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Kristolnicht: The Decline of the New York Times
By Ernest Partridge
Created Jan 9 2008 - 9:57am
Have you ever been betrayed by a old and trusted friend?
If so, you might understand my rage at and disgust with The New York Times.
While I gave up on the Times some time ago, I can't allow the latest
outrage, the hiring of William Kristol as the newest Times columnist, to
pass by without complaint.
The New York Times and I go way, way, back. Since before I was born, my
parents subscribed to the Times. Throughout college, graduate school, and
early career, the NYT was my gold-standard of journalistic accuracy and
integrity. It was reputed to be "the newspaper of historical record," and I
believed it. When, in the sixties, I lived in Manhattan and taught at the
City University of New York, I would eagerly await the Saturday night
appearance of the Sunday edition, which I would then take home, spread out
on my bed, and devour.
All the News That Gives Us Fits.
Had you been reading the Times for the past two decades, you would have
learned:
That Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in a crooked land deal,
dubbed "Whitewater."
That Chinese-American nuclear scientist, Dr. Wen Ho Lee, was probably
spying for the Peoples Republic of China.
That Al Gore was a "serial liar" who had claimed, among other things, to
have "invented the internet" and to have "discovered Love Canal."
That Bush would have won Florida and the 2000 election, regardless of
the Supreme Court decision, Bush v. Gore.
That Saddam Hussein was importing aluminum tubes to manufacture
weapons-grade uranium.
That Saddam Hussein was stockpiling and prepared to use weapons of mass
destruction.
All this was published as news, not as opinion. And it was false. All of it!
Had you searched elsewhere for news - the independent and foreign press, and
the internet, you would have discovered:
That the GOP slanders against Al Gore were all groundless.
That the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" conducted a baseless smear
against John Kerry, and conversely, that Kerry's military record and his
medals were authentic.
That George Bush was absent without leave from his military obligation
with the Texas Air National Guard.
That Bush likely violated securities law as an executive and investor
with Harken energy.
That there is compelling evidence that the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections
were stolen by the Republicans through election fraud.
That, according to "The Downing Street Memos," prior to the outbreak of
the Iraq war, Bush and Blair were willing to "fix the intelligence" to fit
the pro-war policy.
None of this was prominently included among what The New York Times
proclaims as "All the News That's Fit to Print."
To its credit, the Times reported that the Bush Administration violated the
FISA laws on wiretapping of US civilians. However, the NYT held the story
past the 2004 election, an editorial decision which might have affected the
outcome.
Kristolnicht
And now, to top it all off, they've hired Bill Kristol - notorious
neo-conservative, Co-Founder of PNAC, propagandist, war-monger, demonstrable
liar.
This editorial decision has set off an avalanche of complaints and cancelled
subscriptions. Some by writers who frequently contribute to the Times.
A sample:
Erica Jong: "As a believer in free speech and the First Amendment, I
understand the argument that all points of view be represented in your Op-Ed
pages. But in fact, they are not. There is only one regular woman columnist
(and one on your blog), no feminist spokesperson who questions the status
quo, no anti-war columnist, no columnist who speaks for the rights of
children or questions the priorities of the military industrial complex....
Why give more space to one who already has plentiful outlets and is not a
questioner but a confirmed propagandist?"
Jane Smiley: [1] "I cannot imagine why the Times has hired Kristol .
Kristol is not merely some right wing loose cannon like David Brooks or even
William Safire, and his hiring by the Times is not a free-speech issue.
Kristol has plenty of opportunities to speak, and if he didn't he could
blog, like the rest of us. Kristol is a war-monger and a hate-monger, and
his lies has been exposed over and over in the last four years... In Iraq
alone, Kristol has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands. He is
unrepentant and eager for more... You would have thought that remorse for
the Judith Miller debacle would have taught [The New York Times] something,
but clearly not. Sadly."
