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MORAL AUTHORITY SHUNNED
The NYT’s selective editing disgrace reaches the New York Post:
The family of a Marine killed in Iraq slammed The New York Times yesterday for selectively excerpting a letter he wrote predicting his own death, while the paper scandalously ignored a long passage in which he praised America’s mission.
“I thought they hadn’t finished the story, that they hadn’t told the whole story,” said Timothy Lickness, the uncle of Cpl. Jeffrey Starr, 22, who was killed in Ramadi in April during his third tour in Iraq.
“I wrote to the Times and said it would be proper to honor Jeff by completing the story. They never responded.”
Perhaps Starr’s family should camp outside of the NYT’s building until the editor agrees to meet them. How long might he hold out against the family’s moral authority?
The NYT is empty when it comes to moral authority.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 11 04 at 08:20 AM • permalinkAmerica needs a new peace movement - one to stop the MSM from continuing its war against the troops. We need a Mother McCree to camp out in front of the NY Times mansion and peacefully petition the high powered, highly paid, callous, insular executives to stop their illicit war against the troops.
It could be for the children! They should not have their memories of Daddy sullied by this unlawful and unwarranted attack by the MSM. Thoughts of Mommy should be of a loving creature not one who ran roughshod over innocent Iraqis.
Yeah, peace in our time - think of the children!
Apparently, the NYT has received so many complaints that the NYT public editor, whose job it is to oversee and correct such outrages, has released a form e_mail which attempts to justify the false reporting and which exhibits an arrogance and stupidity that exceeds that of Dowd and Krugman combined. The PE explains, essentially, that it was OK to distort Cpl. Starr’s message because the paper did likewise to other letters it quoted.
The NYT response to complaints about its reporting of Cpl. Starr’s last written words to his loved ones is disingenuous, to say the least. What we have here is the lame
attempt to justify the distortion of a dead mans intended message for what are
transparently political reasons. But what can we expect: only the latest in a long history of journalistic crimes by the NYT, many of which have resulted in the death of innocent people.The bit of Cpl Starr’s letter that NYT disgracefully omitted is that it is one of the most moving pieces I have ever read. It wouldn’t look out of place next to a Churchill speech.
You would either need a heart of stone or an ulterior motive not to publish it.
Posted by Flying Giraffe on 2005 11 04 at 09:50 AM • permalinkFlying Giraffe: Unbelievably so. While the left are so up in arms about their freedoms being ‘robbed’, a soldier writes in an email that he knew would be read if he were to be killed. He said that others went before him for those very freedoms.
I feel so humbled because he is acceptingly giving his life so that not just we have those freedoms but the Iraqis can enjoy the same freedom we have.
#4 I agree, it is disgraceful that the NYT didn’t publish the entire letter, and distorted Cpl Starr’s last words by selective quoting. But stats, what do you mean by
only the latest in a long history of journalistic crimes by the NYT, many of which have resulted in the death of innocent people
Out of curiosity, what deaths?
Posted by Lionel Mandrake on 2005 11 04 at 10:29 AM • permalink#8 I don’t know what deaths #4:stats was referring to. However the lies and bias that the NYT have reported over the years have undoubtedly lead to increased tension and no doubt deaths.
Just an example and this isn’t isolated to the NYT… Most of the world reported a genocide in Jenin which later proved to be a case of too much trust in dubious sources. This is one example out of decades of lies. The whole Muslim world is up in arms about the plight of the Palestinians and yet real genocide is happening as we speak in Muslim countries by Muslims against Muslims/Christians/Bhuddists/Jews etc.Everyone heard about a geonocide in Jenin. Only those that knew it wasn’t true (anyone that knew Israelis) knew that it was all a media hype. The media including the ABC never retracted the myth. Muslims say they are angry because of these myths yet real genocidal crimes are being comitted but no-one is asking the Muslims the hard questions. That is ..why are you lying and why don’t you care about killing when Muslims are doing it.
The Times would have told a far more moving and noble story by publishing Cpl. Starr’s letter as a stand-alone piece.
Is it too much to hope they will do just that in response to the backlash?
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2005 11 04 at 11:24 AM • permalinkI emailed a complaint to the NYT, and got the boilerplate response from Plambeck and Borders. Part of what they said is this:
It is true that the article did not quote everything that Corporal Starr said in his e-mail, like his reference to Iraqi freedom, any more than it quoted everything said by all the others quoted in the article, who
represented all sorts of shades of opinion. But the article was completely fair in its representation of the views of Corporal Starr and his father.They also said that farther down in the article is a paragraph that represents a fair and balanced, non-antiwar view:
“Many of those service members returned voluntarily to war because they burned with conviction in the rightness of the mission. Others were driven by powerful loyalty to units and friends. For some it was simply their job.”
Not being a subscriber, I haven’t read the entire article. I have, however, read other articles by them, and usually the paragraphs representing “fair and balanced” are preceding and succeeded by other paragraphs completely negating the “fair and balance” paragraph. Al-Reuters and Associated Bias routinely do this. In their insular and elitest delusion, they probably do believe they are presenting the facts without editorial comment.
Out of curiosity, what deaths?
The NYT’s history of covering up for Stalin comes to mind. Can’t blame them for causing the deaths, but can for not doing anything about them.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 11 04 at 11:36 AM • permalinkLionel Mandrake—Well, when the Soviets were deliberately starving millions of Ukrainians to death, Times reporter Walter Duranty (sp?) wrote a whole series of articles denying it was happening and praising Stalin for his agrarian reforms.
To this day, the Time displays his Pulitzer.
Start there.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 11 04 at 11:39 AM • permalink#15 Yeah, but I still feel people are a bit harsh on the MSM for their errors. Admittedly, Duranty and Stalin was a damn huge mistake, pretty unforgivable, but still ...
Governments, corporations, armed forces, spy agencies are all expert at burying mistakes, one way or another. The MSM, by definition, publish their mistakes for the whole world to see. On balance, I’d still rather have the NYT and the rest of the MSM than not have it.
Posted by Lionel Mandrake on 2005 11 04 at 12:14 PM • permalinkThe MSM, by definition, publish their mistakes for the whole world to see.
Really?
When did they start doing that? NYT still proudly displays Duranty’s Pulitzer.
In this case in particular, they’ve declared they made no mistake and have no intention of correcting anything.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 11 04 at 12:27 PM • permalink#8 “What Deaths?”
Others have partially answered the question, but I will add a couple of additional examples, which do not nearly exhaust a long and horrific list. As a preliminary remark, if a person suppresses knowledge of murders, that person is aware of, and the identity of the murderers, or covers them up as non-murders, that person is as guilty of the crimes as the the murderes themselves. The logic behind this principle is that suppression and cover up prevents the public and the authorities from acting. This principle is also true of public publications. The “Duranty” cover up of Stalin’s murders, of which the NYT’s editors were fully aware,and his attendant portrait of Stalin as a benevolent dictator, convinced FDR (See P. Jonhnson’s “History of the American People” for documentation) that Stalin was someone who could be trusted, which resulted in the infamous Yalta agreement. An other example is the cover up of the Holocaust, a matter for which the NYT publicly apologized a few years ago. (See “Buried by the Times”, L. Leff.) Space too short to present more.
My complaint to Calame:
Sir
You defend Dao’s treatment of Cpl. Starr by refering to the way other, now deceased, soldiers in the article are reported to have backed the war. How does this excuse the omission in the case of Cpl. Starr?When one reads the whole piece it is plain that the tremendous sadness of these soldiers’ parents is being exploited politically. The article clearly implies that they were misguided to think as they did and that their deaths somehow prove that. The effect is to turn them into mere objects of pathos, naive, not brave young men acting on their convictions.
If this was not Dao’s intention, why did he excise what was not only the key passage in Starr’s letter but such a powerfully eloquent rebuke to the gloomy defeatism and demeaning sentimentality that infects every word in the article.
To use a soldier’s death to propangandise against the cause for which he fights is ignoble. To misrepresent his last words in this manner is repugnant.
The full text of Cpl Starr’s letter should be published or at least the excluded portion and an apology offered to his parents and readers.
Please don’t send me your boilerplate reply. It is an insult to intelligence.
