I also noted two years ago that I had taken up the public editor duties believing “there is no conspiracy” and that The Times’s output was too vast and complex to be dictated by any Wizard of Oz-like individual or cabal. I still believe that, but also see that the hive on Eighth Avenue is powerfully shaped by a culture of like minds — a phenomenon, I believe, that is more easily recognized from without than from within.
When The Times covers a national presidential campaign, I have found that the lead editors and reporters are disciplined about enforcing fairness and balance, and usually succeed in doing so. Across the paper’s many departments, though, so many share a kind of political and cultural progressivism — for lack of a better term — that this worldview virtually bleeds through the fabric of The Times.
As a result, developments like the Occupy movement and gay marriage seem almost to erupt in The Times, overloved and undermanaged, more like causes than news subjects.
Jill Abramson, the editor of the paper, disagrees with this assessment. ”In our newsroom we are always conscious that the way we view an issue in New York is not necessarily the way it is viewed in the rest of the country or world. I disagree with Mr. Brisbane’s sweeping conclusions,” she told Politico.
He makes it seem as if it’s a bad thing, also this is the same paper that gives a platform to great progressives voices like David “Turd” Brooks, Nicholas “I couldn’t even be more racist if I tried” Kristof and Thomas “How do I still have a job?” Friedman. Yes that’s sarcasm. I’d rather magazines have a progressive voice than a “Ron Paul” or Tea Party narrative. Jesus.
The New York Times is suing the Department of Justice over the legality of targeted killings and withholding information on the controversial drone program. Reporters Scott Shane and Charlie Savage are pushing for the DOJ to release its own legal analysis and conclusions of the situation, pointing to news reports in which officials mentioned a DOJ memorandum that authorized the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and statements alluding to DOJ legal analysis of the situation.
Part of the complaint reads:
Given the questions surrounding the legality of the practice under both U.S. and international law, notable legal scholars, human rights activists, and current and former government officials have called for the government to disclose its legal analysis justifying the use of targeted lethal force, especially as it applies to American citizens.”
….
“Both before and after the death of al-Awlaki, NYT duly filed FOIA requests seeking memoranda that detail the legal analysis behind the government’s use of targeted lethal force. To date, DOJ has refused to release any such memoranda or any segregable portions, claiming them to be properly classified and privileged and in respect to certain memoranda has declined to say whether they in fact exist.”
When CNN contacted the DOJ by email, a spokeswoman replied, “Sorry, don’t have any comment.”
Read the document in full here.
Leif Parsons’ image accompanying the NY Times opinion piece, Good Minus God.
