The New York Slimes - All the lies that are fit to print

The New York Slimes - All the lies that are fit to print
by Jennifer King, Managing Editor

May 24, 2003

"The Heretical Housewife"

Managing Editor Jennifer King The Old Gray Lady might have been mortally wounded on May 1st, 2003, but the aging gal is sure taking a long time to die, creaking with denial as she takes on ever greater volumes of water. The Times was terminally embarrassed when her radical hot shot reporter Jayson Blair was finally outed as a plagiarist and liar - and forced to quit on May 1st. Two Sundays after the event, the Times printed a four-page mea culpa, detailing Blair’s sins, omissions and outright fabrications - but the editors daintily disdained taking credit for their own lack of oversight.

Much ink has since been spent on portioning out blame. Was it Howell Raines, the erstwhile self-proclaimed “white Southern boy” who overlooked Blair’s incompetence - exuding a kindly “massa” persona as he wallowed in a prolonged fit of liberal white guilt? Was it Gerald Boyd, the National Editor, who was perhaps swayed by Blair’s all purpose brown-nosing - including his sycophantic nomination of Boyd to the National Association of Black Journalists? Was it the general incompetence of “Pinch” Sulzberger, the heir to the newspaper fortune who appears to be stuck in a sort of terminal childhood? Mr. Sulzberger, for example, perhaps misconstruing the real danger posed to his publishing empire, brought a beanbag moose to the meeting Raines, Boyd and Sulzberger had with their irate staff. He commented that unhappy Times employees should “talk to the moose”, “deal with the moose” and he also urged employees to, “put their moose on the table”.

A funny bit, perhaps, but at definite odds with the solemnity of the matter at hand.

The New York Times has weathered quite a few incidents which should have sunk the venerable Gray Lady decades ago. Columnist Walter Duranty, their Moscow correspondent who subsequently won a Pulitzer Prize, was complicit with Stalin in covering up the worst excesses of his purges. Herbert Matthews was the finest Comrade Fidel Castro could have wished for. And, the Times itself should be condemned for its softballing of the Holocaust - done simply so that the paper wouldn’t suffer circulation hits by those accusing it of being too sympathetic to the Jews.

Nevertheless, the egregiousness of Mr. Blair’s antics led the NYT to a new low - figuratively and literally. Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, reports that the Times’ circulation has shrunk by 63,751 in the last six months. Their northern paper lost 30,000 subscribers over the same six months. Interestingly enough, the New York Post’s circulation has risen during that time period by approximately the same amount. Proving perhaps, that the population is not becoming more ignorant, but that they are simply becoming more discerning. And more critical of tolerating leftist pap.

Mr. Chris Hedges, a leftwing journalist at the New York Times, recently spoke at a commencement at Rockford College, in Illinois. Mr. Hedges, no doubt used to the adulation given his views in New York, spoke - not to the graduates, their successes and their bright futures - but to the darkest impulses of the conspiratorial Left. Mr. Hedges intoned against “American imperialism and colonialism”, our “Iraqi occupation” and the alleged “looting” by American troops of priceless artifacts. Most of which, of course, are demonstrable falsehoods.

Somewhat surprisingly, given the collegiate environment, Mr. Hedges was roundly booed and heckled with verses of “God Bless America”. He finally quit the stage, and disparaged the “lack of intellectualism” present in today’s coeds. Which only proves (again!) that the Left can dish it out but they sure can’t take it.

Which leads us to the old roundtable argument. The times they are a changing (even if the Times, itself, does not). They just don’t have a monopoly on the news anymore, and regular old Joe Sixpack can find out and disseminate more facts today than ever before. The liberal house of cards cannot withstand this cleansing wind of truth, and they cannot marshal the arguments to block it.

They might as well pull out the moose. ***

Photo of Jennifer King courtesy of staff files