'NYT' Public Editor Hits Paper's Surge in Blaming 'al-Qaeda' in Iraq

[Newsjock]

Source: Editor & Publisher

In a remarkable column today, Clark Hoyt, the newly arrived public editor at The New York Times, charges that the Times in recent weeks has too often gone along with the new drive by the White House and the military to blame insurgent attacks on al-Qaeda. The column arrives on the same day the paper calls for a U.S. pullout in Iraq. .

... Today, Hoyt charges that the Times "in recent weeks as the newspaper has slipped into a routine of quoting the president and the military uncritically about Al Qaeda’s role in Iraq — and sometimes citing the group itself without attribution.

... "There is plenty of evidence that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is but one of the challenges facing the United States military and that overemphasizing it distorts the true picture of what is happening there. While a president running out of time and policy options may want to talk about a single enemy that Americans hate and fear in the hope of uniting the country behind him, journalists have the obligation to ask tough questions about the accuracy of his statements."

Read more: http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003608639

[MidwestTransplant]

1. Finally

[1932]

2. Let's see how long this guy lasts at the Times.

[Richard Steele]

3. What's this? Actual JOURNALISM? The mind boggles. Recommended!

[Jacobin]

4. Now that its too late to stop the war, they are Outraged.

Outraged, I tell you.

:eyes:

[Richard Steele]

9. Or perhaps they've finally realized that transcribing RW propaganda isn't helping their business.

Hiring this guy may just be them realizing that ACTUAL JOURNALISM
is better for their sales in the long run.

The nation has gone so long without much of it, they may be looking
to cash in on our hunger for it.

Let's hope this starts a trend.

[Peregrine Took]

5. They have been atrocious lately, even worse than before. I can't read it any

more. Lapdoggery at its most extreme.

[old guy]

6. One small step for man; one giant.... well you get the idea

[Doctor_J]

7. In recent WEEKS?

Except for Krugman and Herbert and Rich and the occasional slam-dunk editorial, the NYT has been publishing WH press releases for years. No one believes that when Wilson was given the boot the propaganda ended.

Our entire media structure needs to be kicked to the margins and rebuilt.

[gratuitous]

8. Repeat after me, major media

This administration lies. They will lie to further their agenda. They will lie to get you on their side, if only for a week. Then they'll lie again next week, when you discover last week's lie. They will lie for the pure hell of it. They will lie for no good reason. They will lie when you have the evidence they're lying right there in your hand, and dare you to call them on it.

"Distorting the true picture of what is happening" is the only success this misbegotten administration can point to after all these years. And they keep getting away with it almost wholly because the Times, the Post, the major networks and the cable shows all let them get away with it.

If this is truly the beginning of a more skeptical time in the Fourth Estate, I'm glad. But if this is just another Sunday morning hangover bemoaning the "never again" debauchery of Saturday night, then shove it, Mr. Hoyt. I've heard it too goddam many times before, and too many lives have been ended because you and your lapdog compatriots are too timid to report the truth.

[brg5001]

10. NBC-CBS-ABC-FAUX have all catapulted the propaganda recently

I noticed the same damn thing the other nite while enduring spokesmodel Brian Williams on NBC Nightly "News."

For the past month, all of the networks have been delivering the administration's line that "we're fighting Al Qaeda" and that the "surge" is running into stiff resistance from "Al Qaeda" but is nonetheless delivering results against "Al Qaeda" so that we don't hae to face "Al Qaeda" over here. Of course, that worked really well in the U.K., right?

By the way, who is "them"? What is "victory"? And why aren't these new Republican war-going-badly worrywarts facing accusations that they may be seen as "weak on national security" and "opposing the troops"? After all, that was the key concern for Democrats last spring, according to all of the experts.

No, actually, we're fighting:

1. Ourselves, in search of a purpose for being there
2. Every Tom, Dick and Muhammed with a real or imagined axe to grind who is calling his group "Al Qaeda"
3. The Shiites who don't want us there
4. The Shiites who act like they want us there, but are undermining our military (it's called 'treachery', something the didactic dunce-in-chief can't understand)
5. The Sunnis who aren't part of Al Qaeda
6. The Sunnis who are part of Al Qaeda...whatever that is this week
7. A bunch of hoodlums and criminals
8. Some people who are just fed up with us being there
9. A bunch of other people who decided to engage us because they think Bush is a steaming turd

Also, memo to Brian Fucking Williams: "Surge" is a term whose very use implies an acceptance of the rationale for escalation. And "membership in al Qaeda" is a phrase that implies acceptance of the idea that some centralized "Dr. Doom" and his evil club is ordering the attacks. Actually, the term has come to be synonymous with the Devil, so why not just say that we're fighting Satan?

[rodeodance]

11. yes, I hear 'al=quida" all the time last few months. Very noticeable

[samsingh]

12. good for him.