Monday, July 06, 2009
A question for the New York Times
What stopped the "newspaper of record" from writing about this last year?
13 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Jul 06, 09:43:00 AM:
Perhaps because they are full of the basic substance being produced by the eagles you posted immediately prior to this ? Although, I suspect ,they are more likely to be of the bovine variety.
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 09:51:00 AM:
The United States could have used a little actual journalism from our papers last year. Can a newspaper be sued for malpractice?
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 10:05:00 AM:
They didn't report on this and many other things because they had an agreement with the Chicago committee that manages Obama, not to. I believe they had a business arrangement, money paid, money/influence not to find or print stuff like this.
In fact, no information about Obama's schooling can be researched or published. Has nothing to do with his birth certificate; it deals with the Constitutional requirement that a candidate for president be a "resident" of the US for 14 years. Obama's education was paid for by scholarship (?) awarded to foreign students.
The payments for silence/non-research cover this as well.
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 10:21:00 AM:
From Link,
Who cares about what any of us wrote in college. There were bigger stories that got ignored.
Obama helped Rezko blow $100 million of government money on failed housing projects -- only the Boston Globe covered it. He may have helped Rezko pack state boards in order to shake down bribes. Obama was a target of Prosecutor Fitzgerald's investigation last year, and may still be -- only a few freelance reporters covered it. Obama got a payoff through Michelle's promotion. I'd bet he got paid off through fees through the Davis law firm. We know Rezko bought Obama one-third of a mansion.
In the national scheme, this is small potatoes corruption. But MSM's ignoring this has got in the position where this guy will piss away trillions. Every plan Obama proposed during the campaign had serious underlying issues that MSM wouldn't criticize. One by one they're being enacted into law, after being larded up by lobbyists. We only have to look to the experience of Massachusetts (healthcare). Spain and Denmark (energy), and California (on everything) to see that these plans don't work,.
Yesterday Biden said "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," Really ... Months ago I told my son unemployment would hit at least 10% in the near-term. Yesterday, Biden was floating the idea of Stimulus II.
We had a huge debt build up. We're trying to have government spend like mad to prop up asset values. It won't work, because our government is already overdrawn. I expect we'll have rates increase. If long Treasury rates go to even 7% -- a not high number by historic standards -- we'll have real problems. California is especially vulnerable because so many of its mortgages are ARMs.
One of the issues is that MSM is divided along political lines. It doesn't matter that FOX occasionally does a good job -- they're only preaching to the converted. Meanwhile, NBC is shilling for Obama so parent GE can get its share of Obama's pie.
Link, over
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 10:42:00 AM:
I always find it so curious (and yes, disingenous) when journalists from other papers/media outlets cry foul about what the NYT does or doesn't investigates. Why not hammer the WSJ for failing to write about Obama's college papers? Or the Washington Times, How about the Weekly Standard? Where are the Fox News reporters?
Certainly, the conversative press is not without a voice or the skills necessary to take up journalistic slack you ascribe to the NYT. So why the dearth of investigatve reporting by those who dress on the right?
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 11:15:00 AM:
To Anon at 10:42 am. From link:
As John McEnroe would say: You can't be serious !
NYT upholds itself as being the gold standard of reporting -- they seriously undermined themselves over the last decade or more. The Jason Blair episode was revealing. Here in NYC I especially saw it in their local reporting, which got subverted into identity politics.
Still, WSJ and Fox could have been better at digging into Obama. I still can't explain why they didn't. As one example, the right fixated on Obama being on a board with Bill Ayers. The real story was that Obama actually chaired the Annenberg Challenge which spent $600 million in a controlled experiment to show how increased spending could improve Chicago's elementary schools. This experiment actually proved the opposite -- there was no discernible improvement. Flash forward and President Obama is about to give away $100 billion on Annenberg-like education programs while California can't afford to pay its teachers.
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 11:44:00 AM:
NYT upholds itself as being the gold standard of reporting -- they seriously undermined themselves over the last decade or more.
My point exactly, Link, which is why I find it convenient-and downright lazy-that the right keeps holding the Times' feet to the fire when it continues to give a pass to its own supposed gatekeepers of facts.
Did you see McCarthy taking any other newspaper to task for not investigating what he claims the NYT should have?
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 11:49:00 AM:
As David McCumber, managing editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, so pompously and famously said, "we get to decide what is news and what isn't".
The NYT has staked it's reputation and economic livelihood on it's decisions as to what is news and what isn't. If one believes the Times has allowed it's opinions to move out of the opinion and editorial departments, and is slanting news unfairly or worse, propagandizing on behalf of the far left and calling the result "news" so as to shape election results, then one shouldn't buy their product. It is that simple.
David McCumber told us bluntly that's what he was doing in his stint running the P-I. The fact that his paper is now dead is a wonderful outcome, and one I fervently wish on the Sulzberger led NYTCo.
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 12:34:00 PM:
I'll say it as clearly as I can. The NYT especially sucks because it's no longer what it purported to be -- the official newspaper of record for the Establishment. It's now part-Pravda.
Fox and WSJ have done some good stuff, but missed others. Their problem is they only reach a narrow part of the audience. The rest of MSM won't pick up anything legitimately anti-Obama ... the NYT included. They'd rather run hatchet jobs on McCain slandering innocent bystanders. Carlos Slim will take over NYT sometime in 2010 -- the Sulzbergers will just be ordinary assholes with an opinion -- just like the rest of us.
I've seen the bias in NYT's local coverage when they've written about things I know something about -- their disconnect from reality is staggering. Jason Blair was just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Link, over
By , at
Mon Jul 06, 02:20:00 PM:
The NYT may ignore news it doesn't like or print carefully crafted, substance free accusations it does like but, thankfully, we still have UK papers to whom we can turn in our hour of need for news! Like now, with a Telegraph article on the US Treasury "debt explosion", and the terribly destructive economic ripple effects the debt will cause.
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Mon Jul 06, 02:34:00 PM:
Fox could have been better at digging into Obama. I still can't explain why they didn't.
A majority of Fox staff donations go to democrats. Given this, why the left insists on bashing them remains a mystery to me. It must be that the political donation splits are in the 55/45 range rather than a more accommodating (to the left) 98/2 range.
By joated, at
Mon Jul 06, 09:01:00 PM:
Shoot! I'm just a Rutgers grad (and from the Ag School, to boot!), but even I know the answer to that one!
By JPMcT, at
Mon Jul 06, 10:11:00 PM:
The "watchdogs" have become the lapdogs.
Journalism is dead.
