Look, this whole furor over the Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times is being treated as a stain on the paper's spotless reputation instead of what it really is: just another example of how corrupt this "newspaper of record" has become.
For many years the Times has been the voice of the radical left, straining to interpret events to fit its ultra-liberal creed. As is now being widely noticed as others in the media take a closer look at the Times, a prime – and absolutely shocking – example was the lengths to which the Times, through its correspondent Walter Duranty went to cover up the murder by starvation of millions of Russian and Ukrainian peasants, denying what he knew to be true.
For his lying, Duranty was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, which the Times obstinately refused to return even when it became known that Duranty had been blackmailed by the Soviets over his rather peculiar sexual activities and had willingly done their will to avoid exposure.
That incident, along with the strenuous efforts of Times correspondent Herbert Matthews to convince the world that Fidel Castro was not a Soviet stooge seeking to turn Cuba into a Soviet satellite, should be enough to expose the Times as a conscious propaganda tool of the world's Marxist movement.
But it doesn't end there. This paper of record is anything but a record to be relied upon. In his Washington Post column, Richard Cohen, like the Times a certified liberal, wrote about having used information from a Times story some years ago.
"The story contained a mistake – a whopper, actually – which I repeated in my column," Cohen recalled. "When the person involved called to complain, I checked with lawyers for The Post, fearing a libel suit. Nothing to worry about, I was told. Such was the reputation of the Times for veracity that both law and custom permitted me to use it without further checking."
Now, that's just plain scary. Lawyers think that the Times is so sacrosanct that whatever it proclaims is the God's honest truth and needn't be challenged. I can think of nothing more deadly than a publication the record shows to be dedicated to the promotion of Marxism being accepted as the giver of all that is good and decent and honest, and therefore being relied upon as an unchallenged source for the truth.
For many years, the Times has set the pace for the media, which slavishly follows its lead, gearing its coverage of news and events to fall in line with the Times – "the newspaper of record."
But it's a sorry record indeed.
In an editorial Tuesday, the New York Post pounced on a Times story that appeared Monday, the day after the paper published its four-page mea culpa over the Jayson Blair affair, which the Post asserted "wasn't the only problem The New York Times has with reality."
Wrote the Post editorialist: "The paper's 7,200-word act of self-flagellation – published over four pages on Sunday – boiled down to this: 'Golly, it sure is tough when a clever fellow sets out to deceive us ever-vigilant folks here at The Times, where we move heaven and earth every day to get things right.' But then, right there on the paper's front page Monday morning, was yet another howler.
"'No, New York, You Don't Pay Highest Taxes,' went the headline."
According to the Post, the Times has credibility problems on at least two levels, the first type being the Jayson Blair ilk – i.e., fabrications so obvious even the Gray Lady has to admit them. "But the second kind of reporting in the Times involves far less obvious spins, distortions and, well ... lies," the Post charged, citing what it called "yesterday's whopper on city taxes. "
"'No question, New Yorkers pay a lot in taxes and are about to pay more,' said the piece by Janny Scott. 'But some studies that have compared the tax burden in cities and states nationwide ... show that New York City has not been at the top of the list for every tax rate.'
"Notice the words 'some studies' and 'for every tax rate.' They're red flags warning that the Times is about to engage in some highly selective spinning," The Post wrote.
The Times' biggest distortion, the Post noted, was focusing on tax rates among the poor in a city where, the Post explains, "tax rates are extremely progressive: Some 13,000 families in New York account for nearly a third of the city's income-tax revenue – while the poor contribute little or nothing in income taxes."
But this, the Post adds, "is only accomplished at the expense of higher-income groups, those who earn, say, $100,000 and up."
"Consider what the Times omits:
"Plus, Hizzoner, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver are now conspiring to make the tax burden even heavier – beginning, but by no means ending, with tax hikes for folks earning more than $100,000.
"So," the Post concludes, "substantial disparities not only exist, but they stand to be exacerbated – a fact of great relevance to the current city-state budget debate.
"It is, of course, no secret that The Times wears its ideological heart on its sleeve – but so what? It's entitled. But it pretends otherwise, most sanctimoniously, on an almost daily basis, and on a variety of topics – and then is shocked, shocked! when a misguided kid like Jayson Blair takes the game to its logical extreme."
On Tuesday, the Times listed a number of "corrections" of items that appeared in the paper of record recently.
So much for the record of the newspaper of record.
Finally, a lot of editor Howell Raines' journalistic colleagues are calling for his head. While that might be a fitting penalty for the man who launched a nutball crusade against the Augusta National Golf course membership for not giving in to the ravings of a radical feminist, it wouldn't solve the problem because it is the Times itself that is, and always has been, the problem.
Let those lawyers who advised Richard Cohen that the word of the Times is written in stone and may not be challenged legally or otherwise take another good look. They might find that the stone is really made of flimsy cardboard.
Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist who writes for NewsMax.com. He is editor & publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee, which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers
He can be reached at
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