Skinner's LTTE to the NYT will be in tomorrow's paper!

[Patsy Stone]

Bouncy Ball posts in the DU Lounge:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x2389901

"To the Editor:

As the administrator of the Web site Democratic Underground, I am perplexed as to why you would consider an obscure posting on a busy Internet discussion forum to be worthy of an article ("Myths Run Wild in Blog Tsunami Debate," news article, Jan. 3)."


Congratulations, Skinner! Thanks.

edited to add better link.

[troubleinwinter]

1. Right f'kin' on! YAY! Excellent!

[imax2268]

2. that is worthy of a posting...

If anyone has a link to it...please post it here...

[Patsy Stone]

4. Direct NYT Link Here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/l10blog.html?oref=login

[NVMojo]

10. Excellent, Skinner, touche!!!

[seito]

3. Excellent, Thanks for posting

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Woot!

[autorank]

6. Skinner, YOU ROCK. Thanks. My thoughts exactly. NYT="morans"

[wtmusic]

8. NYT = hardly "morans"

The NYT has consistently policed itself and admitted its own mistakes. Their handling of the Jayson Blair affair was exemplary.

If the NYT were "morans" they wouldn't have even run Skinner's letter.

:eyes:

[grasswire]

9. hmm

I'd have a lot better opinion of NYT were it not for Judith Miller, Wen Ho Lee's treatment, and the paper's lying about the Consortium that recounted Y2000 Florida ballots.

[RaulVB]

11. Thanks for pointing that out. You're the NYT "editor" I guess? (n/t)

[autorank]

12. wtmusic, Thanks for the chance to voice my opinion of the NYT.

I suspect you feel about the NYT the way I once felt about the Washington Post. I bought it every day and enjoyed it greatly...until Whitewater and the Lewinsky affair. Then I noticed it was not much more than a scandal sheet that avoided real issues.

Why is the term "morans" appropriate for the NYT:

(1) They ignored the unbelievable scandal of race-based vote blocking in Florida which caused Gore to lose, irrespective of any recount issues. 50,000 black Floridians had their registrations expunged because they matched up with a TX generated, Republican firm developed, Jeb Bush administered voter purge. This was not a mistake, it was deliberate. Since almost 90% of blacks voted in 2000 in Florida and 90% of those voted for Gore, that meant about 40,000 blacks tried to vote for Gore and were sent home. It's a fact. This is THE biggest electoral scandal I can think of because Gore only lost by a few hundred votes. This should have been shouted from the roof tops, front page, scandal, etc. etc. The NYT did nothing with this. If they are the paper of record, this is the record they did not publish. They are "morans" and worse, violators of their claim to the public trust. This is indisputable.

(2) The NYT funded and pushed Judith Miller's advocacy of WMD very hard. Of course, her source was a man the US has accused of spying for Iran (Chalabi) and not much more. Think of the lives, dead and injured, and the funds wasted based on the premise of WMD. The NYT also ignored the joke evidence presented by the WH on the claimed nuclear program (piping that even US Govt. energy experts said was not nuclear). The Miller front page drum beat for WMD was the legitimizing factor in the administrations drum beat for war. The NYT was dead wrong with Miller and was asleep at the switch with the claimed nuclear threat. This is outrageous for a news organization that claims to be thorough. The NYT was a key player, by act (i.e., Miller) and poor investigation (i.e., claims of nuclear programs), in the march to war. The paper has blood on its hands.

I'm really not interested in their self-analysis after the fact. Their inability and unwillingness to cover a true theft of an election, Florida 2000 and the disenfranchised 40,000 or so black Gore voters and their extremely sloppy advocacy for WMD and thus war makes any public introspection after the fact meaningless. These errors are so egregious that admission (although not full) and apologies after the fact are meaningless.

The NYT is actually much worse than Fox because they know better. There should be a total house cleaning there with everyone from top to bottom involved in either of these stories fired. There wasn't, there will not be such a house cleaning.

Thus, my conclusion that the NYT="morans."

[Helga Scow Stern]

13. Thank you for that. I knew something stunk from their "reporting" on 2004

election fraud. This helps put it all in context very nicely.

[wtmusic]

14. All true

and don't forget Thomas Friedman's wonderful contributions to the war effort as well...

But did not EVERYONE in the MSM ignore the FL voting debacle and tout the WMD story as well? I offer this not as an excuse, because there is none. The Times should have covered it, as should have The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, and CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN etc etc.

But I'm in LA and I subscribe to the Times because IMO it is still the best daily in the US. It's still better than ANY television news, although it sounds like you've been reading it for a lot longer than I have, and I appreciate the perspective. If you can recommend a better paper with Paul Krugman in it... :-)

[autorank]

15. I love LA. I have a friendly compromise.

We agree the NYT are "morans" and, at the same time, that it is, hands down, the "best" (of the worst) paper in the USA. I'd like to say that your question was unfair but to do so would only betray my lack of an answer (I've given up rhetorical diversions for 2005).

I just read a story on LBN about some new FL scandal in, guess where, The Guardian. We live in an absurd information environment.

Since you got me on the "better paper" question, I have a question for you: Do you think that today's NYT editorial staff would publish today's equivalent of the "The Pentagon Papers?" That actually occurred to me a few weeks ago and I presumed no. I'm open for optimism.

At least you can still cull positives from the NYT. The Washington Post is total cat box liner.

[wtmusic]

18. Accepted, and NYT would not touch the "Pentagon Papers"

because as far as American media is concerned the Emperor has new clothes, period. I don't know what makes George W. Bush untouchable or that there has ever been another POTUS so immune to criticism.

If I said the NYT is well-written and occasionally insightful I think I would be in pretty good company, but that doesn't excuse the larger faults which are symptomatic of American media in general.

[saracat]

7. Thank you Skinner. Great letter. I award you the title of

"Defender of Democratic Underground". You may pick up your blue garter now!

[Carolab]

16. That's right!

Stand up for bloggers!

[Califooyah Operative]

17. Awesome. Thank's for sticking up for us. we're proud. nt