D.S. Negroponte: "It is not that Bill Kristol has an 'opinion' with which
I disagree. Bill Kristol is a strategist posing as a columnist. The Times
shouldn't be giving him free space to push his agenda, and that of his
employer, [The American Enterprise Institute]. Bill Kristol was an architect
of the propaganda campaign for the failed Iraq war and the failed surge....
Kristol is a lying propagandist who poses as a writer/editor on television.
His fondness for Leo Strauss says to me that he openly espouses and
glorifies the use of deception in public life... Public revulsion at the man
has nothing to do with a rejection of free discourse, and everything to do
with wanting to protect it."
The response by NYT Op-Ed Editor, Andrew Rosenthal, has been pathetically
weak and hackneyed: "Mr. Kristol ... is a columnist and magazine editor,
with views that clearly bother you. I disagree with many of his views, as
well as many of the other views expressed on our Op-Ed page. It is not my
job to print only those with whom I agree. It is my job to give readers [as]
broad a spectrum of views to read as we can manage."
This excuse is ludicrous on its face. Rosenthal seems to regard the Op-Ed
page of The New York Times as equivalent to a Hyde Park soap box, a village
bulletin board, or the internet - the latter open to anyone with a computer
and a modem. Anyone can play, and we don't exclude opinions just because we
don't always agree with them.
Gimme a break!
In fact, the Op-Ed page of The New York Times is the most valuable and
exclusive journalistic real-estate in the United States, and arguably the
world, however much it may have been devalued by this most recent addition.
Space on the NYT Op-Ed page was at one time earned through merit: like a
Pulitzer Prize, casting in a Broadway play, or a place in the New York
Yankees lineup.
The publication of a Kristol column in The New York Times is as incongruous
as the Yankees putting in the line-up, a player with a 000 batting average
whose fielding errors frequently lose games. This approximately describes
Kristol's performance as a prognosticating pundit. He is strictly Bush
league material (pun intended).
During my career I have refereed hundreds of submissions to scholarly
journals. These journals insist that the referees set high standards, since
only a very few submissions are accepted for publication. None of these
journals allow what Rosenthal would have us believe is the NYT Op-Ed
standard: "It is my job to give readers [as] broad a spectrum of views to
read as we can manage."
No, Mr. Rosenthal, it is your job to give your readers intelligent,
informed, cogent commentary, from columnists with a proven record of factual
accuracy, foresight and integrity. William Kristol fails on all counts. The
New York Times can pick from a field of thousands of outstanding
conservative scholars and journalists. Kristol is not, by any stretch of the
imagination, the best that you can do.
Andrew Rosenthal and The New York Times will likely weather the immediate
storm of protests and cancellations provoked by Kristol's addition to the
Op-Ed page. But this outlandish and misguided editorial decision can only
continue the decline of a once-magnificent newspaper. That decline will
accelerate if, along with falling circulation, many additional outstanding
writers such as Erica Jong and Jane Smiley, refuse to publish in the Times.
Redemption.
The news is not all bad. Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert remain on the
NYT Op-Ed page. And just last week, the Times editorial page published a
searing indictment of the Bush Administration, "Looking at America." [2] In
addition, last Sunday the NYT Magazine published one of the first mainstream
media investigations into the election crisis, Clive Thompson's "Can You
Count on Voting Machines?" [3] Though much less than what the "black box
voting" critics would want (the author refuses deal seriously with the issue
of whether the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections might have been stolen), it is
at least a breakthrough.
To get back on track toward a reinstatement of its former greatness, The New
York Times need only look to the past, and to the standards that at one time
it scrupulously enforced. A restoration of its former reputation will lag
behind these reforms, as it must, for the Times must prove itself anew.
There is no need for The New York Times to compensate for its recent swerve
to the right by becoming a mouthpiece for the progressive Democrats. Just
the facts - "All the news that's fit to print" - will nicely suffice.
After all, as Stephen Colbert correctly observes, "reality has a liberal
bias."
