Monday, October 27, 2014

the nyt kisses its own ass again

I don't think there is any paper out there that kisses its own ass as much as the NYT. In that paper, it is awards day every day - and the awards all go to the NYT. So I find it a bit shocking to read, in a Sunday Book review of James Risen's book about the ludicrous and corrupt war on terror, the following passage" "But he makes no mention of the press. I would argue that many in the news media were at least as guilty as others in his book of stirring up public anxiety for private gain. Risen himself, and the paper for which he works, are notable exceptions."
Notable exceptions? Is this the paper that employed Judy Miller? That filled its magazine section with defenses of a new liberal imperialism? Which withheld stories that would have 'challenged the narrative" for years, and that likes to insult Edward Snowden whenever it has a chance? The paper whose Washington correspondent. Elisabeth Bumiller, said of a press conference before the Iraq invasion - one premised, of course, on a fantasy about WMD - which Bush himself joked was "scripted": BUMILLER: I think we were very deferential because…it’s live, it’s very intense, it’s frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you’re standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country’s about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time."
But all this goes down memory hill, and the NYT has decided that its coverage of the Iraq war was so good that, well, it just has to kiss its own ass. Just one more time! Precious, my precious... 

No comments:

Lovecraft

“If Lovecraft was an odd child,” his biographer L. Sprague de Camp writes, “his mother showed signs of becoming even odder. In fact, she gav...