinian intimidation of journalists, as noted in an excellent FrontPage Magazine article yesterday.

The media has ignored that aspect of the kidnappings, and instead has even used the kidnappings to give a publicity plug to terrorists, such as in this ludicrous AP story today quoting an Islamic Jihad terorist saying what a terrible thing it is to kidnap people.

It will be interesting to see if the media picks up on the FrontPage Magazine article, and puts the kidnapping in context. Don't hold your breath.

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A UN Hack's 'Tribute' to Rachel Corrie

2006-08-03T17:10:00.000-04:00

Today comes word of what surely must be the most wretched book to hit the market since the Julius Streicher Cartoon Collection. This one is an e-book called "We are them. They are us: A celebration of the writings of Rachel Corrie," who gave her life for the cause of Palestinians killing Jews.

As two reviews noted on Amazon.com, this e-book is adapted from an article in the Israel-bashing Washington Report on Middle Eastern Affairs, and is dishonest, out-and-out terrorist propaganda that pleads the cause of the noxious International Solidarity Movement.

To top everything off, the author of this wretched tome is none other than Laura Angela Bagnetto, Saudi Press Agency correspondent and First Vice President of the scandal-plagued, Saudi-dominated UN Correspondents Association.

Glad to see that the ethics-deficient UN hacks organization is living up to its promise, and working hard to promote one of its favorite causes. Bagnetto has a website where you can leaf through photos of her fellow UN hacks frolicking -- when they're not writing books cozying up to terrorist icons.

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The Relentless Propaganda Bombardment

2006-08-03T10:26:00.000-04:00

The New York Times today kept up its relentless propaganda barrage on behalf of Hezbollah -- really sticking its neck out compared to other U.S. media and even CNN.

Day after day, the Times has made no effort whatever to show balance, putting Israeli reports of casualties etc. on a par with the proven liars of a terrorist organization. Its reports from south Lebanon function as a thinly disguised tool for their correspondents' unseen Hezbollah handlers. As usual, the Times did not bother to devote a separate story to the record barrage of rockets on Israel. That would not, of course, advance the Hezbollah line.

Here's the rundown from south Lebanon today:

* Reporting from Baalbek, house terrorism apologist Hassan "Wrong Man" Fattah functions loyally in his accustomed role as Hezbollah propagandist. As has been its practice in recent days, the Times reports on the battles in south Lebanon entirely from the Hezbollah perspective, pushing hard the Hezbollah line. Fattah's sources: the "mayor" of the town (no possible Hezbollah ties!), someone named "Ali Saeed" who claimed to be a "relative" of some poor poor innocent Lebanese killed by the Israelis, another "Ali" who is an obvious Hezbollah member even to the clueless Fattah, and ending with a quote from the "mayor." That assumes that he really is the "mayor." Remember that this is "Wrong Man" Fattah!

* In another Lebanese town we have a report from another Hezbollah mouthpiece-Times correspondent. The Hezbollah murderers have morphed into "militiamen" -- one of the softball terms the Times loves to use when referring to terrorists. This ones harkens back to the Minutemen of 1776. Patriots fighting a ruthless foe! The point of this story, one that the Times hammers away at every chance it gets, is that Hezbollah is viewed as a "defender" by south Lebanese villagers -- including, presumably, the ones who are stopped from leaving or shot at, as even the Times has reported. This piece is unabashed puffery for Hezbollah:

"How could you stay silent when you see your land burn and your children get killed?" said Mr. Yahia, who said he was a platoon commander with the local defense force [Times-speak for "Hezbollah"]. "The whole population here is resisting."

In Lebanon, maybe. But to the dilettantes at the Times, the romantic allure of terrorism "irresistible" -- as long as Katyushas aren't being lobbed at their apartments on West End Avenue.

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Inside Today's Beirut Times

2006-07-31T08:23:00.000-04:00

The Beirut Times (New York edition) (a/k/a "The New York Times) continued its gavel-to-gavel coverage of the poor poor defenseless Lebanese villagers being pounded unmercifully and for no reason whatsoever by those horrible Israelis. Coverage even extended to the Arts pages, where the Beirut Times discussed how those horrible Israelis have cripped the local cultural secene.

The B.T., as it is affectionately known, ventured into enemy territory for a perfunctory story that finally told what happened to all those hundreds of thousands of Israelis forced out of their homes by Hezbollah death rockets. You've got to figure there has been no impact on the Israeli cultural scene as there was no article on that, but it wouldn't matter anyway, they being the enemy and this being the Beirut Times.

Inside the paper was a full-page ad (STOP THE SLAUGHTER, blah blah blah) calling for Israeli surrender to terrorism. This was from the usual suspects of the anti-Israel-Jewish community, including Michael Lerner, Artie Waskow, and other kooks and moonbats. You really have to wonder why these clowns bother. Since we know what they are going to say at any given moment -- Israelis bad bad bad! -- do they really have to say it?

Also it was strange that they paid good money to run their ad in the B.T., since the viewpoint of these cretins is already reflected throughout the paper at no additional charge.

By the way, the ad made no call for the release of the Israeli hostages. That would get in the way of peace! Not to mention the even more important goal of surrender to terrorism. In that goal they have an ally in Hezbollah's home town newspaper, The Beirut Times.

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The Times Submerges a Village (and Other Idiocy)

2006-07-26T09:47:00.000-04:00

In the midst of a tearjerker out of southern Lebanon today, New York Times house terrorism apologist, Hassan "Wrong Man" Fattah gives us an interesting perspective on a village that is victimized by those damned Israelis. According to Fattah, it is in the middle of the Meditteranean.

That's right, folks. Says Fattah: "Ten miles east is the relative safety of Tyre, the gateway into northern Lebanon." Now, since Tyre is on the Meditteranean, which is on the left side of the map... hmmmmm....... what type of scuba gear was Fattah wearing while churning out this bit of Hezbollah propaganda?

This stupidity, which sailed right by the Times's crackerjack foreign desk, is a good metaphor for the Times's coverage of the Lebanese: Wrong Way in every sense.

In addition to giving one-sided coverage that underplays (or, as today, doesn't mention at all) the suffering of Israeli civilians from ball bearing-packed terrorist rockets, there is an overplaying of Lebanese suffering -- with most articles not mentioning the salient fact that Hezbollah is hiding amid the civilian population.

Thus we get this story from a Sabrina Tavernise, which follows in the footsteps of Nic Robertson at CNN by trading access to Hezbollah-controlled areas for coverage that is little more than propaganda.

To top off the Times's coverage today, we have the main story, which reported Kofi Annan's charge that the killing of four UN troops was "apparently deliberate" -- without reporting the Israeli denials and demand for an apology. Reporting a denial of a serious charge is Journalism 101.