One more observation to the oh so forgiving Lionel Mandrake. The NYT apologized for its suppression of news of the Holocaust over forty years late. This suppression was not a “mistake” but a result of a deliberate political decision, just as the distortions of news about Iraq, which includes the outrage conducted on the family of a brave American, was clearly not a mistake a conscious effort made for political reasons. One could cite numerous examples (my memory is not so short that I do not remember the deliberate misquotes of comments made by Sec. of State Kissinger, which the NYT featured on its front page, and which had serious political consequences for Kissinger and which gave comfort to America’s enemies) which encourages the Islamisists in Iraq to kill U. S. troops in the hope that the MSM will drive public opinion to defeatism. There is supposed to be an ethical foundation for journalism No such can be found for the NYT. It is a propoganda rag for Anti-Americanism and for the Democratic Party.
It is a propoganda rag for Anti-Americanism and for the Democratic Party.
But you repeat yourself.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2005 11 04 at 12:56 PM • permalinkOut of curiosity, what deaths?
Well the MSM certainly can take a substantial part of the <strike>blame</strike> credit for pulling out of Vietnam.
Sure, they weren’t wholly responsible—Hollywood, Jane Fonda, John Kerry, (yeah, it’s the same guy), and others helped too.
But with a couple hundred thousand slaughtered here, a million put in camps there, etc, there was more than enough death to go around. I think the NYT can lay claim to more than a few.
In Lancet-Math, probably 100 million.
Posted by zeppenwolf on 2005 11 04 at 03:16 PM • permalinkIsn’t the times the paper that employs the “economist” and socialist Friedman?
Maybe. They definitely employ the former economist, socialist, and race-baiting asswipe Krugman.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 11 04 at 03:32 PM • permalinkOut of curiosity, what deaths?
Newsweek gets the lion’s share of the blame but the NYT and other newspapers leaped on it readily since it cast the Administration and the military in a bad light. Shameful.
Mark my words, if the NYT, the network news shows, and most of the MSM could figure a way to blame Bush for the Paris riots—
(example: in a shameful chapter of this country’s history, President Bush stated in an arrogant and sneering manner that the poor immigrant youths must make greater efforts to rid their enclaves of those nasty unslightly burned out autos, resulting in a horrific backlash from humiliated and rightly angered youths from
MuslimAfrican origins)—they would run 10 minute film footage of the riots with a 5 minute final word editorial demanding Bush’s resignation and abject apology. It goes with saying that they would also declare as fact that Karl Rove was responsible and would demand an immediate indictment.
Posted by wronwright on 2005 11 04 at 03:55 PM • permalinkOn the deaths issue, the media (not specifically, but undoubtedly including, the New York Times) caused an unknown (but not zero) number of deaths in the wake of Hurricane Katrina by hampering rescue efforts through their wildly inaccurate coverage.
And how about the deaths caused by their support for the “insurgents” in Iraq?
Posted by tim maguire on 2005 11 04 at 04:40 PM • permalink#25 Your memory serves you well. The support of the NYT and Matthews for Castro is documented in a book that is just about out or soon to be out by Anthony DePalma in which he states that “Matthews called Castro a defender of the Cuban Constitution , a lover of democracy and a friend of the American people.” He notes that “The image created by Matthews stuck, helping Castro consolidate his power and gain
international recognition. US attitudes toward the conflict in Cuba changed, dooming
Batista.”off topic, sort of:
Saturday’s The Age: a quick run-through…
“News” p5: David Williamson, playwright, on the Dismissal – “Kristin {Mrs Williamson} and I felt so devastated that we left the country with our children
some time afterwards and stayed abroad more than six months so we wouldn’t have to live under the rule of the Prince of Darkness, Malcolm Fraser. How ironic that he has become a pariah in his own party because he’s seen as too far to the left.” David, leave the country again, per-lease?
Digest, p20: John Pilger, recycled from New Statesman – “{The attack on Iraq}, mounted against a defenceless country offering no threat to the US or Britain, has a precedent in Hitler’s invasion of Sudetenland; the lies told to justify both are eerily similar.”Well, never mind the ‘defenceless’ Iraq, but a quick refresher on the Sudetenland http://www.historyhome.co.uk/europe/hitfor.htm
doesn’t reveal any similarities to me, let alone ‘eerie’ ones. Did Iraq contain a large minority group of ethnic Americans crying out for re-union with the renascent American motherland?
P18: An entire page of Gawenda’s endless dire speculating on Scooter Libby’s impact on the Bush Presidency. Maybe he could run a piece on Monday speculating on the positive impact on the Presidency if Scooter is acquitted? People DO sometimes get acquitted, don’t they Michael?
P4: Former Family Court chief justice Alastair Nicholson (headlined “Laws the greatest attack on freedom, says former judge”) says the anti-terror bills are “the greatest attack upon individual liberties and freedom ever perpetrated by an Australian government.” Err, our civil rights were not a tiny bit intruded upon by our governments in 1939-45?
Insight p2: An anonymously-written (why?) commentary on the Blogworld, tackles the Malcolm Farr (Daily Tele) declaration that the rightist blogs are funny and the Leftist ones aren’t. The Age author (John Mangan? Gay Alcorn? Who knows?) is unwilling to label Margo’s Webdiary as ‘left’ – presumably because her truths make political labeling irrelevant – but author says that Farr calls her left. Age author shows his/her lack of homework by misquoting Farr that some of Tim Blair’s
‘comments’ were oafish and infantile, when Farr was referring to some “comment posters” on Blair’s site. But Age author is determined to show how side-splittingly witty Left blogs can be, and quotes some Broken Left Blog “satirising the anti-terrorism legislation debate on Cup day: ‘A four-way photo and a steward’s appeal by High Court Challenge means the final result won’t be known for a while,” the blog said. Not bad, Broken Left Leg. Not bad at all. And when, after all, did Malcolm Farr ever make a joke.” I am not making this up: the aforesaid is seen as the acme of Left wittiness. For those wanting more laughs from Broken Left Leg, see http://www.blogger.com/profile/14070976 —he/she seems to have generated 32 “profile views” since commencement – make that 33 counting my own visit.
P2: Editor Andrew Jaspan launches the new A2 “better, quality read on Saturday”, narrowly avoiding the phrase “better-quality read on Saturday” (than last week) by a lucky comma.
The ‘high-calibre’ lead contributor is (groan) Richard Neville: “Being involved in the deaths of up to 100,000 Iraqis could compel us to re-assess our worth.”…
“In the beginning was the lie, they threw their children overboard, and now it is a festival of lying. The bombings in Bali and London are unrelated to our presence in Iraq…” Well, Nev wants that last sentence to be a self-evident Howard lie. Given that (a) the first Bali bombing was in October 2002, and (b) the Iraq invasion started in March 2003, it’s hard to see how (b) caused (a). And at least one child WAS literally thrown overboard (SIEV 7, 24/10/01), not to mention the 76 children dunked in the drink by on-board boat saboteurs (SIEV 4, 8/10/01). On Nev’s huge spread, one’s bullshit detector melts down.
I’ll stop now although I have hardly started on this issue. Btw why is The Age circulation is declining?Just to continue off-topic for a second, check out Phillip Adams and Leunig in the Australian this morning. Phil is in his usual -christian fundamentalists are as bad as islamic fundamentalist mode but Leunig has just veered off into his own galaxy (can only find the Age link). Luckily the Australian is saved by Imre’s (typically) erudite piece on the great Bob Dylan.
o/t The media report on Thurs on Radio National celebrated “journalist"Wilfred Burchett? and his memoirs.When a guest gravely pointed out that Burchett? was photogaphed with the North Korean captors laughing and talking while Australian prisoners of war suffered in the background,the abc interviewer totally ignored it .Also a crawling interview with his niece foodie Stephanie Alexander who extolled all his virtues -how kind lovable caring he was etc and hard done by ...
ABC news launches an attack on Dubya beginning with Argentina (who could forget them with the brits’ famous headline “stick it up your Junta”).
Protester shouting “He is a GILLER.HE thinks he owns all the planet..”
