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The Declining New York Times
Last quarter’s earnings were dreadful. Earnings per share were down almost 75% from the previous quarter. as newspaper advertising revenue declined over 10% — a decline which according to the May earnings report accelerated to 11.9%. Lehman Brothers recently forecast, that in a year, the Times' common stock would decline in value by almost half. The Times' shares which were above $52 before Pinch took over today are at $13.29 As Democratic Mayor said recently of the quality of the New York Times "New York Times I weep for you." TOWNHALL.COM Saturday, July 05, 2008 A Nation in Decline? By Bill O'Reilly Full article Bill O'Reilly Townhall.Com Excerpts: Just in time for Independence Day, the bible of the American left, The New York Times, continues to opine that the United States is a "nation in decline." Hoping to see a Democrat in the White House, the newspaper has been hammering home that theme on its editorial pages. The Times bases its claims on two primary situations: The negative view of America abroad and income inequality at home. So, let's take a look at the supposed "decline." Overseas, the world is largely a mess. Africa remains a chaotic cauldron of corruption, China continues its authoritarian rule, and there's no letup in the India-Pakistan hatred. Would you like to live in those countries? AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM Friday, June 13, 2008 When Is Obama's Tax Hike Not a Tax Hike? When You Ask the NYT Times Full article ATR Excerpts: Today the New York Times seemed a bit, well, confused. They asked the question, "is the Obama tax plan a tax hike?" Perhaps they missed the following elements: Raise the top tax rate from 35% to 40% Raise the small business tax rate from 38% to 55% Raise the capital gains tax from 15% to 28% Raise the dividends tax from 15% to 40% Ensnare millions of taxpayers in the AMT trap If that's not a tax increase, I don't know what is. In fact, it's the largest tax hike ever. So much for the "paper of record." Betting to Improve the Odds
By STEVE LOHR Published: April 9, 2008 THE NEW YORK TIMES Op-Ed Columnist Full article Steve Lohr Excerpts: CORPORATIONS live and die by ideas, and many enterprises have used Web-based technologies, like blogs, wikis and social networks, to gather thoughts and hasten their way into new services, products and cost-saving steps. Now executives say they are harnessing a new Web tool, called prediction markets, to transform the idea pipelines inside their companies. Companies like the InterContinental Hotels Group, General Electric and Hewlett-Packard are using prediction markets to try to improve forecasting, reduce risk and accelerate innovation by tapping into the collective wisdom of the work force. Like blogs and wikis, prediction markets can spur communication and collaboration within a company. Yet they add rigorous measurement to business forecasts, like estimating the sales of a new product or the chances that a project will be finished on time. ### Overkill and Short Shrift Full article The New York Times Excerpts: The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is no doubt (and regrettably) a big issue in the presidential campaign. But what we’ve seen over the past week is major media overkill — Jeremiah Wright all day and all night. It’s like watching the clips of a car wreck again and again. We’ve plotted the trend lines of his relationship with Barack Obama over the past two decades. What did Obama know and when did he know it? We’ve forced Barack and Michelle Obama, two decent, hard-working, law-abiding, family-oriented Americans, to sit for humiliating television interviews, reminiscent of Bill and Hillary Clinton on “60 Minutes” at the height of the Gennifer Flowers scandal. We’ve allowed the entire political process in what is perhaps the most important election in the U.S. since World War II to become thoroughly warped by the histrionics of a loony preacher from the South Side of Chicago. ROGER'S RULES The weblog of Roger Kimball Grasping at Straws: The NY Times on McCainFull article Roger Kimball Excerpts: This is getting embarrassing. Remember the front-page story The New York Times ran about John McCain’s non-affair with a lobbyist? That was the long-held piece of non-news that the Times subtly dropped like a barbell at midnight shortly after it became clear that McCain would be the Republican nominee for President. The point of the piece was to knock Mr. McCain off his high horse and tarnish his reputation. But the effect was to further diminish the Times in the eyes of its readers. If such mean-spirited and slightly hysterical rumor-mongering is news, who needs it? Well, they never learn. At least, that’s what I conclude from today’s non-story about Mr. McCain’s use of a corporate jet owned by a company run by his wife. “McCain Frequently Used Wife’s Jet for Little Cost” screams the headline. “Yeah, so?” you