NYT's Damned If You Do, Don't, Or Just Damned
The incomparable Bob Somerby should always be consulted when thinking about a meta-story about media bias, and the Daily Howler seldom disappoints.
For forty-plus years, they've yelled "liberal bias"--going all the way back to a time when the complaint might have been justified (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/14/03). And now, at long last, just this week, Mike Allen has written a "news report" so perfectly awful that we can finally, definitively say it--after reading Allen's "news report," you'd really have to be out of your mind to believe in that tired old cry.Somerby was writing about the Washington Post's reporting on Al Gore's Inconveniet Truth, but he certainly could have been writing about the New York Times and the NSA wiretapping scandal and the revelation that the Times knew about the program before the last presidential election, and sat on the story.
There is "bias" in the media -- but I wouldn't call it "liberal." It's not necessarily conservative either. There's an institutional bias in favor of covering the publication's own ass.
Without fear of exaggeration, the New York Times made decisions in the fall of 2004 that altered the course of world history. Where does it say that it's ethical to withhold information that would influence an election? News is news.
Like the Rush song says:
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.They changed history, could have driven a spike into the reelection chances of Bush/Cheney, but didn't. I don't know if they did or didn't do anything "wrong." Perhaps they were put in a position that no one should be in, nor can appreciate unless you've been there.
To be fair, if Ohio hadn't been stolen had gone Kerry's way, the Time's decision to sit on the NSA domestic spying story wouldn't have been as crucial. As it turned out, publication of the story at the time they learned of this clearly unconstitutional invasion of Americans' liberties would have swept Kerry into office.
They admittedly sat on a story that would have would have erupted ten times worse than the firestorm already witnessed -- with calls for the heads of all involved. Of course, that wouldn't change the current polarized political climate. Santorum would still be calling journalists "traitors." The difference being that he would likewise be charging that the President of the United States was a co-conspirator with those treasonist boogeymen.
This isn't just sour grapes. With a Kerry presidency, and the certain allegations that he was aided and abetted in his election bid, the chances of wrenching Congress from the GOP's sticky fingers would be a pipe-dream instead of the very realistic chance of it happening that it is today. It would have also doomed John Kerry to a one-term administration.
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