To top even that, the story discussed Lebanon's claim on the tiny Shabaa Farms area of the Golan Heights -- without saying that the UN has determined that is not part of Lebanon.

That's the Times's coverage of the Lebanon conflict for you: Wrong-way, wrong-headed, amateurish, unprofessional and just plain wrong.

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Nicholas Kristof: Terrorist Appeaser or Just Plain Dumb?

2006-07-23T12:05:00.000-04:00

That is the question that confronts the civilized world today, after a "be kind to your local terrorist" column by Nicholas Kristof that is -- even by the degraded standards of the New York Times -- singularly stupid.

Kristof argues that Israel needs to learn from the good example of Spain and Britain, both of which caved in to their own local terrorists, the IRA and Basque separatists. Israel needs to do the same with Hezbollah -- even though Hezbollah seeks the destruction of Israel and the Basque and Irish terrorists weren't seeking the dismantlement of Spain and Britain.

Don't bomb them, negotiate with them, says Kristof. He argues that "one reason this bombardment [in Lebanon]— like the invasion in 1982 — is against Israel’s own long-term interest has to do with the way terrorism is likely to change over the next couple of decades."

Terrorism -- stop the presses! -- is going to get worse. So, fight back? Nosiree.

No, it is much more in Israel's "long term interests" (which Kristof knows much better than the Israelis themselves, of course) to simply do nothing while the rockets and missiles rain down and "reach a final peace agreement, involving the establishment of a Palestinian state (because states can be deterred more easily than independent groups like Hamas)."

Yes, establish a Palestinian state for... hey, wait a second. Hezbollah already has a state. A nice one. All of Lebanon as its sandbox. Etc. etc. I mean, no point in going into detail, as it is obvious to pretty much everyone except Nicholas Kristof, the man who knows what's best for Israel but probably can't find the Bekaa Valley on a map.

I'm not making this up. You have to read this column to see what I mean.

Either Kristof is so charged up about appeasing terrorists that he forgot that Hezbollah is in Lebanon and not in Gaza, and that it wants to destroy Israel and couldn't care less about a "final peace agreement" -- or he is just plain dumb.

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The Payola Pundit Bites the Big One

2006-07-20T11:39:00.000-04:00

Williams: A premature goodbye

It's been a while since I've examined the rants of the Payola Pundit, UN consultant-correspondent Ian Williams, famed for covering the UN while writing pamphlets and performing media training for UN officials. His shilling for the UN is usually too predictable to mention, but one recent act of clairvoyance warrants a mention.

A few weeks ago, Williams wrote a piece for The Nation entitled "Say Goodbye to Bolton," in which he gloated on the supposed impending departure of UN Ambassador John Bolton. The latter riles Williams for failing to show sufficient fealty to his family's sometime-employer.

As usual, Williams is only a few hudred miles off the mark. Today came word that Bolton's renomination was endorsed by what had been his leading Senate critic, Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio.

So I guess it's "goodbye" to Williams's credibility, not that he had much to begin with.

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A Must-Read Analysis

2006-07-20T10:48:00.000-04:00

Today the New York Times continued its blatantly biased coverage of the Middle East conflict, ridiculously overplaying a predictable statement by the Iraqi leader criticizing Israel, downplaying Hezbollah death-missiles and trumpeting Lebanese casuatlies.

I won't include links today. The Times is so predictable that it isn't really necessary.

To put the Times's daily drumbeat of terrorist appeasement propaganda into perspective, you really have to read an excellent two-part analysis by Ed Lasky in the American Thinker, analysing Times bias on everything related to Israel and Jews. It ran over the past two days and deserves wide dissemination. Part One is here, Part Two is here.

Two words: Read it.

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The Media Terrorist Fan Club in Action

2006-07-19T08:06:00.000-04:00

The media's terrorist fan club has been moving ahead forcefully in pursuit of its objective, which is to serve as a propaganda mouthpiece of Hezbollah and Hamas.

The president of the fan club is, of course, CNN's Nic Robertson, who last night ran an "exclusive" report from south Beirut, his Hezbollah handler practically holding hands with him, describing how the bad, bad Israelis are targeting nothing but civilians.

The cameras took in an "outraged" terrorist propagandist, identified as a Hezbollah "press officer," saying, "Look what happened to this building, inhabited by innocent civilians ... no military bases, nothing."

Well, needless to say, Hezbollah wouldn't say something that wasn't true? The print version of this CNN-Hezbollah joint propaganda effort put it this way:

Hezbollah officials gave CNN access into the southern suburbs of Beirut -- the
area thought to house the organization's headquarters -- to show the damage
inflicted on civilians there. They also wanted to show they do not house
military stockpiles there, CNN's Nic Robertson reported. Robertson said he could
not confirm the group's assertions about what was housed in the area.

The broadcast itself left out the last sentence, at least in the version that was broadcast last night. In fact, he seemed to confirm what his handler was telling him, noting that the detritis strewn about was all "civilian" -- as if Hezbollah would take this idiot directly to its weapons dumps for all the world to see.

Over at the New York Times, amid the usual gag-inducing coverage we have a report from house terrorism apologist, Hassan "Wrong Man" Fattah, in south Lebanon. Today Fattah pulls off the not-inconsiderable fete of reporting on the UN "peacekeeping" force there without mentioning what it's most famous for -- standing by and watching while three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped.

All in all, a great day for the press corps' terrorist fan club!

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The 'Disproportionate' Lie

2006-07-15T08:39:00.000-04:00

Today's No. 1 Israel-smear word is "disproportionate." Just run the words in Google News and you'll see what I mean -- 3,500 hits! It's a fave of such epitomes of moral authority as the European Union and French UN ambassador and the peace-loving, always restrained Russians and -- well, you get the idea. Morality fans!

I'm still waiting for someone in the media to call these hypocrites for what they are, and point out the last time any military action Israel took was ever described as reasonable or "proportionate." How about "never"? That is why the Israelis are wise to ignore such blather and strike out hard.

Meanwhile, in the "business as usual" front, the New York Times today was displaying its usual indifference to Israeli suffering and pro-Arab slant. With its house terrorism apologist, Hassan "Wrong Man" Fattah, on the job, The Times slathered on the sympathy for the poor, poor employees of the Beirut airport, none of whom actually got so much as a scrape. Contrast this with the grudging coverage of Hezbollah murder-rockets landing on northern Israel.

But the Times really outdid itself in its usual area of excellence, which is sophistry and simple-minded analysis. In a lead editorial, the Times opined that Israel risked "playing Hamas's game" by -- get ready for this, friends -- blowing Hamas and Hezbollah to smithereens. You gotta love it. Of course, they could send those two groups rose pedals, thereby hurting them politically.

Even that tripe was outdone by a "news analysis" in which Helene Cooper suggested that Syria, now justifiably shunned by the U.S., may have a way of getting the U.S. back on speaking terms again. The path is for Syria to behave even worse than it does now. "Some Middle East watchers say that if things continue to spiral downward, American diplomats may have no choice but to reach out to Syria at least, even if it is through a back channel," said Cooper. Thank heavens such geniuses are not running our government.

You know the Times is really pushing at its dreadful limits when it makes CNN look good. Last night, CNN's Anderson Cooper and other CNN correspondents provided surprisingly balanced, even compassionate coverage of the plight of Israeli civilians in the north of Israel. Cooper even spent some time with an Israeli artillery battery. The loathsome Christiane Amanpour was nowhere in sight, but a CNN press release says she threatens to return to Israel on Sunday. Get your barf bag ready.

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Reuters Justifies Extortion

2006-07-04T15:56:00.000-04:00

Of all the many noxious news articles to materialize since the Palestinian kidnapping of an Israel soldier a week ago, perhaps the worst was this drivel that moved on the Reuters wire today.

The poor, poor Palestinians have their panties in a twist, you see, that Israel may not bow down to extortion. Yup. They're emotin': "Prisoner swap an emotive issue for Palestinians," says Reuters.

"Since Palestinian militants captured [sic] an Israeli soldier 10 days ago, Mahmoud Murib has prayed the Jewish state will meet the captors' demands to free prisoners, including his 15-year-old son," said Reuters, visibly moved by the situation. "'The hopes of the people are hanging on this soldier,' said Murib, who says his son was detained five months ago when Israeli forces entered their refugee camp just outside the West Bank city of Ramallah."

The poor dear! Now, just why was he "detained," you ask? Gee, I searched through that story very carefully, and I couldn't find a reason -- nor the reason why another poor, poor Palestinian's six brothers all happen to be "held" by the bad, bad Israelis.

That's Israel for you -- "detaining" Palestinians for no visible reason, awaiting a legitimate exchange for a "captured" Israeli soldier. "God willing, they will let the Palestinians go safely back to their families and the soldier will go back safely to his family," said one Palestinian whose wife was detained for no Reuters-stated reason by the Israelis.

They must be innocent! Such is the Reuters fantasy land of innocent Palestinians detained for no reason, to be exchanged because of a soldier captured in a "legitimate" military operation. Extortion? Not in the view of this "news" agency.

What I wonder is this: Reuters has credentials to "report" the news, no doubt issued by the state of Israel. Why in heaven's name haven't they been revoked?

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Calame: Al Qaeda Has a Right to Know

2006-07-02T11:01:00.000-04:00

The Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman Barney Calame -- the widely-reviled, worthless "public editor"-- today came out ( suprise suprise!) in favor of Times management's publishing that story revealing the secret terrorist-finances tracking program.

Hey, they don't call him a "management shill" for nothing. But Calame's column today was laughable even by Calame standards.

"It was time to take a close look at the handling of the article in search of answers," says Barney and, well, I don't have to tell you what that "answer" was, was it? But look at the "reasoning." Barney's view is that since a whole bunch of people already knew about this super-secret program, why not let al Qaeda know? Sure. Spread it all over the front page of the Times. Make sure that every terrorist from here to Kabul knew about it.

I'm not kidding. Calame went to the executive editor, Bill Keller, and loyally acted as stenographer for the following.

"Hundreds, if not thousands, of people know about this," Mr. Keller said he was told by an official who talked to him on condition of anonymity. The 25 bankers from numerous nations on the Swift board of directors, and their predecessors going back to 2001, knew about the arrangement. So did some consortium executives and staff members — a group that probably expanded during this period. Starting in 2003, Swift representatives had to be stationed alongside any government intelligence official searching the data.

By the same reasoning, since the entire population of Chicago knew about the Japanese code being broken -- after the Chicago Tribune irresponsibly published that fact during World War II -- there was no valid reason not to spread that all over the headlines of the world media. After all, "the people have a right to know." Japanese are people too, aren't they? Same principle goes for the guys and gals of al Qaeda and its affiliates all over the world. They're people and they have a right to know.

Likewise, the Manhattan Project was known to thousands upon thousands of people. Damn the U.S. media for not satisfying the public's -- in the U.S., Germany and Japan -- "right to know" that silly millitary secret!

Barney's not through. No, he's got a whole column to fill this week before he goes back to the divan. "Another reason Times editors were right to proceed with the 3,550-word Swift story was the skimpy Congressional oversight of the program." That's right. If Congress isn't paying attention, tell bin Laden!

And so it went, Barney Calame proving again that the Times has no more loyal lapdog than its very own in-house watchdog.

Go back to the divan, Barney. You've earned your pay. Say, how many months left on your contract? I'm sure they'll want to renew. You're good!

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The Times Whitewashes Kidnappers

2006-06-30T09:03:00.000-04:00

The New York Times's ever-reliable foreign desk, confronted with terrorism by Palestinians and a restrained reaction by Israel, has a problem. Just how do you slant your coverage in the face of such black-and-white facts? The simple solution is an old one -- moral equivalency.

Thus the Palestinians did not kidnap an Israeli soldier-- a term used by pretty much everyone other than the terrorists themselves -- they "captured" him. The Israelis did not arrest Hamas legislators, they "seized" them.

This amoral use of language was employed in a front-page story today by the notoriously pro-Palestinian Steven Erlanger, "Seizures Show New Israeli Line Against Hamas."

"Seize," however, is just flat-out inaccurate. The arrested Hamas thugs will be subjected to a trial in Israeli courts, in which defendants have much the same protections as in the U.S.

Meanwhile, the even milder term "capture" is used to describe the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier. To the Times, a government arresting a terrorist is the same as, if not a bit nastier than, a gang of murderers kidnapping a young, unarmed soldier.

To drive home the point, the Times publishes a dispatch from Saudi Arabia by house terrorism apologist Hassan Fattah -- amazingly still employed by the paper despite the Abu Gharib wrong-man fiasco -- to describe how the righteously indignant, morally superior Arab world is "shocked" by Israeli's perfidy.

In an article that, as usual for Fattah, reads almost like a self-parody, "Wrong Man Fattah" waxes indignant: "Many deplored Israeli attacks on civilian targets in response to what they characterized as a legitimate military campaign that resulted in the capture on Sunday of Cpl. Gilad Shalit of the Israeli Army."

But even while serving as a reliable, unquestioning funnel for Arab propaganda, Fattah let someting slip through. He quoted the "pan-Arab daily Al Hayat" referring to the kidnapping of the Israeli soldier for what it was -- a kidnapping.

