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Last updated on July 2nd, 2017 at 07:52 am

The SMH’s Paul Sheehan on a 43rd Street disgrace:

And this by the same newspaper that has published more fabrications than any other mainstream newspaper in America – courtesy of one Jayson Blair – yet has still not addressed the underlying flaw in the paper’s culture – a sly partisanship that permeates the appearance of scrupulous journalism …

On the day the Times published its attack on his character, McCain’s office issued a statement which began: “It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign.”

The statement is wrong. The New York Times did not lower its standards. These are its standards.

Click for a ten screen shakedown of the NYT’s smear.

Posted by Tim B. on 02/25/2008 at 12:15 AM
    1. Whoah, thats a high quality fisking. And in the SMH ? That was my flying pig moment for the day.

      Posted by Jono on 2008 02 25 at 12:25 AM • permalink

 

    1. The publisher did lead to a bit of a WTF moment. Don’t look too hard a Sheehan though, he’s got a bit of the nut job in him with the whacky magic water championing.

      Posted by tortfeaser on 2008 02 25 at 12:27 AM • permalink

 

    1. The NYT should realise that the game’s up when a fellow traveller like the SMH publishes such a methodical demolition of their story.

      Posted by craigo on 2008 02 25 at 12:30 AM • permalink

 

    1. Paul Sheehan is the biggest schizo in Australian journalism. One day he’ll be giving the The NYT the Fisking of its lifetime, then next he’ll be extolling the vitues of magic water. Never boring.

      Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2008 02 25 at 12:49 AM • permalink

 

    1. The day that the NYT closes its doors forever is a day that a major boil on the butt of humanity was cured.

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 02 25 at 12:51 AM • permalink

 

    1. Old Gray Lady? More like Old Cat Lady.

      Posted by Dave S. on 2008 02 25 at 01:12 AM • permalink

 

    1. #4 beat me to it, IT.  Sheehan occasionally seems to be channeling his namesake, Mama Moonbat.

      Posted by anthony_r on 2008 02 25 at 01:18 AM • permalink

 

    1. Old Gray Lady.

      Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 02 25 at 01:29 AM • permalink

 

    1. I’m sure I read recently all about the conservative-run MSM in Australia (as represented by the SMH) at Australia’s version of the influential Daily Kos.

      Posted by andycanuck on 2008 02 25 at 01:50 AM • permalink

 

    1. #4, #7.

      I dunno.

      Paul Sheehan’s right more often than he’s wrong.  Think of his books, The Electronic Whorehouse, in which he wrote about the extent of spin, smearing and generalised weaselling in the Australian media.  And Girls Like You, where he exposed the background to and racism in the organised pack rapes of young girls by Muslim males in Australia.

      I agree that the magic water bit was, however, a bit off the wall and slightly creepy.

      Posted by ann j on 2008 02 25 at 01:55 AM • permalink

 

    1. In might just be that Sheehan was angry at the way the NYT smeared a good and honourable man. Doesn’t mean Sheehan necessarily supports McCain. Sheehan might have principles, something lacking at the NYT.
      May the NYT continue to shrivel and die. Its passing won’t be mourned.

      Posted by Contrail on 2008 02 25 at 03:10 AM • permalink

 

    1. It was an excellent fisking by Sheehan. Either he has journalistic standards, or he’s trying to seem edgy and different.

      Posted by Ash_ on 2008 02 25 at 03:31 AM • permalink

 

    1. A 54-point fisking might seem a bit excessive if he’s only trying to be edgy. He’s not the only one who takes issue with the New Duranty Times’ “journalistic ethics”:

      Speaker Blinker Pelosi and the New York Times’ Blind Eye

      (E)asily discovered appearance of unethical behavior on the part of Democratic leaders weighs far more heavily than the thin evidence provided against Senator McCain. Maybe the The New York Times has an ethics problem of its’ own.

      Ya don’t say?

      Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 02 25 at 03:39 AM • permalink

 

    1. Sheehan has an axe to grind? Or maybe he is really worried that Obama might win the general? No idea. I chuckled when I read through his take down…so methodical and detailed.

