On the same day that Jon Stewart states unequivocally that the NY Times does not work as a liberal activist organization, they pull an all-time great mental-gymnastics move to slime (or at least make the attempt) Justice Clarence Thomas.
Which one didn't get the memo?
Pointing out the idiocy of Juan Williams used to be a hobby of mine. Then he went and started making sense; imagine how much of a monkey-wrench that threw into things!
Well, during yesterday's FNS panel discussion about Republican Presidential candidates, the idiot reappeared, if ever so briefly. It takes nearly all 9 minutes to get there, but the amazingly ridiculous statement in question comes at the 8:44 mark.
The NY Times is going for the dough with an online pay model, details to be coming soon according to this report:
During a New York Press Club Q&A session at CUNY's Graduate School of Journalism, a man who identified himself as a retired reporter named Ken wanted to know why he should keep paying to receive the Grey Lady in hard copy.
"I subscribe to home delivery, but I get the next day's paper around 11:30 p.m. on the Internet," explained Ken, an older gentleman with a deep drawl. "The depth of the online edition is so vast," he said--and "the thinness of the print edition is so noticeable" as to be useless.
Keller clearly hadn't anticipated the question. "Um," he paused at the outset of his reply. "I'm not gonna argue that you should pay for something that you don't find useful. . . . I still personally like the print edition of the paper." For instance, "I like that I can read it on the subway," Keller continued. "I like that I can share it around the breakfast table. I like lying back in bed reading the newspaper better than I like lying back in bed reading the website on my iPad. ... But look, if you don't find that it's worth the money, I'm not gonna argue that you should donate to the New York Times as an act of charity."
Ken will soon be getting more bang for his buck. As a print subscriber, he won't be impacted when the Times moves forward with its long-delayed plans for erecting a metered paywall around its online content. Habitual online readers who don't buy the paper in print, however, will have to start paying for monthly access to nytimes.com. New York Times Co. chief executive Janet Robinson announced earlier this week that the set-up for the new online model is in its "final testing phase," and that "We expect it will launch shortly."
But "Will it be worth it?," is the bigger question.
A bit about the NY Times response to the hacking/leaking of sensitive emails surrounding the climate change debate:
The NYT’s environmental blog, Dot Earth, covered the disclosure of e-mails and other files from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, noted that the files are available on various other website, but did not reproduce any files on its site. As Andrew Revkin explained in the post:
The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.
Am I wrong in thinking that this is a change in policy for the NYT? Hasn’t the Grey Lady published illegally obtained documents on national security and other matters in the past?
As I posted earler this morning, there are reasons to believe these documents were released by an internal whistleblower, rather than an external hacker. If so, would the same considerations apply? My initial thought is that arguments against publishing hacked documents might not apply to those disclosed by a whistleblower. In any event, it seems these documents contain substantial material of legitimate public interest, and this interest is not diminished by the way in which the documents were obtained. I readily concede that if the documents were stolen, as it appears, the individual responsible should be prosecuted, but this is a separate question from whether to disseminate the contents of the documents themselves.
Hide the Decline indeed (Well, they are trying).
Or everything AP at least. The ROI on this is atrocious so I wonder what the guys in the Finance office think:
If you wonder why American newspapering is dying, consider this sign-off:
AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report.
Wow. That's ten "AP writers" plus Calvin Woodward, the AP writer whose twinkling pen honed the above contributions into the turgid sludge of the actual report. That's 11 writers for a 695-word report. What on? Obamacare? The Iranian nuke program? The upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
No, the Associated Press assigned 11 writers to "fact-check" Sarah Palin's new book, and in return the 11 fact-checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors. That's 1.8333333 writers for each error. What earth-shattering misstatements did they uncover for this impressive investment?
Nothing worth mentioning, though Steyn does go on to include the horrors errors. Suffice to say, AP paid 11 people an undetermined amount of money to pick at nits.
As an added bonus, Steyn goes on to note the free transcription services provided by Media Matters.
Turns out the Washington Post is selling access to Administration and newspaper officials. For as little as $25K, lobbyists get access in a 'non-confrontational setting' to Admin officials, members of Congress and even (HOW EXCITING!) the Post's editorial staff.
Outrageous.
The once and future cynic in me, however, is wondering if the usual suspects who raised bloody hell about this and cried foul over this in the last Administration have anything useful to say about the Post's trashing of journalistic ethics.
Everybody's favorite Washington Post aggregator is silent on the subject. And most others as well it seems...
Beautiful, marvelous, glorious Schadenfreude:
Following a testy exchange during today’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.
“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”
Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.
“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said.“I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well—for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”
LOL...when you carry the man's water for the better part of two years, how can you act surprised when you're being taken for granted?
Word comes down that the President will "filter" questions at his Virginia town-hall meeting. That prompted this from the folks at The Weekly Standard:
Both White Houses are entitled to hold such events, which are inherently and sensibly orchestrated to benefit each executive. The press is right to note that fact while reporting them. Odd that the Times chose to do that only for the Bush administration, huh?