That's the Times for you: More Arab than a "pan-Arab daily."

UPDATE: While I'm sure everyone knows it by now, I'll state the obvious: The devastating Wall Street Journal editorial today, which focuses on the Times's notorious anti-Bush bias, is must-reading and equally applies to its coverage of the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

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UN's Chief Israel-Basher Pushed to Succeed Annan

2006-06-15T14:01:00.000-04:00

A worthy successor to Kofi Annan!

For quite some time I've been chronicling the exploits of the UN's propaganda minister, the loathsome Shashi Tharoor. You name it, he's done it: overseen a fat, grotesquely wasteful propaganda apparatus, and run Israel-bashing media events featuring anti-Semites and professional hate-Israel polemicists.

Tharoor has had a hankering to succeed Kofi Annan as secretary general, and the media today reports that it's official. India, apparently putting national loyalty over common sense, has just officially nominated Tharoor for the job.

I have no idea if Tharoor has a chance of getting the job, but I will say this: as a waste-loving pal of anti-Semites, he is amply qualitified to follow in the footsteps of the discredited Annan.

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Bias By Omission at the AP

2006-06-12T13:54:00.000-04:00

In my opinion, bias by omission is the commonest form of bias. This AP article regarding the infamous Duke lacrosse rape allegation story is a classic example.

In this article, we are told that the Durham prosecutor, Mike Nifong, is being silent in the face of a "relentless assault" (how's that for a loaded language?) on his case. Further in the article, the moral high ground is ceded to Nifong because "[i]nstead of speaking out, Nifong has encouraged the public to come to trial to hear his evidence." And to drive home the point, the article quotes a member of the National District Attorneys Association: “The defense attorneys are there to muddy the water. . . . You can’t expect anything they say to be said without viewing it through their own prism. They’re there to obfuscate the facts. They’re not there to educate the public.”

This is a hack job, pure and simple. When the case first came to light, there wasn't a camera Mike Nifong wouldn't jump in front of to talk about the case. He talked at the university that the accuser attended, and he made numerous public statements about the case. Now, we are told that the defense attorneys are conducting a "relentless assault" on his case, and that he wants to try his case in front of jury.

Give me a break. The reality is that Nifong started out by trying this case in public (something which coincided with an uncoming primary election), and now the AP is there to carry his water by implying that the defense attorneys are "muddying the waters" and that he is being silent. But you'd never know that from the AP article. Though I am not a journalist, I feel safe in saying that this cannot be in accord with good journalistic practices.

And, while I am at it, why didn't the AP reporter putting together this slanted piece bother to ask Mr. Early [the quoted member of the National District Attorneys Association] if publicizing statements of police officers and nurses who examined the alleged victim is "muddying the waters"? Why didn't the AP reporter ask Mr. Early to comment on Nifong's behavior at the beginning of the trial?

One wonders if the particulars of this alleged crime influenced the write-up here. I cannot imagine that it did not, as journalists usually don't point out the motives of defense attorneys or carry water for prosecutors.

(posted by new Mediacrity contributor)
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Tharoor Balks at Stopping Bash-Israel Conference

2006-06-06T07:33:00.000-04:00

The UN's chief of public information, Shashi Tharoor, is pushing hard to become the next Secretary General -- a post for which he is amply qualified by heading the UN's bloated, viciously anti-Israel propaganda apparatus. Today comes further evidence of just how qualified he is.

Today Cnsnews.com reports that Tharoor has refused to change by one iota an upcoming UN-paid annual "seminar" that is little more than yet another anti-Israel bash-fest.

Says Cnsnews.com:

"This year, Israel approached the head of the United Nations Department of Public Information Shashi Tharoor and asked him to call for a new resolution that would promote co-existence, cooperation and mutual programs between Israel and the Palestinians, but there was 'no will' to make a change, said another Foreign Ministry official.

"They are happy with the situation the way it is - excluding Israel, he said."

Nice work. Tharoor, as we'll recall, has a stellar record of championing anti-Israel propaganda "seminars," in one instance featuring a notorious anti-Semite. Alas, Tharoor has gotten little support in his quest for a promotion, with not even the Indian government supporting the Indian-born Tharoor. Too bad. He is so well-qualified!

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Dumb Times Editorial of the Year

2006-05-26T12:50:00.000-04:00

I'm a day late with this, but I still thought weigh in with my own expression of disgust for the editorial that appeared in the New York Times yesterday. It has got to be the dumbest Times editorial I have read in a long time, and that is saying a lot.

The aim was to shoot down Ehud Olmert's West Bank disengagement plan. Israel must carry out a full withdrawal and that, of course, won't be enough! The poor poor Palestinians will be left with... well, get this addled imagery:

. . . imagine a map of Manhattan. The West Bank would be, very roughly, East Harlem and the Upper East Side. Gaza would be Battery Park City, far to the southwest. Now imagine trying to create a fully functioning city with its own economy out of those pieces while an entirely independent, antagonistic city remained in between.

Something missing from this neat little imagery, wouldn't you say? Such as the people on the East Side and Battery Park City vowing to obliterate the rest of Manhattan.

Kind of fouls up the picture, wouldn't you say?

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The Times 'Scoop' That Never Was

2006-05-22T08:49:00.000-04:00

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The New York Stock Exchange is poised to merge with an electronic something-or-other called Euronext! So reported the New York Times today.

"The NYSE Group is expected to present Euronext with a formal proposal in the next couple of days, two people involved in the negotiations said yesterday."

The story was filled with stuff like this -- confidential source stuff -- talking about a "person" here and a "person" there said this and that.

Nice! I guess that "person" must have been reading the Sunday Times of London, which got there first. As the New York Post reported today,

London's Sunday Times reported yesterday that Big Board chief John Thain was poised to make a merger offer to Euronext - an electronic network covering stock listings in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Lisbon and derivatives in London - to counter a move made Friday by German exchange Deutsche Boerse.

Gee, nothing in the Times story about one of Britain's leading newspapers reporting that.

Guess they must have forgot.

See? Bloggers aren't the only ones who get poached by the Times.

Hey Barney Calame! Dust off that Empty Suit and serve us up a nice whitewash.

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A 'Press Critic' Wakes Up to the Empty Suit

2006-05-12T09:13:00.000-04:00

Belated recognition

I see that Jack Shafer of Slate has finally woken up to what any casual reader -- and many blogs, including this one and Michelle Malkin -- have been saying for months: that Barney Calame is one awful New York Times "public editor."

Shafer fails to mention the widespread revulsion that Calame -- who I dubbed "The Empty Suit" way back in July -- has been causing among readers of the Times. No surprise there. Since the people complaining about the Suit have tended to beef about the Times's leftwing bias, they were invisible to the left-leaning Shafer.

Still his column makes for good reading. Glad he finally woke up. But the lateness of his column shows how the mainstream press critics have failed their readers in serving as watchdogs for this kind of thing.

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The UN Minister of Propaganda Wants a Promotion

2006-05-10T09:41:00.000-04:00

Shashi Tharoor wants a better job

The UN's Minister of Propaganda, Shashi Tharoor, has been all over the news lately as he pounds the pavement campaigning to succeed Kofi Annan as UN secretary general. That's right folks. The head of the UN's most bloated, inefficiently run bureaucracy, noted mainly for anti-Israel and sometimes anti-Semitic propaganda offerings, wants to run the whole shebang!

I've written quite a bit about Tharoor over the past year. So "let's look at the record," as on old pol once said

Jew-baiting and Israel-bashing

On his watch, the UN propaganda apparatus has sponsored hate-Israel "media events," one of which included the rabid anti-Semite Israel Shamir. See the link here, and note here how Reuters came to his defense, proving that a UN's flack's best friend is a UN hack!

Giving a platform to a Jew-hater wasn't enough for Tharoor. He had to top himself, and he did. The next hate-Israel fest featured the vicious anti-Israel polemicist Ilan Pappe. See my item here, and follow-ups here and here..

To keep the public record of the Pappe-fest nice and tidy, Tharoor's minions sanitized the transcript to eliminate the most extreme statements.

Waste and irresponsibility

Now, you have to admit, this is a pretty good record! But that's not all. Tharoor manages to run a useless propaganda ministry by employing no less than seven hundred paid flacks around the world. Four hundred of them are employed in New York. And no effort is being made to trim this obscenely bloated staff.

The dirty details emerged at a press briefing, see here, but received zero publicity.

While those seven hundred propagandists keep their noses to the grindstone planning hate-Israel parleys, Tharoor finds time to write books, no matter what else happened to be going on at the UN.

In recognition for his terrific work, Tharoor's department won a nice award from the UN for "promoting efficiency." I kid you not. Read about it here.

Even defenders of the UN were losing patience with the guy last year, as Annan was kicked around right and left and Tharoor was AWOL. After all, a flack's job is to, well, flack. You can't always rely on a supine UN press corps or its Saudi-dominated correspondent association to do your flacking for you.

So that's the Shashi Tharoor Platform. He has my vote. After all, he embodies what the UN is all about -- Israel-bashing and inefficiency. The right man for the job!

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Calame Slays a Red Herring

2006-05-07T09:57:00.000-04:00

The Empty Suit, New York Times spokesman a/k/a "public editor" Barney Calame, was in fine form today -- as is the Times, needless to say. Great paper. No problems there. Terrific reporters coming up with great ideas. Calame so proclaims, in the latest of a series of advertorials by this train wreck of a newspaper ombudsman.

Today's advertorial, entitled "That First Inkling: The Origin of Enterprise Stories." is vintage Calame. No critical analysis and above all nothing of the slightest interest to Times readers. Just relentless happy-talk of the kind usually found in a morale-boosting employee newsletter That's our Barney!

The Barney column today describes how reporters come up with most ideas for enterprise stories and, doggone it, everything is just fine. Bias? Ain't happening. Figment of your imagination.

The complaints of some disgruntled readers imply that the process is to blame when they think an article shouldn't have run or view its concept as inherently biased. They often suspect that the process was contaminated by the influence of some powerful special interest or the political leanings of a top editor.

That, of course, isn't what "disgruntled readers" are saying. I haven't heard anyone complain about "process." "Process" is purely Calame's obsession. I, for example, believe that the bias at the Times is institutional, a part of the fabric of the paper that is shared by reporters and editors alike, particularly on the Foreign Desk and among the foreign correspondent corps.

For example, it would be absurd to suggest that somebody has to tell Hassan Fattah to sucker up to Islamists, or screw up a big story about Abu Gharib. Oh no. He does that all by himself. Enterprise!

Calame, however, doesn't like dealing with actual instances of bias. That, after all, would deter him from his primary task, which is to shill for management. So instead he raises the red herring that bias is somehow imposed by fiat from above.

Having raised that red herring, Calame proceeds to slaughter it by describing how ducky the process is. His conclusion: "Over all, The Times seems to have a fairly robust, ground-level-up idea-generation process that can, and does, yield added value for readers."

Which is Calame's way of saying, "No matter how bad the bias I am going to ignore it or excuse it. So can you please leave me alone while I go back to sleep on the divan!"

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Double Whammy in the Times

2006-05-02T10:04:00.000-04:00

More signs today that the New York Times is reverting back to its accustomed role of shilling for the Palestinian cause in all its delightful incarnations.

First we have a story on a poor, poor Gaza family in a house unjustly shelled by the big, bad Israelis, and then grotesquely biased coverage of Islamic Jihad terrorist Sami al-Arian's sentencing in Florida. He got the book thrown at him, to the annoyance of the Times.

The syrupy coverage of the Gaza family, by Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Erlanger, is quintessential Erlanger. Told entirely from the point of view of the Palestinians, it barely touches on the cause of all the shooting going back and forth, which is Palestinians firing missiles at Israel.

Here's the real gem -- statistics by the far-left Btselem "human rights" group that lump in Palestinian terrorists with civilians in the casualty counts, making them meaningless.

The al-Arian sentencing piece reads as if it were written by the slick terrorist's defense team:

Indeed the outcome of the case against Mr. Al-Arian did little to resolve the conflicting portraits of his life.

The judge who tried the case just sentenced him to five years in prison -- and made it plain that there was no "conflict" here.

Hard to find a better example of muddled, biased, spitoon-quality Times coverage than what we saw today.

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Arrogance in the Post on Moussaoui

2006-05-01T23:03:00.000-04:00

Today, the Washington Post editorial board weighs in on whether Zacarias Moussaoui should be executed. Of course, the enlightened Washington Post editorial board opposes capital punishment in all cases, and it feels the need to let everyone know what it thinks of executing the so-called 20th hijacker, and while doing so, displays know-it-all arrogance.

Personally, I favor the death penalty, and I think it should be used far more often than it is. But I can accept the view of the opposing side. The Post's editorial board cannot--it stoops to ad hominem attacks on those who may think that Mr. Moussaoui deserves death. We are told that only a "wise and courageous" jury could find that the mitigating factors in Moussaoui's case outweigh the aggravating factors, as if any other decision would be reflective of a jury less steeped in wisdom and courage. And to cap it off, prosecutors in this case are "not smart" because they seek to put to death a conspirator who participated in a conspiracy that killed thousands.