Copyright 2008 by Ernest Partridge
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Ernest Partridge
Created Jan 9 2008 - 9:57am
Have you ever been betrayed by a old and trusted friend?
If so, you might understand my rage at and disgust with The New York Times.
While I gave up on the Times some time ago, I can't allow the latest
outrage, the hiring of William Kristol as the newest Times columnist, to
pass by without complaint.
The New York Times and I go way, way, back. Since before I was born, my
parents subscribed to the Times. Throughout college, graduate school, and
early career, the NYT was my gold-standard of journalistic accuracy and
integrity. It was reputed to be "the newspaper of historical record," and I
believed it. When, in the sixties, I lived in Manhattan and taught at the
City University of New York, I would eagerly await the Saturday night
appearance of the Sunday edition, which I would then take home, spread out
on my bed, and devour.
All the News That Gives Us Fits.
Had you been reading the Times for the past two decades, you would have
learned:
That Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in a crooked land deal,
dubbed "Whitewater."
That Chinese-American nuclear scientist, Dr. Wen Ho Lee, was probably
spying for the Peoples Republic of China.
That Al Gore was a "serial liar" who had claimed, among other things, to
have "invented the internet" and to have "discovered Love Canal."
That Bush would have won Florida and the 2000 election, regardless of
the Supreme Court decision, Bush v. Gore.
That Saddam Hussein was importing aluminum tubes to manufacture
weapons-grade uranium.
That Saddam Hussein was stockpiling and prepared to use weapons of mass
destruction.
All this was published as news, not as opinion. And it was false. All of it!
Had you searched elsewhere for news - the independent and foreign press, and
the internet, you would have discovered:
That the GOP slanders against Al Gore were all groundless.
That the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" conducted a baseless smear
against John Kerry, and conversely, that Kerry's military record and his
medals were authentic.
That George Bush was absent without leave from his military obligation
with the Texas Air National Guard.
That Bush likely violated securities law as an executive and investor
with Harken energy.
That there is compelling evidence that the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections
were stolen by the Republicans through election fraud.
That, according to "The Downing Street Memos," prior to the outbreak of
the Iraq war, Bush and Blair were willing to "fix the intelligence" to fit
the pro-war policy.
None of this was prominently included among what The New York Times
proclaims as "All the News That's Fit to Print."
To its credit, the Times reported that the Bush Administration violated the
FISA laws on wiretapping of US civilians. However, the NYT held the story
past the 2004 election, an editorial decision which might have affected the
outcome.
Kristolnicht
And now, to top it all off, they've hired Bill Kristol - notorious
neo-conservative, Co-Founder of PNAC, propagandist, war-monger, demonstrable
liar.
This editorial decision has set off an avalanche of complaints and cancelled
subscriptions. Some by writers who frequently contribute to the Times.
A sample:
Erica Jong: "As a believer in free speech and the First Amendment, I
understand the argument that all points of view be represented in your Op-Ed
pages. But in fact, they are not. There is only one regular woman columnist
(and one on your blog), no feminist spokesperson who questions the status
quo, no anti-war columnist, no columnist who speaks for the rights of
children or questions the priorities of the military industrial complex....
Why give more space to one who already has plentiful outlets and is not a
questioner but a confirmed propagandist?"
Jane Smiley: [1] "I cannot imagine why the Times has hired Kristol .
Kristol is not merely some right wing loose cannon like David Brooks or even
William Safire, and his hiring by the Times is not a free-speech issue.
Kristol has plenty of opportunities to speak, and if he didn't he could
blog, like the rest of us. Kristol is a war-monger and a hate-monger, and
his lies has been exposed over and over in the last four years... In Iraq
alone, Kristol has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands. He is
unrepentant and eager for more... You would have thought that remorse for
the Judith Miller debacle would have taught [The New York Times] something,
but clearly not. Sadly."
