Wednesday, July 13, 2005
The New York Times - Toilet Paper
Pinch Sulzberger has turned his family's business into a sham. The inconsistency over time of its editorial positions on subjects of principle to meet a partisan political agenda has rendered it a farce. It has been twisted into a pretzel on subjects ranging from its position on the filibuster (for it when Democrats want it/use it; against it when Republicans want it/use) to the case of the Plame Special Prosecutor (for him when it could have created a gotcha for Bush, against him when it created a gotcha for their reporter; and now maybe for it again?). I mean, it's a joke. It's not bad enough that they hired an absurd liar, illusionist and plagiarist (Jayson Blair) and let Howell Raines repeatedly run amok?
If I were a board member or shareholder, I would be deeply concerned about this thing. It's gone utterly out of control.
Some crazed person commented on Tigerhawk's post regarding the White House Press Corps that Rove committed treason. I would bet confidently that the same person is anti war, anti Bush, thinks we have tortured people at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and isn't a close personal friend of any current members of the military. In any event, that person doesn't have a clue what treason is. Again, read the Powerline piece to see how the New York Times exposed a covert CIA operation.
Absurd.
UPDATE (10:30 p.m., by TigerHawk): The TigerHawk stepfather was so moved by CardinalPark's carpet-bombing of the Times that he dispatched the following cri de coeur, and asked that it be considered for publication. No problem:
Right on about the New York Times, CardinalPark!
Although my father wrote for the paper for forty years, the last twenty-eight of them as its (I always thought) highly regarded motion picture critic [this link leads to a compilation of his famously ascerbic reviews, only recently available online - ed.], it is now treating my family with ... disdain...
ITEM – it has consistently refused to recognize my nephew (and my father’s grandson [and, far less significantly, a TigerHawk step-cousin - ed.]) - Welles Remy Crowther – as the “Man in the Red Bandana”. By the accounts of two of those he saved, Welles led at least sixteen people to safety, and then lost his own life, in the horror of the World Trade Center bombing. Even though the Times was the entity that first noticed the story, even though virtually all other media, locally and nationally, have recognized Welles’ role, and even though it has repeatedly been brought to its attention, it has refused to recognize his role....
ITEM – when my brother and his wife (Welles’ parents) attended a significant meeting of the families of victims group discussing the proposed memorial, significant enough that the Times had a photographer there to take a picture, the caption identified them as “Jefferson and Allison Crathers.” I guess since the caption also misspelled the name of the man sitting down the row from them, this can just be chalked up to sloppy journalism, rather than malice. See the Times of June 17, 2005.
These items are certainly family-specific, but I think in each case they highlight the fact that the Times is no longer publishing all the news that’s fit to print, but just the news, and the facts within the news, that fit its philosophical bent. In our family, at least, the one thing this insures is the job of the man who prepares the cross-word puzzle, since that’s the only reason we buy the Sunday paper (that, and maybe the opportunity to marvel at the announcements of homosexual unions). Anyway, once again, right on!
(By the way, it is ironic that CardinalPark's appropriate commentary, which my father too would have heartily applauded, appeared on his one-hundredth birthday.)
Happy birthday, Bosley Crowther.
Links added and other minor editing by the, er, staff.
6 Comments:
By 
TigerHawk, at
Wed Jul 13, 03:41:00 PM:
Bird cage liner, I think. Newsprint is too rough on the sensitive spots, and besides, somebody has to white-out the errors! :)
By Van Helsing, at
Wed Jul 13, 05:47:00 PM:
While the Gray Lady obsesses on Karl Rove, al Qaeda is reportedly moving forward with a plan to kill 4 million Americans. Not that this is as newsworthy as non-stories that allegedly reflect badly on Rove.
By Dymphna, at
Wed Jul 13, 11:41:00 PM:
Bowsley Crowther is your step-grandfather?
Wow, Tigerhawk. You rate...believe me, rating by association is quite respectable.
Works the other way 'round, too: *My* grandfather was recalled from an ambassadorial post for appearing in front of the English consul whilst wearing only the trousers of his morning suit and sporting a rather three-sheets-to-the-wind bonhomie. Those Americans...
But Bowsley Crowther is a sort of relative. Damn, TH, you rate.
By 
, at
Thu Jul 14, 02:34:00 AM:
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Jul 14, 04:43:00 AM:
Dymphna, to be clear, my stepfather is the son of Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, who I never had the pleasure of knowing. He died some time ago, but would have been 100 yesterday.
My stepfather and mother live roughly in your direction (if I remember your references to the Blue Ridge correctly) -- they live in Fluvanna County, Virginia, just south of the Xion Crossroads.
None of this is made any easier by the fact that there have been, and remain, a long string of Bosley Crowthers, including a still younger one who is my step brother.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Jul 14, 09:43:00 AM:
I appreciate the supporting commentary from Tigerhawk and his family. I am sure there are large numbers of people abandoned by and infuriated with the NYT as it has launched an arrogant political quest to make and shape events, rather than report them. The paper is a product of the minds of certain people, who shape its direction and hire those who will live within that agenda, with the tokenism of a Safire or Brooks, or the star power of a Friedman, as the headfakes designed to project balance.
Can Sulzberger be upended? How can the paper at the heart of the greatest city in the world, the target of the 9/11 attacks which killed so many, remain so utterly corrupt and bankrupt?
