Sunday, February 28, 2010

The NYT Veers Neocon

By Robert Parry
February 28, 2010

Many American progressives don’t want to recognize how bad the U.S. mainstream news media has become. It’s easier to praise a few exceptions to the rule and to hope that some pendulum will swing than to undertake the challenging task of building a new and honest media infrastructure.

Read on.
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17 comments:

Ed Schofield said...

I have declined to read the New York Times for several years now, for the very reason you report--viz., its neocon bias. I personally will not give the Judith Miller caper a pass. Unfortunately for me, both my local daily and our regional daily are owned by--you guessed it: The New York Times.
Is it any wonder I abhor most currently available "news" sources?

Sun Feb 28, 12:11:00 PM 2010
M Henri Day said...

No doubt, several years after a US war of aggression against Iran has started and reveals itself to be something other than a resounding «success», the New York Times will apologise for its support for and its failure to properly analyse the machinations leading to up to the adventure, just as it did in the case of Iraq. That is to say, in the event that the New York Times and the rest of us are still around to investigate the matter....

Henri

Sun Feb 28, 12:13:00 PM 2010
Anonymous said...

Israel is not a "rogue nuclear nation" and allowing a truly rogue nation like Iran to wield a nuclear bomb would be a regional catastrophe. Otherwise Parry is right on target, which is to say he's out to lunch on this issue. We damn well had better get "aggressive" with Iran. BTW: I opposed the war in Iraq but drawing parallels is unproductive and irrational.

Sun Feb 28, 12:33:00 PM 2010
M Henri Day said...

Alas, Anonymous, aside from its sponsor, there is no state that deserves the epithet «rogue» better than Israel. But one won't read that in the New York Times, where, with few exceptions only the news that the US ruling elite deems fit to print is to be seen....

Henri

Sun Feb 28, 12:38:00 PM 2010
Reginald Johnson said...

Nice job Bob. You hit the nail on the head. I still read the Times for its solid national and local reporting. But the paper's drift into conservative positions on international issues is depressing. It means there's one more voice out there stoking the fires for another catastrophic war in the Middle East.

Reg Johnson

Sun Feb 28, 12:44:00 PM 2010
Anonymous said...

This is not so much neocon bias as pro-Israel bias, I think, which it is not surprising to find at The Times. The effect is pretty much the same, though.

Sun Feb 28, 03:17:00 PM 2010
Realist said...

Could this hard right turn be caused in part by the recent investment of Billionaire Carlos Slim into the Grey Lady? He's currently involved in a very shady telecommunications scandal in Mexico, and we all know that billionaires have "profit opportunities" all over the world. They aren't going to want any of them exposed for public view, especially after what Wall Street banks have gotten away with. so if you are going to bury some, why not bury them all and spend the time shilling for yet another major profit opportunity?

Sun Feb 28, 05:53:00 PM 2010
Anonymous said...

Would rather watch the Olympics Hockey play-offs -- even though Canada won gold, than waste my time with the NY Times. What happened to them? Wait until they start to charge for their on-line articles -- that will be au revoir to them!

Sun Feb 28, 06:11:00 PM 2010
Tao Dao Man said...

I hardly read news organizations from the U.S.A. any more. IMO: Most, if not all are controlled or influenced by and for other entities, that have an agenda of their own. One that is detrimental for the U.S.A.

Sun Feb 28, 11:00:00 PM 2010
me said...

You've got to be kidding. You just now realized that The Gray Whore is a right-wing rag? For crying out loud, this is the paper that hired William Kristol!

The NYT has been conservative propaganda for many years. (Of course, that doesn't prevent Fox News from branding it liberal - when has Fox ever told the truth?)

If there is a liberal newspaper in this country, I'm not aware of it. The best one can hope for is impartial, but there are sadly few of those left.

Sun Feb 28, 11:10:00 PM 2010
big em said...

The NYT seems like a paper that used to try to present more varied opinions, but as longtime critics of the NYT like Noam Chomsky/Ed Herman (see their landmark "Manufacturing Consent" from 1988), the FAIR organization (whom once remarked that the NYT always found a way to end up supporting US military actions and opposing organized labor), and others have long noted, the underlying everything was still the same commercial basis for their existence - - advertising revenue, and they were ultimately status quo. Add to this (as Bob Parry himself has noted) the self-censuring 'allure of access' to powerful official sources, and I don't think that recently speaking the NYT had that far to "veer" to become Neocon.

Sun Feb 28, 11:40:00 PM 2010
Big Dan said...

I wish, though, that people who out the mainstream media for not being liberal would ADDITIONALLY address how an essential part of the usurping is to repeat over and over that it's still "liberal" or the takeover wouldn't work. WHO is saying it's "liberal"? The people who usurped it! The neo-cons themselves say the mainstream media they have taken over is liberal! Please don't leave out that part! Ever!

WHO says the mainstream media is liberal (and it isn't)? Rush Limbaugh, Charles Krauthammer, Sean Hannity, Gaffney, Breitbart, Ann Coulter, Dick Cheney, etc...the exact ones who took it over!

Sun Feb 28, 11:46:00 PM 2010
Big Dan said...

Then when they're IN and ON the "liberal media", they act like it's because they're getting "equal time" like some kind of fairness act. When they're the only ones on it.

Have you seen on ABC lately: Noam Chomsky? Howard Zinn? Cynthia McKinney? Ralph Nader? Dennis Kucinich?

Funny! I thought it was the "liberal media", but I only see Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich on it! And Liz Cheney! But NEVER Noam Chomsky on the "liberal media"!

Sun Feb 28, 11:49:00 PM 2010
Big Dan said...

One last thing: another essential part of the sham is to define who the liberals are, and make sure they're not the real liberals. The Democrats are the liberals (ha ha ha) and the REAL liberals are ignored.

So what does this do? Ignore the real liberals, call the centrists the liberals, and call the right the center, and they've framed what America talks about: from center to mostly right, because they've defined the center as "liberals" and completely ignored the liberals.

Sun Feb 28, 11:52:00 PM 2010
Nat Parry said...

Big Dan, I totally agree with your last point. I cringe every time I hear right-wingers refer to essentially, centrist, coporatist Democrats as being "liberal," or worse when they refer to slightly left-of-center groups like MoveOn.org as being "far left".

It has always seemed to me that they do this consciously, to pre-emptively define the parameters of debate. An organization like MoveOn is considered "far left" for mildly criticizing the war in Iraq, which means that organizations that truly are far left, such as the ANSWER Coalition, are never even given the respect of being trashed by right-wingers ... they simply don't exist.

This means that radical analyses of the deeper motivations of U.S. policy never see the light of day, and that the most we can hope for are milquetoast criticisms of the war being a "mistake" or "badly managed." This is what passes for far left ... of course, the ultimate casualty is the truth.

Mon Mar 01, 07:16:00 AM 2010
snoopy7 said...

We understand the dishonest news dialog is every where. We also need to understand why? Because the courts allowed fox "news" to lie. When their news person refused to lie he was fired and the courts allowed fox to get away with it. The courts said they could fire him since he is their employee and he refused to do as they asked of him. Forget that they are suppose to be the "news" and not lie to us. Now these great courts are allowing corporations to be able to donate as much $ as they want into our political system. Things are only gonna get worse with this activist supreme court. I bent over backwards against alito and roberts only to be kicked to the curb as dems and repubs voted for them. Now we get the just reward for allowing them into power...

Mon Mar 01, 08:08:00 AM 2010
Anonymous said...

Come on.... The NYT is a direct arm of the Israel goverment. First Iraq, using the WMD fairy tale, now Iran and nuclear weapons. Where you born yesterday?

Thu Mar 04, 09:30:00 AM 2010

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