"There cannot have been unbridled joy in the White House early Friday. Mr. Obama’s aides had to expect a barrage of churlish reaction, and they got it. The left denounced the Nobel committee for giving the prize to a wartime president. The right proclaimed that Mr. Obama sold out the United States by engaging in diplomacy."
I am curious how The Times perceives itself. The Times is certainly not right wing, but do they really delude themselves into believing that their world view and "culture" are middle-of-the-road?
My online response to this editorial, which was censored, as were my prior unrelated online comments:
I am planning an epic, 1,000-page novel, intended to be a best seller on all continents, which will address poverty, education, war, famine, global warming, racism and universal health care. I started writing two weeks ago, and my agent is voicing optimism. Would someone care to submit my nomination to the committee for the Nobel Prize for literature?
The Times has a special relationship with Obama. Although The Times initially endorsed Hillary during the Democratic primaries, when the Obama candidacy became viable, it was patently obvious whom their editorial board and many of their op-ed writers were supporting. My online comments, critical of Obama, in response to idolatry op-eds, were not infrequently censored.
The Times, not surprisingly, was quick to come to Obama's defense when his foreign policy was criticized by The Washington Post, and shortly thereafter The Times was chosen by Obama as the vehicle for the publication of an op-ed written by him or, more likely, by someone on his behalf.
Similarly, it is not at all surprising how The Times editorial board has now sought to rationalize away the award of the Nobel Peace Prize.
There needs to be a "tension" between the press and the executive branch of a democracy, and newspapers should avoid being perceived as the "official organs" of political parties. Sure, The Times has its token conservative op-ed writers, but it nevertheless should examine the umbilical cord still extending to the Obama administration, notwithstanding the fact that Obama is already president for more than the ordinary gestation period of nine months. Meanwhile, praise of Obama's Nobel Prize served to cheapen whatever remains of our world and probably amounted to another step by this newspaper in its path to self-destruction.
Jeffrey,
ReplyDeleteDid you notice the problems with NYTimes before Obama's election?
Are these changes recent?
I just tried to look into some older articles in Times on Israel, and found this as a sponsored link there:
http://muslimindex.org/ispalestine.html?gclid=CLnmnvCCtZ0CFQtN5QodoRMZiA
Marina,
ReplyDeleteDuring the Democratic primaries my online comments critical of Obama were regularly censored by The New York Times. It would now appear that all of my comments are being automatically censored, i.e. I have been blacklisted.
The Times would liken itself to a beacon of liberalism and tolerance; however, it is anything but that. It is a highly politicized, angry beast, loathed by many, that is losing its readership. A pity. It is no longer the newspaper that I grew up respecting.
Re anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitic online comments, in my opinion this came to a head with the Roger Cohen series on Iran. I am confident Cohen was in contact with various persons seeking to shape the Obama administration's policy toward Iran and Israel, and I am led to believe that Cohen's series of Iran op-eds - prolonged, misleading and biased - went unopposed by The Times' management. Sure, it can be claimed that it is the job of an op-ed writer to be biased, but issues of journalistic ethics must also factor into the equation, and which other newspaper would tolerate an endless series of op-eds claiming that Iran is "not totalitarian" over the course of so many months. (On Saturday, three persons involved in post-election protests were sentenced to death by Iran.)
I think it is outrageous that an acting president (or more likely someone writing in his name) should pen an op-ed for such a highly politicized newspaper as The Times.
Re the Nobel Prize, Obama should have declined the award ("Let me first prove myself"), but be that as it may, once again The Times' editorial board swiftly came to his defense.
In my view, the umbilical tie between Obama and The Times is ugly in the extreme.