| You already know my thoughts about the New York Times' decision to hire William Kristol as a regular op-ed columnist for the newspaper. It's a bad idea. Kristol isn't an editorialist, he's a propagandist, a doctrinaire. He's been wrong on just about every issue - Iraq , the economy - but that doesn't matter in conservative circles, because he's dutifully adheres to rigid conservative doctrine.
The paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, penned an editorial shortly after Kristol's hire decrying the decision. Hoyt pointed to anti-Times statements uttered by Kristol on Fox News over the report that the government was sifting through U.S. citizens' bank records (without warrants), and said they "smacked of intimidation and disregard for both the First Amendment and the role of the free press in monitoring a govermnet..." Hoyt also noted that Kristol's very first op-ed in the paper contained a misquote and "wrote off Hillary Clinton with finality the day before she won the New Hampshire primary."
Today, New Republic's Gabriel Sherman took an inside look at the hire, and saw that, once again, the paper's publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr, was reacting out of fear of conservative criticism, and hired Kristol to ward off accusations of liberal bias.
Sound familiar? It should. Those were the very same reasons that Sulzberger hired and kept Judith Miller with the paper. Miller, of course, was the reporter who (unknowingly?) participated in the administration's propaganda campaign to start a war in Iraq . (She regurgitated bogus information fed to her by the administration's favorite expatriate, Ahmad Chalabi.) Sulzberger and the paper's editors knew Miller's credibility was shaky and her reports questionable; but they kept her on, despite newsroom muttering, because she provided the paper with a conservative "balance."
Yes, that's right. The New York Times aspired to objectivity by using government-created propaganda to "balance" factual reports. Reality, after all, does have a left-wing bias.
This time, Sulzberger may be operating out of fear of Rupert Murdoch:
Others suggest that Sulzberger's decision was made as a way of confronting Rupert Murdoch, who took ownership of The Wall Street Journal in December. "Arthur is scared to death of The Wall Street Journal," the former veteran Times staffer said. "That's what's behind the Kristol appointment." But critics questioned Sulzberger's hiring Kristol, a high-profile member of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation empire. Given Murdoch's baldly stated intention to use The Wall Street Journal to go after the Times franchise, staffers groused that Sulzberger had unwittingly extended Murdoch's influence.
It seems to me the best way to combat Murdoch's influence is not to imitate him and publish political propaganda, but to take the high road, and create the paper of record, with an unblemished record of striving towards journalism's highest goals of objectivity and fairness, and to serve as a watchdog over government. Murdoch has already shown himself to the be the master at being the mouthpiece for conservative doctrine. Why not try for something better? |