Followed on am with OVER enthusiastic Mark Simple “Shouts from the protesters of SONS OF BITCHES and Maradonna wore a t shirt saying BUSH IS A WAR CRIMINAL.Chavez has accused Bush of trying to assassinate him.Chavez has JOKED of CREEPING UP BEHIND HIM(Bush) and SCARING him.Bush is being assailed from all sides.Death toll in Iraq,LYING to the F.B.I.,LIBBY( etc etc).
He wants a free trade deal over an area from Alaska to Argentina…”#32
..........would make Benedict Arnold go red with shame.
Ah! The vagaries of history! Benedict Arnold, probably one of the greatest patriots that the USA has ever known and yet, 230 odd years after the fact, he continues to be excoriated by the un-informed [and the mis-informed] and this time by a Canuck, of all persons!
PS. For the benefit of Australian readers, Major-General Benedict Arnold, victor and hero of Quebec, Valcour Island, Bemis Heights & Freeman’s Farm (Saratoga) was so incensed over the fact that a craven and ignoble Congress would treat with the French in order to win the ‘First American Civil War’ that he went over to the British believing them to be, by far, [the British public were extremely luke-warm over the ‘First’ American Civil War]the lesser of two evils. Of course, the victors tend to write the histories and consequently, generations of American school-children have been indoctrinated to believe that Benedict Arnold was a foul traitor.
Actually, if one thinks about it, Arnold’s stance was, substantially, the same as modern day American right-wing thinkers who fear the drift of [Democrat] American thought which believes that America should hand over its destiny to the United Nations.
But, alas, this is a heretical point of view [the truth often is] and I would not surprised to recieve broadsides from normally clear-thinking, right-wing Americans who are captive to their early indocrination. What was is it that the Jesuits said? “Give me the child, and we’ll give you the man?” They got that right!#16 Lionel Mandrake, you have a very weird idea of an MSM ‘mistake’. In this case the NYT writer read the whole letter and *decided to overlook* the remarkably noble words of the young soldier. He *wanted* a negative story and deliberately exploited the 2000th death to get it.
This is simply shameful. Then the NYT refuses to admit fault and confirms that this is what they *all* wanted. Sick.I suggest a t-shirt sale with the noble words of this soldier engraved on a US flag.
Let the NYT sneer at that.What, now we have to review the traitorous record of
the anti-war protestersBenedict Arnold? Boss Hog, Arnold was a Colonial general under George Washington who changed sides and led British troops in battle against Colonial troops. This, by the way, was after a British major was captured with the plans of the Annapolis fort given to him by Arnold. The British officer was hung as a spy, a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention.If he disagreed with our decision to ally with the French (damn, that would give one pause for reconsideration, would you want them guarding your back), then he could have simply resigned his commission and went back home.
Let’s keep the history books closed, shall we?
Posted by wronwright on 2005 11 05 at 03:05 AM • permalink#5, Melanie
I also heard that Casey Sheehan had had problems with his mother because he felt very differently about the war than she did. I don’t know this for sure, however, but maybe that is why we get all this false “news,” it keeps the dead dead, especially if they had politically incorrect reasons for putting themselves in harm’s way.
what deaths?
There was a time when the CIA was keeping a close monitor on Osama - through his sat phone. They were actually listening to his every phone call. Then some libtard Congress critter blabbed the info about Osama’s phone to a NYT reporter who promptly told the world.
So you can chalk up all the deaths of 911 and the war and lay it at the Times doorstep.
Posted by papertiger on 2005 11 05 at 04:48 AM • permalink“Boss Hog” illustrates the vagaries of the leftoid liar and ingnoramus. #41 has it right. There is a load of historical documentation, including that supplied by the English (and English authors; see P. Johnson “History of the American People” as only one example), that clearly shows that Arnold turned over the plans of the fort at West Point to the English, a fort that was vital to the defense of the Continentals. George Washington records that on his inspection trip he found that Arnold, a favorite of his at the time, had abandoned the Fort after having disrupted its defenses. It was Washington who ordered his arrest. Doubtful that Washington would gratuitously have ordered the arrest of a hero general for political reasons given the military situation at the time. All this and historical sources can be found in any American History 101 course, even those given in France and England. I notice Boss Hog gives no sources for his assertions. Pathetic that the leftoids are left to support one traitor in order to justify the actions of the traitorous cabal called the NYT.