D.S. Negroponte: "It is not that Bill Kristol has an 'opinion' with which
I disagree. Bill Kristol is a strategist posing as a columnist. The Times
shouldn't be giving him free space to push his agenda, and that of his
employer, [The American Enterprise Institute]. Bill Kristol was an architect
of the propaganda campaign for the failed Iraq war and the failed surge....
Kristol is a lying propagandist who poses as a writer/editor on television.
His fondness for Leo Strauss says to me that he openly espouses and
glorifies the use of deception in public life... Public revulsion at the man
has nothing to do with a rejection of free discourse, and everything to do
with wanting to protect it."
The response by NYT Op-Ed Editor, Andrew Rosenthal, has been pathetically
weak and hackneyed: "Mr. Kristol ... is a columnist and magazine editor,
with views that clearly bother you. I disagree with many of his views, as
well as many of the other views expressed on our Op-Ed page. It is not my
job to print only those with whom I agree. It is my job to give readers [as]
broad a spectrum of views to read as we can manage."
This excuse is ludicrous on its face. Rosenthal seems to regard the Op-Ed
page of The New York Times as equivalent to a Hyde Park soap box, a village
bulletin board, or the internet - the latter open to anyone with a computer
and a modem. Anyone can play, and we don't exclude opinions just because we
don't always agree with them.
Gimme a break!
In fact, the Op-Ed page of The New York Times is the most valuable and
exclusive journalistic real-estate in the United States, and arguably the
world, however much it may have been devalued by this most recent addition.
Space on the NYT Op-Ed page was at one time earned through merit: like a
Pulitzer Prize, casting in a Broadway play, or a place in the New York
Yankees lineup.
The publication of a Kristol column in The New York Times is as incongruous
as the Yankees putting in the line-up, a player with a 000 batting average
whose fielding errors frequently lose games. This approximately describes
Kristol's performance as a prognosticating pundit. He is strictly Bush
league material (pun intended).
During my career I have refereed hundreds of submissions to scholarly
journals. These journals insist that the referees set high standards, since
only a very few submissions are accepted for publication. None of these
journals allow what Rosenthal would have us believe is the NYT Op-Ed
standard: "It is my job to give readers [as] broad a spectrum of views to
read as we can manage."
No, Mr. Rosenthal, it is your job to give your readers intelligent,
informed, cogent commentary, from columnists with a proven record of factual
accuracy, foresight and integrity. William Kristol fails on all counts. The
New York Times can pick from a field of thousands of outstanding
conservative scholars and journalists. Kristol is not, by any stretch of the
imagination, the best that you can do.
Andrew Rosenthal and The New York Times will likely weather the immediate
storm of protests and cancellations provoked by Kristol's addition to the
Op-Ed page. But this outlandish and misguided editorial decision can only
continue the decline of a once-magnificent newspaper. That decline will
accelerate if, along with falling circulation, many additional outstanding
writers such as Erica Jong and Jane Smiley, refuse to publish in the Times.
Redemption.
The news is not all bad. Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert remain on the
NYT Op-Ed page. And just last week, the Times editorial page published a
searing indictment of the Bush Administration, "Looking at America." [2] In
addition, last Sunday the NYT Magazine published one of the first mainstream
media investigations into the election crisis, Clive Thompson's "Can You
Count on Voting Machines?" [3] Though much less than what the "black box
voting" critics would want (the author refuses deal seriously with the issue
of whether the 2000, 2002 and 2004 elections might have been stolen), it is
at least a breakthrough.
To get back on track toward a reinstatement of its former greatness, The New
York Times need only look to the past, and to the standards that at one time
it scrupulously enforced. A restoration of its former reputation will lag
behind these reforms, as it must, for the Times must prove itself anew.
There is no need for The New York Times to compensate for its recent swerve
to the right by becoming a mouthpiece for the progressive Democrats. Just
the facts - "All the news that's fit to print" - will nicely suffice.
After all, as Stephen Colbert correctly observes, "reality has a liberal
bias."
Copyright 2008 by Ernest Partridge
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson