Sunday, August 1, 2010

Vicious Anti-Semitic Reader's Comment in Response to Paul Krugman's "Bad for the Jews"

Below is an open letter that I sent to Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of The New York Times, concerning yet another vicious anti-Semitic reader's comment posted by The Times's "moderators":

Dear Andy,

Let's cut right to the heart of the matter -- reader's comment no. 170 to Paul Krugman's July 30 column, "Bad for the Jews" (http://community.nytimes.com/comments/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/bad-for-the-jews/?sort=oldest&offset=7):

170.CDOTampa, FLJuly 31st, 201011:43 am
jews insist on telling other peoples how to go about their lives - they insist of being jews, while the others should be multicultural. and then they take over the power structures of their hosts (fed, supreme court, treasuries, corporations, most of the advisers to the president, almost the entire media, universities...).

see, Israel can practice apartheid, but they have to berate everyone else for even contemplating immigration tightening. In fact they have to let jews run their countries (into the ground) for them.

This amounts to anti-Semitism at its most vulgar, yet the "moderators" of The New York Times posted it, notwithstanding your newspaper's claim that "Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive." This is "only" a reader's comment? Sorry, but when The Times's "moderators" take the position by posting such a comment that anti-Semitism is "not abusive", this reflects on the entirety of your news organization.

Yes, I know: The Public Editor's Office said to me in a recent e-mail:

"Mr. Rosenthal has nothing to do with comment moderation. That is handled by a completely different set of editors and moderators. . . . In the future, however, you should not send these to Mr. Rosenthal. Continue to send them to me and I will give you my view and pass that and your message onto the moderation team."

Sorry, but I don't take comfort in this proposed solution. We've both witnessed the efforts of The Times's "moderation team" over the past year. They have proven themselves anything but moderate when it comes to vicious attacks on Jews, the only minority with respect to whom such calumnies have been permitted.

Of course, if indeed you have no authority in this regard, just say the word, and I will not trouble you again, but please let me know who at The Times is ultimately responsible for this matter.

It is high time that this finally be dealt with forthrightly and openly.

Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey

1 comment:

  1. Thanks JG. I reported 170.CDOTampa comment as Inflammatory, Off-topic, and Personal Attack (because it attacks all Jews) late last night. It is still there.

    My comment, submitted about 5:00 yesterday, was never approved, although comments are not yet closed to Krugman's post (and a different comment submitted much earlier to the Barbaro was approved at 12:54 p.m. today)

    What is objectionable to my comment to Krugman except I indirectly criticize Krugman's judgment?:

    "I disagree with Greg Sargent that the conclusion is the key passage of the ADL Statement. Anyone who remembers the construction of a persuasive essay knows that, usually, one of the developed points in support of the conclusion becomes the "key passage". THIS is the key passage in my eyes:

    "The controversy which has emerged regarding the building of an Islamic Center at this location is counterproductive to the healing process. Therefore, under these unique circumstances, we believe the City of New York would be better served if an alternative location could be found."

    Yet one side of the partisan media echo is following Greg Sargent's inaccurate read in lockstep, citing the same conclusion. Is everyone pulling a Breitbart?"


    Comments like #170 are terrible, but sometimes the blogpost is far more damaging, as it is in this case solely because Krugman decided to join the pile-on, and he has quite a following.

    K2K

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