Barbara Amiel delivers a damning indictment of the New York Times, pointing out:
Super-liberalism has led the Times into a lot of nonsense. The Israeli government is routinely described in its news stories as following “hardline” policies while no such negative description is given to governments such as those of Saudi Arabia or the Palestinian Authority.
Indeed, the Saudis are routinely described as “moderates” in news stories or “pro-West” allies of America – even as they fund al-Qa’eda and their official newspapers spout virulent hatred of the West.
Amiel also points out that the New York Times recent attempt to portray Henry Kissenger as opposed to the Bush strategy on Iraq was:
The new-look Henry K was so blatant a piece of deception that, on August 19, the Wall Street Journal parted with its tradition of keeping quiet about its competitor’s editorial policies and published a leader with a damning indictment of the “tendentious” claims of the New York Times, suggesting that the paper keep “its opinions on its editorial page”.
She also links to the splendid Smarter Times website, which records the NYT’s dissembling stream of half truths and outright deceptions. The whole article is well worth a read.
However for me there is a certain resonance to it all as one does not have to look as far away as New York to see the phenomena. Samizdata.net’s own Brian Micklethwait recently had to ‘Fisk’ his own article after The Times (of London) published it ‘edited’ in significant ways that changed what he was actually trying to say. That said, what the London Times’ editors did to Brian’s article pales compared to the outright deceptions masquerading as ‘objective news’ routinely printed by the New York Times.
