Commentary/Contentions
12 June '11
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/12/annals-of-agenda-journalism/
Assume you’re the editor of a newspaper formerly known as the paper of record. You have two big stories to cover: (1) a Middle East head of state addresses a joint session of Congress, capping a week in which he received a better reception than the President in his State of the Union address; and (2) a Republican candidate has a large account at Tiffany’s for his wife. Which do you put on page one, and which on page 6?
Arthur Brisbane, the public editor of the New York Times, addressed that issue today, sort of, in his Times column. He reported that reader Alice Alekman was surprised not to find the first story on Page 1 and to find there instead a story on Newt Gingrich’s $500,000 tab with Tiffany’s. Brisbane quotes the response of the Foreign Editor of the Times, Susan Chira:
Ms. Chira defended the decision on the Netanyahu coverage, saying: “In our mind, this was not news. He didn’t say anything he hadn’t said before.”
Brisbane writes that Ms. Chira’s response was “reasonable.”
The Page 1 article on Gingrich ran 928 words and noted it had been a week since Politico had broken the news. Here was the Times’ contribution to front-page news – “the glittering strand of diamonds that Mrs. Gingrich wore last month to the Washington premiere of the couple’s latest documentary movie looks strikingly like one that Tiffany advertises for $45,000.” The article featured a picture of Mrs. Gingrich wearing the jewelry.
The article on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress ran on page A-6 with 956 words – fairly extensive coverage for something that “was not news.” Fortunately, the Times had sufficient staff to report it without mobilizing its readers in its latest quest to cover “news” with the “courage of our own convictions.”
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Dear Mr. Richman:
ReplyDeleteI believe you were a little too easy and even a little too kind with respect to your remarks regarding how the NY Times determines what is news worthy and what stories should be buried in the back pages in the shadows- hopefully not to be noticed by too many readers.
In fact the NY Times has always been agenda driven and indeed never cared a hoot about their phony tired old line: "All the news that's fit to print".
Despite the occaisional bit of bravado during its long history as for example "The Pentagon Papers"- no doubt intended to prove just how "courageous" they can be, if they want to, the NY Times has traditionally acted most cowardly and always according to the agenda at the moment and what powerful "big buck" entities they were worried about offending at any given moment in history.
Were you about forty or fifty years older, you might recall that about 1942 as it was becoming more and more clear that the Jews of Europe were being systematically slaughtered at an exponentially increasing rate, the NY Times and others were alerted that over 100,000 Jews were known to have been slaughtered in a particular area in Eastern Europe.
It was the first time that no one could pretend any longer that the enormous numbers of Jews being murdered were being exaggerated.
But on that particular day the NY Times chose to feature on the front page a story that the President's wife had generously donated her tennis shoes to the American war effort to acquire desperately needed rubber which was in short supply at the time.
Thus the NY Times made the 'judgement call" that a pair of rubber tennis shoes belonging to the President's wife was more newsworthy than the fact that for the first time definitive confirmation was coming out of Europe that clearly established the premeditated plan of the Nazis which would later be referred to as the Holocaust that ultimately consumed six million people.
On that occaision the NY Times could not have pretended it was just so much "old news" as was mentioned in your story in a different context re the the Israeli PM's visit.
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ReplyDeleteIndeed the NY Times has always bent over backwards to show and prove to the world that the NY Times is NOT a "Jewish" newspaper and/or capable of acting or being overly sympathetic with "Jewish" news, issues or causes. Present day Israel bashing by the NY Times has a long and well honed history that goes back countless decades.
Indeed, just as with most of the world's media, it has always been "au courant" to denigrate Israeli leaders/Israeli decisions and Israel's efforts to defend itself and attempt to survive in a hostile world where even a country as great as America felt it could not allow a single Jewish refugee ship- the doomed Saint Louis, to dock in Miami Florida so its few hundred Jewish men, women and children could escape Hitler's gas chambers. The US State Dept believed that even a single Jewish Refugee ship landing and disembarking its passengers on American shores, was one too many.
In the final analysis the NY Times, as most types of "news media" would not know and understand what straightforward, unbiased, objective, honest reporting is if it hit them over the head- using a sledgehammer.
Do the words "pimps", "whores" and "paid prostitutes" spring to mind ?
Feel free to quote me, Mr Richman, spend some time delving into NY Times news history archives and perhaps write some expose articles along these lines. It would prove a useful thing to do and would constitute a service to your loyal readers.
The NY Times, in a free society, has every right to do as it pleases- as long as it does not carry on the charade of being some type of courageous Torch Bearer of "The Truth". Something the NY Times clearly is NOT.
"All the news that's fit to print" ?? Just please be honest enough to append the words: "As long as that news fits our Editors' agendas at the moment".
Kindest regards,
David Pakter
900 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10075
david_pakter@msn.com
www.OldMasterPortraits.com
Mr. Pakter: Jonathan Tobin at Commentary had a similar reaction to yours: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/12/re-annals-of-agenda-journalism/ If you click on the last quotation in my post, you'll connect to the article I wrote in the April 2009 Commentary that examined the substantive aspects of the agenda journalism of the Times in connection with the Gaza War.
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