The arrogance of the editorial is astounding. Although the editorial makes a good point about the eligibility of the death penalty for "low-level" conspirators and the possibility that Moussaoui's death could be used for recruitment (although I personally think that his execution will prevent the possibility of some terrorists deciding one day to take hostages to try to win his freedom, and I also think it will send a message that the American public is not squeamish about killing terrorists), the editorial writers cannot help denigrating those who might disagree as "not smart" or less than "wise and courageous". (Of course, if the Post's advice is taken, and Moussaoui goes on to kill or maim a prison guard (a distinct possibility), one wonders if the Post would have the nerve to pen an editorial stating that life was the proper decision.)

The prosecutors and jurors deserve better.

I am reminded of an editorial penned by the Washington Post on July 17, 2005 entitled "Sentenced for Speaking". In that editorial, the editorial board argued that an American citizen named Al-Timimi who recruited followers to travel abroad to kill American troops was treated unfairly because he received what is effectively a life sentence. Given the abject silliness of that editorial, one is not surprised by the Post's arguing for lenience for Moussaoui, but it certainly should give one pause about the Post's editorial board's judgment when it comes to matters of crime and punishment.

(the above from the new Mediacrity contributor.....)
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Under the Gun on the West Bank

2006-05-01T12:50:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought that an occasional moment of fairness might creep in to the chronically biased New York Times, its trusty Jerusalem bureau chief proves that it's on the job, shilling for the poor, poor Palestinians.

Note this article today and an accompanying photograph -- the photo appearing only in print and not online.

The article contains the usual Times formula for describing the security fence on the West Bank. The formula consists of not mentioning why the fence was erected -- suicide bombings -- and calling the fence a "separation barrier," thereby adopting the quasi-apartheid style rhetoric of anti-Israel polemicists.

But the real treat is the photo, which shows a looming Israeli soldier at the wall with his automatic weapon vividly magnified by a shadow. On the other side of the wall is a poor, poor elderly Palestinian. The message, as if you didn't get the picture already, is that those poor, poor Palestinians are being harmed by big bad Israel for no reason at all!

Back to business as usual at the Times, quite obviously.

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Return of 'Wrong Man' Fattah

2006-04-28T16:33:00.000-04:00

Today marked one of the, thankfully, rare appearances of New York Times house terrorism apologist Hassan Fattah, famous as the author of the Abu Gharib Wrong Man disaster.

"Investigative" reporting being not his forte, today he functions more comfortably as a shill for Saudi billionaire Walid bin Talal's venture into filmmaking.

Attaboy, Fattah! Glad to see you're hanging out in Saudi Arabia, writing puff pieces and telling us all the good stuff the Saudi billions are financing, in addition to terrorism.

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Recognizing Good News

2006-04-23T10:05:00.000-04:00

I see that Honestreporting today agrees with my assessment concerning the recent, historically unprecedented New York Times and Washington Post editorials on Hamas.

As I've said before, it's important to recognize the occasional good news coming out of these two horribly biased news outlets. However, while we are celebrating, it is important to undertstand why this is happening. It is not because the Times and Post have suddenly seen Hamas for it is. It is because Hamas is too stupid and ham-handed to know better.

If Hamas were to start mouthing "moderate" platitudes in the Arafat manner, the media and particularly the Times will eagerly revive the long-discredited "myth of Palestinian moderation."

Count on it.

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The Hamas P.R. Miracle Continues

2006-04-19T08:01:00.000-04:00

The New York Times today delivered a lead editorial attacking Hamas. A perfectly good editorial -- one that underlines the point I've made in the past, which is that the Hamas takeover of the Palestinian government is a great thing from a propaganda standpoint.

As a matter of fact, I think that this perfectly reasonable (I'm amazed to find myself using that word) editorial contained a definite note of frustration. The Times, remember, is blatantly pro-Palestinian. So Hamas's endorsement of Monday's suicide bombing was not, in the view of the Times, simply immoral. It was "dimwitted."

It was almost as if the Times was saying, "Come on Hamas! Give us something to work with." Hamas won't play the hypocritical game, first begun by Yassir Arafat, of condemning terrorism while sponsoring it at the same time. These guys endorse terrorism while sponsoring it at the same time. Hey, that's honest! You got to give them credit for that.

You could see the agony over at the primary Palestinian terrorist mouthpiece in this country, the Electronic Intifada. There, of course, the bombing in Tel Aviv was a nonevent, and the lead article was (I must pause while I reach for my handkerchief), "Hamas is Being Forced to Collapse." Oh no!

EI reported that "the newly elected Palestinian government led by Hamas has already started to show an impressive level of pragmatism, however, Israel and the U.S. seem to not be interested."

Now, in the past, pap like this would ordinarily be found in the editorial pages of the New York Times and other newspapers. Today, you had to turn to EI to find the usual justifications and excuses for Palestinian terrorism. Even an obligatory op-ed in the Times on the Israel lobby was half-hearted and pro forma.

Even the odious BBC gnashed its teeth and reported that "Hamas's refusal to condemn the Tel Aviv bombing will have only reinforced the view of many in the West that the new Palestinian government must be treated as a pariah."

Oh, and whatever one might think of Ehud Olmert's reaction -- I tend to agree that it was inadequate -- you have to admit that, again from a strictly P.R. perspective, it was brilliant. No strong Israeli reaction to cloud the image of a Hamas government endorsing terrorism. The Israeli government, by pausing, let that image sink in.

So, onward, Hamas, with your "honesty is the best policy" policy. Say what's on your mind, guys. Don't be shy. And keep up the good work.

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Tom Friedman 'always sides with Israel'?

2006-04-17T09:54:00.000-04:00

I posted an item in Israpundit yesterday about anti-Semitism on a stock message board -- not really apropos to this blog, as it was not about media bias.

Lo and behold I get a comment this morning from the CEO of the company involved, Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com, saying New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman "always takes Israel's side"!

And this jackasss runs a public company? Aren't there reading comprehension standards for that?

Read his moronic rant here.

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Palestinian Terrorist 'Victims' in the Times

2006-04-15T09:24:00.000-04:00

Readers of the New York Times were treated today to what was (almost) a miracle! The Times ran on the front page an article on the victims of Palestinian terrorism. Imagine that. An article in the Times from the point of view of the victims, discussing their efforts to get redress. Not a single word excusing or "explaining" or justifying their acts.

A nice piece -- and, perhaps not coincidentally, a product of the metropolitan staff and not the notoriously anti-Israel foreign desk. However, the Times showed us elsewhere in the paper where its true feelings lie. The real victims are, of course, Palestinian terrorists!