might be asking, and you would be right. Here’s how the Times structures its non-stories about John McCain: THE NEW YORK TIMES By CARL HULSE Published: April 26, 2008 Full article Carl Hulse The New York Times Excerpts: WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama is starring in a growing number of campaign commercials, but the latest batch is being underwritten by Republicans. In a sign that the racial, class and values issues simmering in the presidential campaign could spread into the larger political arena, Republican groups are turning recent bumps in Mr. Obama’s road — notably his comment that small-town Americans “cling” to guns and religion out of bitterness and a fiery speech by his former minister in which he condemned the United States — into attacks against Democrats down the ticket. “The public, week by week, is becoming more familiar with his big-government, far-left vision for America,” said Ed Patru, a spokesman for Freedom’s Watch, an advocacy organization that is portraying Mr. Obama as ultraliberal in an advertisement running in Louisiana before a special election for a House seat. The New York Times April 17, 2008 New York Times Company Posts Loss By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA Full article Richard Perez-Pena New York Tines Excerpts: The New York Times Company, the parent of The New York Times, posted a $335,000 loss in the first quarter — one of the worst periods the company and the newspaper industry have seen — falling far short of both analysts’ expectations and its $23.9 million profit in the quarter a year earlier. The company did break even on a per-share basis, compared with the average analyst forecast of earnings of 14 cents, down from 17 cents in the first quarter of 2007. The company’s main source of revenue, newspaper advertising in print and online, fell 10.6 percent, the sharpest drop in memory, as the industry suffers the twin blows of an economic downturn and the continuing long-term shift of readers and advertisers to the Internet. New York Times April 14 By SAM TANENHAUS Published: April 13, 2008 Full article Sam Tanehhaus New York Times Excerpts: Every now and again, the jostling frenzy of intellectual life in New York City, with its relentless fixation on the newest, the hottest, the coolest, the ins and the outs, pauses for a moment and the speed slows to a stately, reflective pace. A striking example of this occurred when, in the space of a week, two of the city’s cultural giants received tribute, each in one of Manhattan’s most hallowed venues. On April 4, a memorial mass was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for William F. Buckley Jr., who died in February at age 82. Five days later, last Wednesday at Carnegie Hall, homage was paid to Norman Mailer, who died in November at age 84. One could easily imagine the two men, friendly combatants for nearly five decades, robustly arguing about who received the better send-off. Was it Mr. Buckley, whose A-list mourners included Henry Kissinger, George McGovern and Tom Wolfe? Or Mr. Mailer, who reeled in John Didion, Don DeLillo and Gay Talese? Best to call it a tie — not least since Charlie Rose and Tina Brown were on view at both events. Townhall.Com Rev. Wright Blasted New York Times By Amanda Carpenter Monday, March 31, 2008 Full article Amanda Carpenter Townhall.Com Excerpts: Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the longtime friend and former pastor of Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, wrote a fiery letter to The New York Times after the paper published an unflattering news story about Wright’s relationship with Obama in 2007. “Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years,” Wright wrote in a letter to Times reporter Jodi Kantor made available online by Time magazine. “Jodi, out of two hours of conversation I spent approximately five to seven minutes on Barack’s taking advice from one of his trusted campaign people and deeming it unwise to make me the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print?” Wright asked. “You and your editor proceeded to present to the general public a snippet, a printed ‘sound byte’ and a titillating and tantalizing article about his disinviting me to the Invocation on the day of his announcing his candidacy.” ### The Nader Factor Quotes: With a few exceptions, the leftwing press were openly hostile to Nader's announcement this week, taking it very personally: "(He) remains as obstinate, prickly and egotistical as ever," said the New Jersey Star-Ledger. "Nader: Unsafe at Any Age," headlined the Louisville Courier-Journal. And The Boston Globe, while saying Nader has a "right" to run, wrote: "Nader has come to believe in his own indispensability." The left-leaning media are mad because they believe Nader cost Al Gore the election in 2000 by siphoning votes away from him in Florida. You may remember that old Ralph received 97,488 votes in the Sunshine State, and that President Bush defeated Vice President Gore by fewer than 1,000 ballots. Doing the math makes many liberals cry. Believe Purpose of article was to hurt the McCain campaign---66% Believe Purpose Was To Report The News---22% Have a favorable opinion of the New York Times---24% Have unfavorable opinion of the New York Times---44% Going back to the 1980's it was the Tawana Brawley hoax that she had been gang-raped by a bunch of white men. This hoax also turned that most questionable of characters, Al Sharpton into an undeserved celebrity, who to the chagrin of people of integrity has a regular platform on Fox News and receives something he clearly does not deserve i.e. a chance to do a selling job regarding his racial huckstering and victimology philosophy. Then there were several hoaxes of New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, who received steady promotions until people found out what he had been doing and the paper had to let him go. Two years ago, it was the Duke University "rape" hoax that they fell for. Last month the New York Times engaged in a disgusting and distorted front page article about how war veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan were killing people back in the United States because of the stress they had gone through in combat. Typical of the Times which is also a total habit of the Left, including the Democratic Party and the Mainstream Media, this unbalanced story made no attempt to put this story in perspective by showing the fact that the murder rate among returning war veterans was only one-fifth the murder rate among civilians in the same age brackets. New York Times Ombudsman Faults Paper on McCain Romance Story by FOXNews.com Sunday, February 24, 2008 Times Ombudsman Clark Hoyt said the following: "The New York Times failed to establish a sexual relationship had existed between John McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman and therefore should not have published the salacious claims it made last week suggesting otherwise, the newspaper’s public editor wrote in Sunday’s online edition. The editors and reporters were on to a good story about the Arizona senator’s fight against special interests at the same time he had appeared to do a favor for one, wrote Times Ombudsman Clark Hoyt, but charges that the relationship went beyond politics and into romance was a distraction without evidence. He added that Executive Editor Bill Keller’s argument that the story wasn’t about an affair belies the article’s narrative. “I think that ignores the scarlet elephant in the room. A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide,” Hoyt wrote. The New York Slimes From: Townhall.Com By Mike Gallagher Full article To Mike Gallagher Townhall.Com Excerpts: I have two sources, both of whom wish to remain anonymous, that report to me that New York Times Editor Bill Keller was spotted in a dumpster last weekend in the Hamptons snorting crack cocaine and smothering a pair of cocker spaniel puppies with a pair of sweat socks. So now I’m reporting it to you. Wasn’t that fun? Of course this isn’t true – not that I know of, anyway – but it sure was easy to get out my laptop and write those words down so thousands of eyes could read them. Evidently, the “Old Grey Lady” possesses the same standards as a supermarket tabloid that breathlessly reports that “sources” claim they saw Elvis munching on a Krispy Kreme donut in Myrtle Beach. ### Friday, February 22, 2008 Real Clear Politics February 21, 2008 Pinch Sulzberger's Legacy By Thomas Lifson Full article To Thomas Lifson Real Clear Politics Excerpts: The decline and fall of the New York Times accelerates, with today's anonymously-sourced hit piece on John McCain. I will leave to others like Rick Moran and Ed Morrissey the debunking of the story itself. What concerns me is the manner in which the CEO of the organization has jettisoned standards that once would have ruled out publication of such material. "A fish rots from the head" goes an old Chinese saying. If it is true, as reported, that the story was controversial within the Times, and only ran because the paper feared that The New Republic would publicize the office politics at the Times over publication of the story, the Sulzberger's responsibility is all the greater. His inability to set clear guidelines, hire capable editors, and maintain newsroom harmony and discipline was about to be exposed to the public. To protect his hind quarters, he went with a disastrously bad story. Even Harvard Finds The Media Biased By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, November 01, 2007 4:30 PM PT Journalism: The debate is over. A consensus has been reached. On global warming? No, on how Democrats are favored on television, radio and in the newspapers.
Just like so many reports before it, a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans. Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which "produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans." The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative. Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. "Obama's front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton's was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative." In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative. The study also discovered that newspaper stories "tended to be focused more on political matters and less on issues and ideas than the media overall. In all, 71% of newspaper stories concentrated on the 'game,' compared with 63% overall." Television has a similar problem. Only 10% of TV stories were focused on issues, and here, too, Democrats get the better of it. Reviewing 154 stories on evening network newscasts over the course of 109 weeknights, the survey found that Democrats were presented in a positive light more than twice as often as they were portrayed as negative. Positive tones for Republicans were detected in less than a fifth of stories while a negative tone was twice as common. The gap between Democrats and Republicans narrows on cable TV, but it's there nonetheless. Stories about Democrats were positive in more than a third of the cases, while Republicans were portrayed favorably in fewer than 29%. Republican led in unfriendly stories 30.4% to 25.5%. CNN was the most hostile toward Republicans, MSNBC, surprisingly, the most positive. MSNBC was also the most favorable toward Democrats (47.2%), Fox (36.8%) the most critical. The anti-GOP attitude also lives on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition." There, Democrats were approvingly covered more than a third as often as Republicans. Negative coverage of Democrats was a negligible 5.9%. It seemed to be reserved for Republicans, who were subject to one-fifth of the program's disparaging reports. Even talk radio, generally considered a bastion of conservatism, has been relatively rough on the GOP. On conservative shows, Obama got more favorable treatment (27.8%) than Rudy Giuliani (25%). Sen. John McCain got a 50% favorability rating while Mitt Romney led the three GOP candidates with 66.7%. The PEG-Shorenstein effort is only the latest to conclude that the mainstream media tilt left. Others include Stanley Rothman and Robert Lichter's groundbreaking 1986 book "The Media Elite"; "A Measure of Media Bias," a 2005 paper written by professors from UCLA and the University of Missouri; and Bernard Goldberg's two books, "Bias" and "Arrogance." All underscore the media's leftward leanings. The media, of course, insist they are careful to keep personal opinions out of their coverage. But the facts tell another story — one that can't be edited or spiked. can't be edited or spiked. Source: Investors Business Daily Here's an excerpt from an interview with Bernard Goldberg, a CBS employee for 28 years and author of the book Bias. If you haven't read it yet, you probably should.
GOLDBERG: Well, I make two points on that, I think. One is that I worked at CBS News for 28 years so it is not a matter of what I think. I know that there is no conspiracy, despite what some people may think. Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, the guys who run The New York Times, they don’t come in in the morning, go into their offices and shut out the lights and summon their top lieutenants and give them the secret handshake and give them the secret salute and say "how are we going to stick it to those conservatives today." I wish it did happen that way because that is so unacceptable that nobody could tolerate that. What happens is worse. These guys, media elites, live in an elite, comfortable, liberal bubble, in places like Manhattan in New York. They can go for a week, a day, a month, a year, they can practically go a whole lifetime and never run into anybody who has a different point of view than they have on all the big social issues, whether its gay marriage or affirmative action or abortion or other race issues or feminist issues. After a while, a kind of group think takes over. They think everything to the right is conservative, which it is, and everything to the left is middle of the road. They don’t even notice. These people are so in the dark they don’t even know that their views on these controversial subjects are liberal. They think they are just reasonable and civilized because all their pals inside the bubble have these same views. So, that’s one point that I make. The second point that I make is that liberal bias in the news is mainly not about politics. These guys would go after their liberal grandmother if they thought it would help their career. It’s mostly about how they see the world. How they see the issues that I just mentioned. How they see gay marriage. How they see affirmative action. How they see abortion. And, if you see these issues a certain way, because, as I say, all your pals in the bubble see these issues the same way, you’re going to report on these issues the same way and that kind of reporting turns out to be liberally biased reporting. Not intentional. Not a conspiracy. It’s just the way these people are. GIACHINO: Well you indicated in Bias that you acknowledge that the problem may actually be that the big ones, the Dans and the Peters, don’t even know what liberal bias is. GOLDBERG: Yeah, I don’t think that they do. GIACHINO: Do you think that they have read your books? Either one of them. GOLDBERG (laughing): No. As a matter of fact, Dan Rather’s comment on all of this is "no comment." Brokaw and Jennings both say, along with about 50 other media elites, that this is ridiculous, that there is no liberal bias. And one CBS News correspondent told a friend of mine, this was right after Bias came out, the first book, my friend asked "Why do you think Bias is so successful?" And the correspondent said "because of all those right wing nuts out there." See, that’s what they think of the people listening to us right now. I’ve been up in the Panhandle of Florida. I live in Florida. I live at the other end of the State. These are decent, good people, but they are seen by the media elites as a bunch of right wing nuts because many of them are good, decent, conservative people. That’s what I don’t like about these [media] people. I don’t care what kind of view they might have in their private lives, I don’t care what Dan thinks about anything, but I don’t like this kind of condescension towards people who live between Manhattan and Malibu. You know there is a country between Manhattan and Malibu. It’s called the United States of America. The rest is here: Bernie Goldberb ### The Drudge Report today has an article from Editor and Publisher with the following By Jennifer Saba Published: November 05, 2007 8:10 AM ET NEW YORK The Audit Bureau of Circulations released circulation numbers for more than 700 daily newspapers this morning for the six-month period ending September 2007. Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation (see chart, separate story), only four showed gains. According to an analysis of ABC figures, for 538 daily U.S. newspapers, circulation declined 2.5% to 40,689,617. For 609 papers that filed on Sunday, overall circulation dropped 3.5% to 46,771,486. The percentages are based on comparisons from the same period a year ago and represent the majority of the paper's reporting into ABC -- less than half in the country. For The New York Times, daily circulation fell 4.51% to 1,037,828 and Sunday plunged 7.59% to 1,500,394, at least partly due to a price increase. Daily circulation at The Washington Post was down 3.2% to 635,087 and Sunday was down 3.9% to 894,428. Daily circulation at The Boston Globe tumbled 6.6% to 360,695 and Sunday fell about the same, 6.5% to 548,906. The Wall Street Journal was down 1.53% to 2,011,882 daily but USA Today posted a gain of 1% to 2,293,137... Notice the New York Times circulation continues to plummet. The Times has lost its objectivity and become a near slave to the nanny-state, big government philosophy of the Democratic Party which has in turn become a slave to the corrupt union movement. Pinch Sulzberger, the boss of the New York Times November 11, 2007, is as radical left as it gets. He probably loved, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Hillary and Hillary's mentor, Saul Alinsky. Notice the Conservative Wall Street Journal had a far smaller decline than the Liberal publications shown here. Here are excerpts from Power Line by John Hideraker. You can read the full article at: The New York Times had a lot invested in Haditha. Gateway Pundit reviews the Times' coverage of the sad story, culminating in the paper's mourning for an atrocity lost: Last year, when accounts of the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha by a group of marines came to light, it seemed that the Iraq war had produced its defining atrocity, just as the conflict in Vietnam had spawned the My Lai massacre a generation ago. That sentence led the paper's coverage of the collapse of the Haditha prosecutions: [O]n Thursday, a senior military investigator recommended dropping murder charges against the ranking enlisted marine accused in the 2005 killings, just as he had done earlier in the cases of two other marines charged in the case. The recommendation may well have ended prosecutors’ chances of winning any murder convictions in the killings of the apparently unarmed men, women and children. In the recent case, against Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the investigator recommended that he be charged with negligent homicide if the case moved ahead to court-martial. In the other two cases, the investigator recommended dropping all charges. This development could have prompted an apology from the New York Times for jumping to the conclusion that the accused Marines were guilty. (We're still waiting to hear from Mad Jack Murtha.) Or, at least, the theme of the Times' coverage could have been that the Marines weren't guilty after all. But no: the paper undertakes to explain how the Marines, still presumed guilty, could have gotten off... The New York Times was once a proud publication, admired and respected by practically everyone who read it or knew of its high standing. Several, maybe all, of my history professors, were of the opinion that the “Times” was must reading, for our entire lives, if we (history majors) wished to be truly informed. At the time they may have been right. Most students seemed to accept the premise. I did. Sadly, the New York Times of today probably rates the word “pathetic” when it comes to objectivity. Mayor Ed Koch Weeps For How Far The New York Times Has Fallen READ ARTICLE June 10, 2007 New York Times: How the Mighty Have Fallen By Ed Koch The New York Times is special to me. It always has been, and it always will be. Over the years there were times when I was critical of The Times editorials, and on few occasions of its news stories. Yet, my day would not be complete if I had not read The Times. While I was mayor, when I went to Europe, I made arrangements with the airline I used to bring me The Times every day. Reporters from other city newspapers who were traveling with me saw me reading The New York Times and asked if they could read it when I finished it. Of course, I said yes. One of them noted in his daily dispatch covering my trip that I was receiving the paper. After that, I was told by the airline that it had received complaints for the "favoritism extended" to me and it would have to bill me for the delivery which they did. The bill was, as I recall, several hundred dollars. Though I was upset at the time, it was well worth the cost. So, the criticisms of The New York Times that follow are written in sorrow, not joy and are intended to help, not harass. When I read the Times editorial page on June 6th, I was deeply disappointed. Why? Because on one day, in the same issue, three of the four Times editorials struck me as mean-spirited, lacking balance and just plain dumb. The first editorial, entitled "Gitmo: A National Disgrace," berates President Bush for "ramm[ing] the Military Commission Act of 2000 through Congress to lend a pretense of legality to his detention camp at Guantanamo Bay..." The language "pretense of legality" is outrageous, considering that the U.S. Supreme Court in an earlier decision advised the Congress that it had the right to create military commissions to deal with "unlawful enemy combatants," those who don't wear uniforms on the battlefield and carry concealed weapons. "Lawful combatants (who wear uniforms and carry weapons openly) fall under the Geneva Conventions." Pray tell, what is wrong with Congress and the President making that distinction when it comes to trials? Further, hasn't the military commission proved its fairness by the very fact that it dismissed the cases of the first two defendants brought before it, finding they were not "unlawful enemy combatants." Instead of assaulting the military tribunal as it did, shouldn't The Times have praised its fairness? Of course, but The New York Times is so blinded by its fury on the Iraq war and its hatred of President Bush that its editorial board can't think straight on these issues. The Times wants the Guantanamo Bay military prison closed. Isn't that senseless? Wouldn't a new prison for these alleged terrorists have to be built to hold them pending their trials? The military commission and conditions at Guantanamo have been in American courts, with appeals going as high as the U.S. Supreme Court. As so far as I know, the President has obeyed every court order on the subject. But nothing will satisfy The Times on the war in Iraq or the continued leadership of President Bush, other than the immediate end of the war and the end of the President's tenure. How does The New York Times explain the fact that a Democrat-controlled Congress has not seen fit to end the military tribunals and the continued existence of Guantanamo Bay prison? Are they all wrong and only The Times' editorial board right? The Times simply will not accept the fact that we are at war and millions of Islamic fundamentalists believe it is their religious duty to kill every Hindu, Christian, Jew and other Muslims with whom they disagree on aspects of their shared religion. Wake up, New York Times. We are at war. The second editorial on June 6th was entitled, "Jail Time For Scooter Libby." Libby testified before the grand jury that he learned of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson -- a CIA covert officer -- from Tim Russert. That was untrue, and Russert testified to that effect. Whether Libby intentionally lied or was, as he stated in his defense at trial, merely forgetful, a trial jury found him guilty. We also learned that it was not he who revealed Plame's identity to the press, and that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admitted he gave that information to Robert Novak, the reporter who published it. So far as I can recall, The New York Times did not castigate Rudy Giuliani, who testified before a grand jury inquiring into activities of his former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik, that he could not remember that his DOI commissioner had warned him that Kerik had ties with a business firm which had mob connections, before he recommended Kerik to President Bush to be considered for Secretary of Homeland Security. Libby was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and fined $250,000 for "obstruction of justice, perjury and giving false statements." The Times is normally careful not to appear shrill in its editorial tone, but it took delight in Libby's sentence, writing, "The jail sentence and fine imposed on Scooter Libby, the former Chief of Staff for Vice President Cheney, are an appropriate -- indeed necessary -- punishment for his repeated lies to a grand jury and to FBI agents investigating a possible smear campaign orchestrated by the White House." This, in the face of an admission by Richard Armitage that he was the villain, albeit unintentional. He was not prosecuted, nor to the best of my recollection, castigated by The Times editorial board. Why are they so caustic here? Because they hate Dick Cheney so much and see the imprisonment of Libby as a scourging of Cheney. Again, shame on The Times. Finally, there was a third June 6th editorial entitled, "Keeping A Watch on Winter." The article reported that the National Park Service in charge of Yellowstone Park is deciding whether to "raise the number of snowmobiles allowed into the park from 250 to 720 per day." The Times prefers "do[ing] away with snowmobiles altogether." I have never been on a snowmobile and would like to try one someday. I believe those who love the outdoors and use our national parks should have in controlled circumstances access to those parks including the use of snowmobiles. The Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, will be making a decision on snowmobiles shortly. The Times says, "He should help put an end to snowmobiles in Yellowstone. They have always contradicted the mission of the national parks..." Ridiculous. Most Americans believe the parks should be visited by Americans and used in responsible numbers. If Kempthorne decides 720 is the appropriate number of snowmobiles to be permitted in Yellowstone, is he evil? The Times so hates President Bush, writing, "Over six years, the Bush administration has done its utmost to set these principals [on environmental preservation] aside, especially when it comes to snowmobiles." Personally, the thought of 720 snowmobiles trafficking in one of our largest national parks does not cause me to wake up in the middle of the night frightened that the world is coming to an end. No, I see the faces of 720 or more people enjoying this wonderful land every winter day in a very special way. Isn't that what parks are for? I was not surprised when, on June 3rd, three days before these editorials, The New York Times front page had a story headlined "A Legal Debate In Guantanamo On Boy Fighters." The article reported, "The shrapnel from the grenade he is accused of throwing ripped through the skull of Sgt. First-Class Christopher J. Speer who was 28 when he died. To American military prosecutors, Mr. Khadr is a committed al-Qaeda operative, spy and killer who must be held accountable for killing Sergeant Speer in 2002 and for other bloody acts he committed in Afghanistan...His age is at the center of a legal battle that is to begin tomorrow with an arraignment by a military judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of Mr. Khadr, whom a range of legal experts describe as the first child fighter in decades to face war-crimes charges...'International law,' the Justice Department asserted in a court filing...'does not prohibit an individual under 18 from being prosecuted for war crimes.' He is 20 now." According to The Times, "He was born in Canada to a family with such deep Al Qaeda ties that some newspapers there have called them Canada's first family of terrorism." His father was "a senior deputy to Osama bin Laden." The coverage given to this alleged war criminal by The Times includes a page-one, above-the-fold column, with an additional half-page article on page 35, conveying The Times' interest in the subject. But on the same front page, there is only a brief note reporting that "four charged in the bomb plot at Kennedy airport" were the subject of an article on page 37. Surely this shows a lack of judgment in selecting articles of importance for the front page. Glaringly so, when on that same front page there was an article on India concerning the new industry of making mud bricks, accompanied by a large color picture, all above the fold. Is The Times aware that New York State provides that adolescents 13 years or older are criminally responsible for certain aggravated criminal conduct? How the mighty have fallen. New York Times, I weep for you.Ed Koch is the former Mayor of New York City. Bill O'Reilly and the New York Times This past week Bill O'Reilly discussed coverage by the New York Times regarding the terror plot at JFK There, the New York Times placed the article on page 37. His thinking was that terror scares and warnings favor the Bush Administration, therefore favoring George Bush cannot be tolerated. Properly reporting to the public becomes secondary. Mayor Koch above also made reference to that item. We've noted here for many months the terrible decline the New York Times has suffered. The owner of the New York Times Pinch Sulzberger is way out on the Far Left. Last year he gave a very hateful bash George Bush speech to Graduates that also had some America bashing. The New York Times Editorial Page is dominated by Left Wing Extremism. Circulation of the New York Times has fallen as badly as the quality of the paper itself. To refer to the “Times” as a rag would be a sweeping generalization and would constitute lazy thinking and writing. However to point out the negativity toward America, especially when a Republican is in the White House or in control of Congress or both, can be backed up with unlimited examples. If one attempted to make the case that the New York Times was anti-American, he would have plenty of material to do so. To find anything substantial, that is not anti-Republican, anti- Conservative, anti-Bush, more often than not, painting America in an unfavorable light, is next to impossible. Typical, very, very typical, was the Abu Ghraib Prison situation. During the first several months after the story broke, the Times had about 60 front page stories on the subject. Yet, the United Nations, “oil for food scandal“, the largest money scandal in history, had only 2 or 3 articles around the same time. Liberals love the United Nations, which is also anti-American. Liberals are, and have been, delusional, about this corrupt, ineffective, organization, constantly insisting that George Bush would have gotten serious help from it, in building the coalition for the war. Is the following, an interesting question? How far back must we go since the New York Times has endorsed a Republican for President? Would you guess 20 years? 30 Years? 40 years? None of these. It has been 50 years. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1956 was the last Republican endorsed by the Times, some 50 years ago. Among those the “Times” endorsed were Walter Mondale, whom the American people supported in only his own state of Minnesota and George McGovern who also came close to losing every state. The Times of course endorsed Jimmy Carter after a first term that has been voted one of the worst in the country’s history. Jimmy Carter gave us sluggish growth, soaring inflation, soaring interest rates, a weakened and demoralized military, the word malaise and apologies for being Americans. Even today, Mr. Carter does not have much praise for America but seems to love dictators and rigged elections. America loved Ronald Reagan’s performance in his first term, thus it rewarded him with the greatest electoral landslide in American history. Yet the Times again had made an endorsement that was hugely out of touch with the will of the American people. During Mr. Reagan’s entire eight years the Times was highly critical and almost always negative when commenting on Mr. Reagan. Worse, after his presidency, the "Times" joined with much of the mainstream media to use selective data, and much history revisionism to badly distort the achievements of Mr. Reagan, especially relating to the economic gains made by the poor, including Blacks and Hispanics. The New York Times chose to ignore Census Bureau data and Internal Revenue Service data, instead choosing to cite horribly distorted data used by liberal sources. Now, seventeen years later, the Times seems to have grown even more negative, even possibly reckless, possibly even endangering or costing American lives. Recently, Rush Limbaugh made a comparison of the New York Times to Al Jazeera. I think Rush’s analogy may have been somewhat forceful, but then again… What do you think? In November 2006 the Associated Press ran an article relating to what was then, recently released tapes from the LBJ library. The recordings covered the period-August to December, 1966. LBJ of course was Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, succeeding JFK after the latter's tragic assassination. The B in President Johnson's name stood for Baines. The AP article stated that LBJ railed against the "bunch of commies" running the New York Times. One can easily imagine LBJ today, if he were still alive, calling (them) the New York Times, traitors for the way they seem more concerned with bringing down George Bush than they do in seeing terrorism dealt with. New York Times To Ed Koch A Liberal With Sanity
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