Well, no not really. The media in general and the Times in particular wanted nothing to do with President Bush. For the last 6 years of his Presidency they were unambiguously critical, offering no support even for long-held Democrat and liberal positions during the 2005 Social Security Reform debate.
I don't know about you but I read enough screeds to last a lifetime in the Bush years about the imbecile-in-chief who couldn't handle a 'live' question. Fast-forward 5 years and there is no substantive difference between the former President's handling of town-hall events and his predecessor's. Aside from the media's unambiguous support for everything the predecessor does.
The folks at PJTV give you the Left's version of Young Republicans. All that's missing are the Appletinis...
This post has gotten quite a lot of notice in the last couple of days and for a number of reasons. First off, it neatly if not very cynically nails the NY Times' coverage of President-in-waiting, Barack Obama:
In this morning's lead editorial ("New and Not Improved"), they detail and denounce many of Obama's post-Hillary pivots to the center. As their irritation builds, I'm thinking that there are only three positions that could explain this editorial. First, that the editors genuinely believe that Obama could win the general election with his primary season policy ideas. It is believable that they think this because they live inside a Manhattan cocoon, but silly. Second, that the editors would rather that Obama lose than compromise his principles. This seems unlikely in the cold light of a November morning, however satisfying it might feel to spew such romantic drivel on the Fourth of July. Or, third, the editors know that Obama's pivots will be much more believable to the swing voters if the Times denounces them. This theory holds that the editors are pretending to be outraged so as to further deceive the rubes who prefer the Flop to the Flip.
However, what I found most appealing was this pie-in-the-face tothe Times' editorial board found in the following couple of paragraphs:
For bonus comedy gold, note well the gun-control lie embedded in the editorial (emphasis added):
Mr. Obama endorsed the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the District of Columbia’s gun-control law. We knew he ascribed to the anti-gun-control groups’ misreading of the Constitution as implying an individual right to bear arms.
Dudes. In the just-decided Heller case, all nine of the Justices of the Supreme Court found that the Second Amendment describes an individual right to bear arms. Are you lying to your own readers, or are you so wedded to your own reading of the Constitution -- the anti-freedom reading -- that you will not give it up even when Ruth Bader Ginsberg (for example) disagrees with you? (emphasis added)
Similarly as I did here, Tigerhawk not only points out but also nails the absurdity of the lefts argument on guns as made plain in the Instapundit post but goes deeper and puts meat on the bones. And quite honestly, he does a better job.
All the linkage and twice the sarcasm. Well done...
We ran this bit of ridiculousness from the AP on the front page (yes, above the fold). How I managed to summon the strength to get on with my day after reading it I still am unsure.
Others better and stronger than I have taken turns ripping it to shreds and rightfully so. James Pethokoukis sheds light on the bad math and Lileks--as only he can do--dismantles everything else.
When your employer shows up on somebody's analysis as at-risk for bankruptcy...
In last week's post I calculated Z scores, an index used to forecast bankruptcy risk, for the New York Times (NYT) and several key competitors, including the Washington Post (WPO), News Corp (NWS), and the McClatchy News Group (MNI) using the 10K and 10Q reports. Since then I did the calculations for four more newspaper publishers, Gannett (GCI), Journal Register (JRE), Lee (LEE), and Scripps (SSP). The results are consistent with the respective business conditions facing each company
NYT WPO NWS MNI GCI SSP LEE JRE Z Score 9/2007
1.835 4.118 2.139 0.812 2.755 4.137 1.282 0.752
News Corp., The Washington Post, Gannett and Scripps all score well above the 1.8 high risk threshold. These companies are diversified communications media companies with a number of high performance segments offsetting the structural decay of their newspaper properties. The other companies in the danger zone are all mainly pure-play newspaper businesses that made the fatal decision to buy out competitors at a false bottom similar to Movie Gallery's bad move.
McClatchy, Lee, The Journal Register and to lesser extent the New York Times should be placed on the watch list.
Scott Thomas has a real name.
For a guy who fancies himself some sort of creative genius, he didn't do a great job in creating a nome de guerre. It turns out that Scott is more accurately known as Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a private currently serving in Iraq.
He has a blog--one it seems that was only ever updated sporadically--and dreams of literary fame. He's also a bit odd, least as I can tell based on the digging of some others:
Michelle Malkin's thoughts on Scott are here, Dean Barnett's are here.
Bigger questions remain however, primarily awaiting answers from TNR. At least one blogger is reporting that our would-be Kerouac is married or about to marry a TNR staffer.
Which of course goes to exactly how Mr. Beauchamp got his gig. It still however, does not explain how TNR managed to publish three diaries with seemingly no (public anyway) corroboration of any of the supposed facts 'reported' from Baghdad.
Whatever becomes of it, as many point out, Mr. Beauchamp and his comrades may see some hard time(s). Were I a betting man, I'd wager a dishonorable discharge may be his best hope for how all this ends.
The New Republic published a pseudonymous piece this week that has caused quite a stir in the blogosphere. It appears that author "Scott Thomas" may have taken a page from our good friends at CBS with a tale that appears fake and inaccurate.
Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard has done yeoman's work in compiling and asking questions about Thomas' story. His work, in turn, has led to numerous contributions from many in positions to know of what they speak.
Some of my favorite responses include but are not limited to the following:
Military units don't blatantly disregard orders- So, it's not just a story of one soldier dancing around with human remains. Rather, it's a story of an entire military unit and its command structure defying orders and forgetting one of the main reasons why they were there.
The author doesn't know the military- This came home to me in particular with the description of the alleged soldiers mocking a female burn victim. This might happen in a high school cafeteria, but not in a war zone where men risk this same fate on a daily basis, and have seen their buddies maimed and killed. I have never heard of service people making sport of the combat wounded.
Timing is everything- This was supposedly a Saddam-era mass grave, buried underground in a desert climate for years or even decades. The human remains purportedly included "bones" that were anatomically identifiable even in fragment form — tibias, shoulder blades, pieces of hands and fingers. And then the platoon discovered "the top part of a human skull, which was almost perfectly preserved."
Now imagine what that looks like — a "perfectly preserved" piece of human skull that has been buried for no fewer than five years and perhaps many more, deep in the ground in a desert climate and surrounded by bare bone fragments. Form a mental image.
As for me--like the active duty CO writes at the Worldwide Standard--it's almost something straight out of the movies. My initial reaction when I read it was that it easily could have been something adapted from the "Deleted Scenes" feature on the 20th Anniversary edition of Oliver Stone's autobiography.
Thomas' tales are just too much in lock-step with everything bad you've already ever heard about the US Military. Not to mention, it sounds like he doesn't know a thing about driving a Bradley...
Oh...my...Lord!
First the WSJ on the Boston Globe on Hamas' Palestinian blitzkrieg:
The Boston Globe editorial board looks at the Gaza civil war, and finds it's the fault of the Jews:
The people of Gaza are the true victims of the civil war most of all because the fighting is destroying their future. With the military wing of Hamas poised to seize complete control of Gaza in what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has rightly called a "coup attempt," Gaza's residents stand to lose whatever hope remained of achieving independence and a decent life in a viable Palestinian state.
The Hamas campaign to eradicate Fatah from Gaza is certainly not the sole cause of Gazans' misery. They long suffered from Israel's suffocating occupation, and then from Ariel Sharon's foolishly unilateral withdrawal in 2005, a move that allowed Hamas to bid for power with the misleading claim that its rockets and suicide bombings had driven Israeli soldiers and settlers out of Gaza.
According to the Globe, Israel is to blame both for its "occupation" and for having ended it--the latter of which "allowed Hamas to bid for power." But "the people of Gaza" are innocent victims. It somehow escapes the Globe's notice that Hamas came to power because Palestinians voted for it. The Globe denies that Palestinians are responsible for their own actions, and thereby dehumanizes them under a pretense of compassion.
Good Lord...you'd be hardpressed to find a good fiction writer that could come up with a storyline that ridiculous. In an effort to try though, we get this:
"A leading Democratic lawmaker lashed out at the former leaders of Germany and France, calling former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder a 'political prostitute,' " the Associated Press reports from Washington:
"I am so glad that the era of Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder in Germany is now gone," [California's Rep. Tom] Lantos said to applause.
He said when the United States asked Schroeder to support its decision to go to war in Iraq "he told us where to go."
"I referred to him as a political prostitute, now that he's taking big checks from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin. But the sex workers in my district objected, so I will no longer use that phrase," Lantos said. . . .
Lantos said Chirac "should go down to the Normandy beaches. He should see those endless rows of white marble crosses and stars of David representing young Americans who gave their lives for the freedom of France."
He said under the successors of Schroeder and Chirac, Angela Merkel in Germany and Nicolas Sarkozy in France, relations with the United States "will take a very positive turn"
A few years ago Donald Rumsfeld was disparaging "old Europe" while Lantos's fellow Democrats were accusing the Bush administration of alienating America's allies, most notably Germany and France. It looks as though Rumsfeld was right, and the allies have come around, to the extent that they are capable of doing so. Once again, reports of the Bush administration's failure were greatly exaggerated.
It makes my head hurt.
Tony Snow turns the tables for a moment on the morons, er...I mean members of the WH Press Corps (Hat tip to NRO's Media Blog):
Q But doesn't the indefinite holding of this many prisoners under these circumstances really undercut the President's arguments in favor of democracy worldwide, as he just spoke about in his speech —
MR. SNOW: How does it do that?
Q That's what I'm asking you.
MR. SNOW: No, the question doesn't make sense to me. How does that happen?
Q By not having due process for every —
MR. SNOW: Are you saying that detaining people who are plucked off the battlefields is an assault on democracy? Are you kidding me? You're talking about the people who were responsible for supporting the Taliban, somehow detaining them is an assault on democracy?
Q And not charging them —
Q Yes. You're getting quite a bit of criticism internationally, as well as domestically on the issue of holding people indefinitely without charge. Are you denying that's the case?
MR. SNOW: No, many have been held, but many also are now being processed through the system. What I just thought was peculiar is that you have people who waged active warfare against democracy and you think detaining them somehow is an assault on democracy.
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