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A professional reporter dissects the New York Times
Posted by civil truth on February 25th, 2008
After posting earlier today about the New York Times public editor’s article criticizing the paper’s earlier smear of John McCain, an extraordinary article on the matter came to my attention that I just could not let escape our readers’ attention.
While I raised just a couple of examples of possible partisan bias in the McCain story which seemed to highlight the public editor’s blindness to such, Paul Sheehan has performed a full autopsy on McCain article, the findings of which he published earlier today in the Sidney Morning Herald until the title Anatomy of a Smear.
Mr. Sheehan identified the key insinuations of the article as follows:
The story suggests an improper romantic relationship between Senator John McCain and a much younger female lobbyist eights years ago…The story also implies that a commercial advantage was gained from this association. More broadly, the multiple criticisms of McCain in the story suggest that on the questions of ethics – the bedrock of his presidential campaign – his rhetoric does not match his actions.
In his examination of the story, Mr. Sheehan identifies 54 instances where the authors manipulate the narrative to bring it into line with these insinuations and explains how each manipulation was carried out.
Here are a few examples from Mr. Sheenan’s pathology report:
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… to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.
[8. There was no threat to McCain's reputation. The Times is retroactively creating one.]
It had been just a decade since an official favour for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal.
[9. McCain was not "ensnared", which means trapped, by the Keating scandal. A congressional inquiry found he had no case of impropriety to answer.]
Mr. McCain’s aides released all of his letters to the F.C.C. to dispel accusations of favouritism, and aides said the campaign had properly accounted for four trips on the Paxson plane. But …
[52. For the seventh time, the story undermines a positive fact with the immediate qualification of "but".]
” … the campaign did not report the flight with Ms. Iseman. Mr. McCain’s advisers say he was not required to disclose the flight, but ethics lawyers …
[53. Anonymous and negative attribution number 13.]
This story on John McCain, Mr. Sheehan concludes, “provides a case study of how the Times has for years been loading its reportage with partisanship while affecting a posture of rigorous impartiality.”
The full report is a must read for those who would wish to study the exhumation of an egregious case of journalistic malpractice.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Wow…I just read the whole thing and what a total crock the NYT really is. uugh!
If it weren’t for SOME of the very good articles they do come out with on non political issues I would ditch reading it altogether. The NYT has a liberal agenda unlike most other media outlets. It’s not at fair or balanced. It should be censored by our government- after the exposure of private/secret programs with National Security. I don’t say that lightly either. I value free speech…from all sides. But the NYT is a real danger to America.