Oh rats, I think stats is right. It was West Point, not Annapolis. Sorry, my research assistants left early today. The important thing is it was one of those forts that later became a military academy.
Are you sure it wasn’t the Air Force Academy?
Anyway, I seem to recall that Benedict Arnold was influenced by not having received greater recognition, not receiving a promotion, and constant nagging by his wife (“oh sure, look at Colonel Alexander Hamilton, he gets all the good jobs, look at how nice a tent he provided for his family, and what do you provide for your family, a dirty old lean to, what kind of a general are you?” In other words, Scott Ritter.
Personally, I think he should have just bitch slapped the woman and continued fighting the dirty Redcoats. (Apologies to my British cousins).
Posted by wronwright on 2005 11 05 at 01:24 PM • permalinkPerhaps Boss Hog might try to learn a bit of American History by reading Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton. He might learn that France helped the Continentals for its own purposes in its war against England, and that Washington was well aware of this fact. Washington had no implicit trust of the French, as Arnold must have known. The documentation supports #45. Boss Hog is out of sync with present American views as well. He states the “drift of American thought” is that “America should hand over its destiny to the United Nations.” Yeh, right, and to hand over to France our domestic policy regarding minorities and to hand over Freedom of Speech to the NYT. By the way, Hog, some advice: change the name lest you inflame some young Muslims.
Richard Neville: “Richard Neville: “Being involved in the deaths of up to 100,000 Iraqis could compel us to re-assess our worth.””
So we’ve still got a float of what, 74,000 to play with?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 11 05 at 04:12 PM • permalinkRe President Bush and the protests in Latin American. Amazing. So they don’t want a free trade agreement? Fine - don’t have one. A weird attitude to take when the rest of the civilised world is falling over itself to get a free trade agreement with the US - witness the hoops we in Australia had to jump through to get one. As far as most reasonable people are concerned the ridiculous Latins can continue to fester in the economic swamp of their own making.
Posted by walterplinge on 2005 11 05 at 07:55 PM • permalink#49, Please refer to #41,44,45,46 above. Arnold did more than simply “betray” Washington. He sold the plans to the British for the defense of the Upper Hudson River against the British Navy and degraded the defenses of West Point. Had the British taken the fort at West Point, the key defense barricade, they could have cut the Continentals in two and prevented supplies from reaching Washington, which would have ended the Revolution. Arnold was not just a “betrayer”, but, simply put, a traitor, selling out his countrymen for a position in the British army. Wronwright (above) is correct,as letters in her own hand reveal, that his wife instigated him on. But do so-called liberals need to reach back 200 years to divert us from the traiterous behavior of the NYT?
“The British officer was hung as a spy, a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention.”
Major Andre was indeed executed as a spy. But the Geneva Conventions don’t protect spies. They also didn’t exist in those days - the first of the many Geneva Conventions dates from 1864.
Posted by big dirigible on 2005 11 06 at 02:05 PM • permalink17 Rob Crawford
“The MSM, by definition, publish their mistakes for the whole world to see.”
Really?
When did they start doing that? NYT still proudly displays Duranty’s Pulitzer. ”Tut tut, Rob, tut TUT!
They DO publish their mistakes for the whole world to see! Not the corrections, just the mistakes.Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 11 08 at 12:44 PM • permalink44 Stats
“Boss Hog” illustrates the vagaries of the leftoid liar and ingnoramus. ... Pathetic that the leftoids are left to support one traitor in order to justify the actions of the traitorous cabal called the NYT.
Hey! I’m pretty sure that Boss Hog has never posted ANY leftoid crap on this blog. Admittedly the choice of “defending” B.Arnold (if that’s what he was doing) is mighty unusual, and hard to defend, but B.H. as a leftoid? I think not. Sorry it took me so long to react to this, but I wasted a lot of time scrolling back through past posts looking for any earlier leftozoid-looking Boss Hog comments, and finding none.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2005 11 08 at 12:53 PM • permalink
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Time to expose them on a big scale. Hopefully the NYP article is just the beginning.