The Times's loathsome Jerusalem bureau churned out a snotty little piece by John Kifner, a foreign desk oldtimer who used to work in the bureau years ago and is, apparently, working hard to re-establish his pan-Arab credentials.

In this piece, the world was turned back on its head again, with Palestinian murders now the "victims" of those heinous Israelis:

In the past week, 18 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli tank and artillery attacks. The latest victims were two gunmen from Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade who were killed on Thursday as they tried to get through a fence. [emphasis added]

Kifner also chided an Israeli general for giving a "spate of bellicose interviews" on the subject of those poor, persecuted Palestinians lobbing rockets at Israel.

Meanwhile, a particularly genocidal speech by the Iranian nutcase Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not "bellicose" at all! Nosirree. As described by the Times, that speech was "somewhat more temperate" then previous ravings by this monster. Over on the editorial page, meanwhile, Times scribblers zeroed in on the true villain-- the Bush Administration, of course!

Oh well. The "miracle" was good while it lasted.

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Mediacrity Has a Contributor!

2006-04-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

Ever notice that sometimes I say that "a reader suggests this" or "a reader recommended." Well, very often that reader is one particular individual -- a non-journalist who is, let me tell you, one of the smartest and savviest media observers I know.

I am pleased to say that he -- a male, and a Navy veteran, which is all I'm able to say at present -- is going to contribute every now and then, whenever the mood strikes.

So welcome to my contributor! It make take a few days (or weeks) before you see him here, but when you do, it will be worth it.

Meanwhile, I will continue to contribute myself. For various reasons I've cut back a bit on my posting in recent weeks, but I do hope to pick up at my former pace in the weeks to come.

-- The Mediacrity Blog

The Times Softpedals a Lie

2006-04-07T09:40:00.000-04:00

Way back in February, the New York Times published a completely unsupportable statement -- no let's call it what it was, a lie -- to the effect that Hispanics were used as "cannon fodder" in the military. Here's a link to the article, and here's exact quote:

"Critics also say that Latinos often wind up as cannon fodder on the casualty-prone front lines. African-Americans saw the same thing happen during the 1970's and 1980's, an accusation that still reverberates. Hispanics make up only 4.7 percent of the military's officer corps."

In a correction today, the Times said as follows:

"An article on Feb. 9 about the military's recruitment of Hispanics referred incompletely to the belief of some critics that Hispanics in the Iraq war and blacks in the Vietnam War accounted for a disproportionate number of casualties. Statistics do not support the belief. Hispanics, who are about 14 percent of the population, accounted for about 11 percent of the military deaths in Iraq through Dec. 3, 2005. About 12.5 percent of the military dead in Vietnam were African-Americans, who made up about 13. 5 percent of the general population during the war years. The error was pointed out in an e-mail in February; the correction was delayed for research after a lapse at The Times." [emphasis added]

Well, at least the Times issued a correction -- which is more than it usually does when caught with its pants down, as I have pointed out time and time again. The Times also commendably noted that a "lapse" took place (and how) that prevented this boner from being fixed for two full months.

Still, I think the Times's handling of this was pretty creepy for a couple of reasons:

First of all, as is standard practice with many non-minor boo-boos, the Times stuck this gaffe in its "for the record" corrections space, which is supposed to be allotted to minor stuff like getting an address wrong or omitting a middle initial.

More importantly, the correction glosses over the editorializing in the piece, in which the reporter hid her bias behind unnamed "critics." Such "weasel words" are a violation of Journalism 101. What "critics" said that? If there were any "critics," they were spouting sheer bull.

Rather than point out this journalistic shortcoming, the correction accepts at face value that there were "critics" and says that the reporter "referred incompletely to the belief of some critics."

Excuse me. What happened was simple. The Times was wrong. The Times published a lie. This once-great newspaper's fast-diminishing credibility might be aided if it could occasionally use those two words when they are appropriate -- as they sure are in this instance.

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Nothing Happened -- So It's Big News!

2006-04-02T15:55:00.000-04:00

One of the permanent features of the Mideast conflict is a massive contingent of Israel-based reporters, one of the largest in the world, most hostile to Israel and seeking out every excuse to cooking up a "story" -- sometimes out of nothing.

We saw that today in a non-story that moved today on France's AFP news service.

"Israeli authorities have used rubber bullets and tear gas to break up protests during a routine transfer of Palestinian prisoners from a jail in the south, sources on both sides said," the story began.

But if you look a little further down, you see that the source of this "information" was "Palestinian prisoner affairs minister Wasfi Kabha." He went on to say that three prisoners were injured.

So far we have a very, very very minor story. But then we see that a spokesman for the Israeli prison administration saying as follows:

"Yes, we did fire into the air but not in front of them. No one was injured. I think that in one cell bloc (tear gas was used) but not in front of them," said Orit Stelser, who was at Ketziot prison during the transfer.
"There were no injuries, not one. We did not use force," she said.

What began as a very very very minor story is now revealed for what it is -- a non-story, given the proven habit of Palestinian "ministers" and other factotums of lying through their teeth at every opportunity.

So a non-event was hyped into a non-story with the assistance of one of the massive contingent of hacks encamped in Israel.

Makes you wonder. Why is Israel being so nice? The Israelis should toss out journalists caught functioning, as this AFP hack has done, as propagandists for the Palestinian cause.

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The Hara-Kiri Solution

2006-03-30T07:43:00.000-05:00

The New York Times today, after weeks of fairly low-key coverage of the Israel-Palestinian dispute, charged into the abyss with an editorial that has a sound solution to the region's problem. That problem being, of course, Israel.

The Times wants Israel to deal with this problem by commiting suicide, utilizing the traditional Japanese method of hara-kiri. You know, taking a sword and cutting yourself in half.

Oh, you think I exaggerate? Well, see for yourself:

Whatever borders Israel fixes are not likely to get international recognition, particularly if those borders leave Palestinians cut in half — in the West Bank and Gaza — and unable to get from one part of their country to another without going through Israel.

Well, we can't have that, so Israel must do the honorable thing and cut itself in half. Thus Palestinians lugging a truckload of Katyushas from Gaza to the newly Judenrein Hebron would not have to dirty their tank tracks with Israeli soil.

Hey, that's what the "international community" will demand -- at least according to the anonymous knuckleheads who write New York Times editorials.

With surreal editorials like this, combined with its Abu Gharib Wrong Man Fiasco, the Times is doing an excellent job of shredding its little remaining credibility on all subjects east of Suez.

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The Times Op-Ed Page Sanitizes Hamas

2006-03-23T08:46:00.000-05:00

The New York Times Op-Ed Page prides itself on its fact-checking. In an essay on the Times website, the op-ed editor says that his staff fact-check each article on all things major and minor, and that "if news articles - from The Times and other publications - are at odds with a point or an example in an essay, we need to resolve whatever discrepancy exists."

