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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow can the New York Times endorse the Trans-Pacific Partnership??!!
How Can the New York Times Endorse an Agreement the Public Can't Read?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/how-can-nytimes-endorse-agreement-public-cant-read
The New York Times' editorial board has made a disappointing endorsement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), even as the actual text of the agreement remains secret. That raises two distressing possibilities: either in an act of extraordinary subservience, the Times has endorsed an agreement that neither the public nor its editors have the ability to read. Or, in an act of extraordinary cowardice, it has obtained a copy of the secret text and hasn't yet fulfilled its duty to the public interest to publish it.
Without a publicly available agreement, readers are forced into the uncomfortable position of taking official government statements at face value. That's reflected in the endorsement, which fails to note the myriad ways in which TPP has been negotiated undemocratically, shutting out public oversight while permitting corporate interests to drive the agenda. Given these glaring issues, it is disconcerting that the Times would take such a supportive stance on an agreement that is likely to threaten innovation and users' digital rights well into the 21st century.
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It's unfortunate that news outlets are giving little coverage to TPP, when media attention could have a major impact on how the US and the other 11 nations draft digital policy. But public media coverage is precisely the sort of accountability that official secrecy thwarts. Instead of endorsing an agreement the public can't read, a responsible paper would condemn the secrecy involved. And if the Times has seen the text and knows what's contained in the TPP, then they have a responsibility to publish the text immediately and expose the US government's back room dealings.
In either case, it is deeply disappointing that the New York Times would even support the TPP when the public remains in the dark. An endorsement of TPP at this stage is an endorsement of opaque, corporate-driven policymaking.
Without a publicly available agreement, readers are forced into the uncomfortable position of taking official government statements at face value. That's reflected in the endorsement, which fails to note the myriad ways in which TPP has been negotiated undemocratically, shutting out public oversight while permitting corporate interests to drive the agenda. Given these glaring issues, it is disconcerting that the Times would take such a supportive stance on an agreement that is likely to threaten innovation and users' digital rights well into the 21st century.
<...>
It's unfortunate that news outlets are giving little coverage to TPP, when media attention could have a major impact on how the US and the other 11 nations draft digital policy. But public media coverage is precisely the sort of accountability that official secrecy thwarts. Instead of endorsing an agreement the public can't read, a responsible paper would condemn the secrecy involved. And if the Times has seen the text and knows what's contained in the TPP, then they have a responsibility to publish the text immediately and expose the US government's back room dealings.
In either case, it is deeply disappointing that the New York Times would even support the TPP when the public remains in the dark. An endorsement of TPP at this stage is an endorsement of opaque, corporate-driven policymaking.
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How can the New York Times endorse the Trans-Pacific Partnership??!! (Original Post)
HomerRamone
Nov 2013
OP
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)1. Theres that Liberal media again I keep hearing about.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,308 posts)2. Shame on the Times. Publish the thing, or withdraw your endorsement.
We deserve to know what's contained in it.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)3. NYT is an establishment newspaper
and has been since before anyone at DU was born. This might be the least surprising news this month.
The NYT has been a cheerleader for neoliberalism for a long time now.
YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)4. How can a supposedly "progressive' administration do so?
nt
CK_John
(10,005 posts)5. Here why, you do the math. India several Billon people, Asia several Billion people,C
US 300 Million people. That's why. We are no longer master of the world.
HomerRamone
(1,112 posts)6. "We" never were.
This is about the real rich masters making their rule over *every* locality absolute...