FACES AND PLACES: Will tainted Times publisher do the right thing? (11/02/03)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

Will tainted Times publisher do the right thing?

Regardless of what the Pulitzer Prize Board decides to do with the Pulitzer Prize awarded to Walter Duranty in 1932, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the ultra-liberal New York Times, should publicly repudiate Duranty for the true miscreant that he was.

Tainted reporting at The New York Times did not begin with Walter Duranty, nor did it end with Jason Blair, only the most recent Times falsifier.

In his 1969 book "All the News that Fits: A Critical Analysis of the News and Editorial Content of The New York Times," Herman H. Dinsmore, a 30-year veteran reporter and senior editor of The Times, exposed the increasingly far left of center world view of Mr. Sulzberger's newspaper. its editorials and news articles, which described Castro's Cuba as "free, honest, and democratic," helped gain initial American support for the Marxist dictator.

Mona Charen's recent book, "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First," documents Times bias. A week before the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia and massacred 2 million people, The Times ran a front page story by Sydney Schanberg which said, "for the ordinary people of Indochina ... It is difficult to imagine how their lives could be anything but better with Americans gone." In the wake of President Ronald Reagan's liberation of Grenada following a Castro-engineered takeover of the island, "America's newspaper of record" lamented that "America has no more respect for laws and borders, and the codes of civilization, than the Soviet Union." Dismissing fears that the Marxist-propelled Sandinistas were Communist insurgents as "red scare" stories, the Times predicted "better times in Nicaragua" under Commandants Daniel Ortega.

In her book "Treason: Liberal Treachery, from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism," Ann Coulter documents myriad examples of the kind of bias that earned the Times its sobriquet, "The New York Pravda." Another outrage: the Times vehemently defended Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs and Owen Lattimore, and then all but ignored the VENONA files that exposed the treachery of these Soviet spies. It was the Times which concluded that President Reagan's refusal to give in to Mikhail Gorbachev at Reykjavik, especially the president's refusal to curtail research on SDI, was an enormous diplomatic blunder.

Still another book exposing the double-dealing of The New York Times is "Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted" by Bob Kohn. Standard ideological bias in editorials and by columnists is one thing, argues Mr. Kohn, but The Times has gone far beyond this standard by subtly skewing simple news stories, often on the first page. The Times is no ordinary, local gazette. It has national impact, setting the daily news agenda for ABC, CBS and dozens of the leading newspapers through America. "The editors and reporters of The Times," writes Mr. Kohn, "determine what is news and what is newsworthy." A popular joke reads: Peter Jennings is not a "yes man." If The Times says "no," Peter Jennings says "no."

As any freshman journalism major will tell you, the lead paragraph of any news story should include simple facts: the who, what, when, where, why and how of the event. An example of a journalistically appropriate lead statement is, "President Bush today signed a sweeping corporate-fraud bill that ..." An example of a slanted Times lead-in which ran on July 31 is, "In a sign of how profoundly the nation's business scandals and volatile stock market have rocked his administration, President Bush signed a sweeping corporate fraud bill today ..."

Headlines are distorted as well. A Washington post headline on October 21, 2002, a week prior to the mid-term election, read: "Economy Gross at 3.1 Percent Pace." The Times headline read: "Economy grew at 3.1 Percent in 3rd Quarter, Slower than Expected." When reporting on a Bill Clinton economic conference, The Times described it as an "important policy conference" involving "real Americans." A similar conference organized by President George W. Bush was "stage-managed" according to The Times.

Mr. Kohn offers copious examples of how The Times slants the news by omission, distortion, falsification and emphasis. When the deceit is exposed, the apology is on a page that few people read.

Times reporters often inject their own bias into stories with such introductions as "Many feel," "Observers say," "Americans believe," "History suggests," Example: "Many economists doubt that the tax relief can be enacted quickly enough to make much difference in the economy this year." These "economists," of course, were not identified.

Name-calling is another favorite of Times reporters, especially when they can quote someone who agrees with their bias. Favorite Democrat pejoratives for Republicans, fully quoted by the Times, are "racist," "sexist" and "bigoted," "homophobic." When Democrats use terms like "obscene" to describe Republican economic policy, they are called "strident." When Republicans call Democrats "big spenders," they are called "mean-spirited."

Numerous critiques of Times reporting have appeared recently in various publications, including a convincing review in The Ukrainian Weekly by Andrew Nynka who provided persuasive evidence that Walter Duranty was a Soviet shill long before 1932.

This brings us to junior Sulzberger. Will he do the right thing? According to Mr. Kohn, the Blair fiasco led to certain managerial changes, but "the Times practice of distorting its news pages to reflect its ideological opinions goes on ..." Asked about the future of the front page after the departure of Executive Editorial Howell Raines, Mr. Sulzberger replied, "That's strategy. Things that are strategic don't change with people." Translation: at The New York Times, it will be business as usual.

And yet, there is hope. Few people thought that the Pulitzer Board would seriously consider revoking the Duranty prize until Dr. Luciuk and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) initiated their highly effective postcard campaign. Now we need to follow Dr. Luciuk's lead again and send postcards to the imperious Mr. Sulzberger whose feathers deserve some serious ruffling.

Get a postcard from your friendly, neighborhood Ukrainian activist and mail it now. No local activist? No problem. Write a personal letter to Mr. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Chairman and Publisher, The New York Times, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, NY 10036.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: mbkuropas@compuserve.com.

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