Pretty air-tight, wouldn't you say? So perhaps someone can explain to me how the Times's eagle-eyed op-ed editors published today an op-ed piece, from The Economist's Jerusalem correspondent Gideon Lichfield, containing this amazing statement: "If Hamas in fact harbors long-term plans to destroy the Jewish state, as some fear, then such statements are ploys to give it time to build up its strength." [emphasis added]

As "some fear"? Hamas's aim to destroy Israel is not something that people "fear" but is rather an established, off-repeated goal -- stated by Hamas time and time again in every conceivable forum. It is, for example, the central obsession of the Hamas charter--which makes the "fear" pretty dang realistic, wouldn't you say?

Mind you, this sentence is the linchpin of the entire article, which uses the supposedly unsuccessful boycott of Cuba to argue against similar tactics against Hamastan. But his entire thesis is predicated on a false assumption -- that Hamas's goal of destroying Israel is not, in fact, its goal but rather something that exists in the minds of wimpy westerners.

Lichfield himself acknowledges that if Hamas really wants to destroy Israel, "unrestricted foreign aid will make it more dangerous."

This is not just an intellectually dishonest opinion piece -- it is factually incorrect, bad journalism. It is yet another example of the degradation of a once-great newspaper.

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CJR's Daily Lousiness

2006-03-19T09:16:00.000-05:00

I must confess that I had not been reading CJR's daily web product, known by the imaginative name CJR Daily, very much lately -- except to see whether it had covered the New York Times's latest credibility disaster.

So I just perused it today and I have to say that it is worse than I had expected. Practically unreadable, predictably slanted -- this is an offspring of the notoriously left-leaning CJR, after all -- and unsophisticated.

A good example of the Daily's output is this piece knocking the media for not gushing over the move to censure the president, and this one clapping the Los Angeles Times on the back for publishing stuff harmful to the military in Iraq. Attaboy!

Oh, the Daily can be negative when its ideological feathers aren't ruffled, or when a conservative media outlet is doing its job. Take this piece kicking Barron's last month for a story critical of Google's stock price. Hello? That's an investment weekly. Its job is to provide investment judgments of stocks. You'd think a journalism watchdog site would know that. (I suppose the Barron's/Dow Jones conservative editorial posture had absolutely nothing to do with this cheap shot.)

Speaking of which, I saw nothing in the Daily on the recent SEC subpoena of two reporters. Not surprising. They worked for Dow Jones!

The parent CJR is, of course, little more than a thinly disguised variation on The Nation, given that its "chairman" is none other than moonbat and former Nation publisher Victor Navasky. The David M blog has written extensively on the long-hidded CJR-Navasky ties, and I have as well, such as here.

With such underwhelming articles, it's little wonder that CJR Daily has had little impact -- as evidenced by the paucity of comments.

CJR is undisguisedly left-leaning, but CJR Daily is predictably left-leaning and just flat-out bad. Guess it had to figure out some way to differentiate itself!

UPDATE: The Daily did a damn good piece on March 21 skewering the World's Worst Media Columnist, Jon Friedman of Marketwatch.com. Much as I am pleased to read this moron's work being ripped to shreds, as I have on many occasions, I couldn't help but note that his employer is owned by the aforementioned, conservative Dow Jones.

Would the CJR Daily similarly dismember a Maureen Dowd or Frank Rich? Don't bet on it.

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The Times Eats Crow -- But Still Doesn't Get It

2006-03-18T10:32:00.000-05:00

The New York Times today ate a massive feast of crow, in an embarrassing front-page article and editor's note admitting that it had been suckered by a liar who claimed he was the famous "man in the hood" at Abu Gharib.

But while dining on a smorgasboard of black bird, the Times still doesn't get it. This piece, like an earlier unsigned article on the subject, still doesn't acknowledge the distinct possibility -- if not probability -- that nothing this man said was true and, again, obscuring his motive, which was clearly monetary. He is, after all, suing the government.

The story shows the extent to which the Times was sloppy in its reporting:

A lawsuit Mr. Qaissi joined, filed on July 27, 2004, also made no allegation that he was shocked with wires or forced to stand on a box. That allegation appeared only on an amended version of a complaint he later joined, filed last month, which said he had been forced to stand on the box and fell off from the shocks of the electrocution: "They repeated this at least five times."

Unfortunately, this red flag sailed right past the Times reporter who wrote this story, house terrorism apologist Hassan Fattah, who was too gullible and too anxious to embarrass the U.S. military with his "scoop."

Times management will probably try to shift all the blame for this humiliation to Fattah. The issue, however, is not one reporter's sloppiness or gullibility, but rather a system that is all too eager to skew the military and publish anti-American swill without even elementary checking.

P.S. Oh, one interesting aspect of this story is that, so far, it has received virtually no coverage whatsoever from the supposed journalism watchdogs -- a small item on March 13 in the rabidly left-wing Romenesko, and not one word from the atrocious CJR Daily. The latter seems to be scurrying around after trivia, blog-bashing and deviation from left-wing dogma. Massive Timesian malfeasance just ain't on the radar.

More on the daily miracle of CJR in this new item.

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The Times, in Mourning, Reaches For Incoherence

2006-03-16T08:34:00.000-05:00

The New York Times has been in mourning since the Hamas electoral victory, which ripped to shreds one of the central tenets of the Sulzberger Indifference Template. The Myth of Palestinian Moderation looks pretty silly now, doesn't it? Still, the Times is trying hard to cope, and we see that in its editorial today bemoaning the Israeli raid on the Jericho "prison."

No, blaming America and Britain for -- I don't know.... blaming them for murderers being brought to justice? The horror! -- is not completely loony. It is actually quite logical, from the 43rd Street point of view.

First and foremost, whatever the mess, it is Times editorial policy that the Palestinians themselves are never to be held principally responsible. In this instance, as graphically recounted in the Times of London and pretty much everywhere except the New York Times, the Jericho "prison" was a sham. The prisoners lived a life of luxury and turned the prison into a suite of offices for the PFLP, one of the most murderous terror groups. This received little publicity outside Israel until recently, as IRIS noted.

But that is not the sole reason to "blame" anyone for what just happened. The one and only reason is that the Palestinians do not want to punish other Palestinians for murdering Israelis and Jews.

That is the central reason why the Jericho prison was a sham and why the raid was necessary. That is why Mohammed Abbas favored releasing the murderers, just as he had released four dozen terrorists from that same "prison" a couple of months ago -- which the Times almost completely ignored.

Nowhere is this Palestinian amorality mentioned in the Times, still remaining faithful to its Template but looking more and more foolish and incoherent by the day.

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