      Posted by MannyC on 2008 02 25 at 05:28 AM • permalink

 

    1. Or maybe that NYT article on crocodiles in Kakadu didn’t get him the kudos he was yearning for in 1986.

      http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE0D6143CF930A15751C0A960948260&sec=travel&spon;=&pagewanted=print

      Posted by MannyC on 2008 02 25 at 05:29 AM • permalink

 

    1. The point of the “54 points” was to echo Dave Kopel’s 59 Deceits in Fahrenheit 911 (remember that one?)

      Posted by blogstrop on 2008 02 25 at 06:26 AM • permalink

 

    1. Hang on! Jayson Blair?

      Tim, is he one of your relatives from the Dark Side of journalism? You know, the deep murk where, squidlike, Robert Fisk lurks?

      Was he born on the wrong side of the newspaper? You can tell us…

      Posted by carpefraise on 2008 02 25 at 06:38 AM • permalink

 

    1. slightly o/t

      I reckon Nader’s decision to enter the race has handed the keys to McCain.

      Thoughts?

      Posted by murph on 2008 02 25 at 07:32 AM • permalink

 

    1. It’s not on 43rd Street any more or, as the NYT used to say, “43d Street.” They’re in the new New York Times Building where rats were plummeting from breaking ceiling tiles some months ago. It’s on 8th Ave, somewhere in the 50s.

      Posted by ForNow on 2008 02 25 at 09:48 AM • permalink

 

    1. What do you expect, ForNow?  Are we to put our lives in danger by going there to check on the address?  Ignoring Google, of course.

      Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 02 25 at 10:11 AM • permalink

 

    1. I’ll tell you a real 43rd Street Scandal—they threw out the dirty book stores and brought Disney in.  Did you ever try to find back issues of Sex to Sexty by trying to order them from Belle the Librarian at the Disney Store?

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 02 25 at 10:47 AM • permalink

 

    1. Way to go, Sheehan! I was going to say, “that’s gonna leave a mark”, but it might be more accurate to say that “the body was so thoroughly mutilated that a positive ID could not be made.” Great fisking.

      Posted by paco on 2008 02 25 at 12:40 PM • permalink

 

    1. The world of the dinosaurs ended with a bang.  The world of the New York Times is ending with a whimper (and it’s taking way too long).

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 02 25 at 01:08 PM • permalink

 

    1. An Open Letter to Rudy Giuliani:

      Are you, Mister Mayor, unaware
      That due to your cleaned-up Times Square
      How Hard Wendy Blew
      And Night Nurses 2
      Have disappeared into thin air?

      It isn’t that I really care;
      It’s just, Mister Mayor, that I’d swear
      The Gray Lady was
      Included because
      You promised to clean up Times Square.

      Posted by lyle on 2008 02 25 at 01:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. Correction: The NY Times
      Admits an Error in Judgment
      We’re not very bright; it backfired;
      We made him look virile, not tired.
      We don’t understand;
      We ruined our brand
      And middle-aged men were inspired.

      Posted by lyle on 2008 02 25 at 01:33 PM • permalink

 

    1. #15, Manny,

      “The oldest paintings, which are simple red ocher renderings, depict the long-departed Tasmanian tiger”

      Now I’m just a simple bogan from the far side of the country, but im pretty damn sure they were still about in the 1930’s.  It was pretty hard to fake the old black and white film footage back in them days.

      50 years is in no way, shape or form ‘long departed’ when you’re talking about the extinction of an entire species.

      Then again he wrote for the NYT and writes for the SMH.  Perspective seems to be a rather rare commodity at those particular establishments.

      Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2008 02 25 at 01:40 PM • permalink

 

    1. In a case of ‘idiot bitten twice’, Bill Bradley shows that the same editor who smeared Arnie in the 2003 Californian campaign was also at the centre of NYT’s McCain smear.

      Posted by JAFA on 2008 02 25 at 04:01 PM • permalink

 

    1. a sly partisanship that permeates the appearance of scrupulous journalism …

      That’s not a bug, it’s a feature…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 02 25 at 09:15 PM • permalink

 

  1. I have to go on the record here as saying I think Paul Sheehan is awesome. Reading his weekly columns in the SMH created some of the first cracks in my old worldview and started my drift rightwards.

    Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 26 at 08:36 PM • permalink