Saturday, October 2, 2010

Sanchez Dismissal Spawns More Anti-Semitic Readers' Comments at The New York Times

In response to Brian Stelter's "CNN Fires Sanchez After Critique of Stewart", the following reader's comment, no. 50, was posted by the "moderators" of The New York Times in "Media Decoder" (http://community.nytimes.com/comments/mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/cnn-fires-sanchez-after-critiqu-of-stewart/?sort=oldest&offset=2):

50.
rmarc
albany ny
October 1st, 2010
10:20 pm
We must not ever speak ill of certain groups of people. Especially people with lots of cash, control of most cultural institutions and a threat to every politician in America. Remember what happened to Helen Thomas?

Not anti-Semitic in the extreme? Why does The New York Times continue to tolerate this stream of abuse directed at Jews? As I have often said, when The New York Times states, "Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are . . . not abusive," then publishes a comment of this ilk, they are going on record as saying that anti-Semitism is not abusive.

This has been going on far too long at The Times. I shot off another e-mail to their editors, and let's see if even their new Public Editor has the decency to respond.

[Regarding the author of the above reader's comment, he/she previously submitted the following grotesque anti-Semitic comment, which was posted by The Times on July 12, 2010 in response to Ethan Bronner's article, "Israeli Military Finds Flotilla Killings Justified" (http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/world/middleeast/13flotilla.html?sort=oldest&offset=2):

40.
rmarc
albany ny
July 12th, 2010
4:05 pm
Nothing new here. I guess I now understand why Iran wants nuclear weapons! If I lived anywhere close to fascist Israel, I would want them too. After all, if Israel can have them why not everyone else? I guess being gods chosen means never having to say I'm sorry! What claptrap. Imagine the creator choosing the most arrogant tribe on the face of the earth as his "special people"!

I immediately protested to The New York Times following publication of this comment, and The Times did . . . nothing (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/07/anti-semitism-still-awaiting-response.html).]

4 comments:

  1. My first response from The Times:

    "This e-mail account, used occasionally for special reader-response features of The New York Times, is not being monitored at this time, so no one will see or respond to your message. This is an automated response."

    ReplyDelete
  2. perhaps the NYT hired Helen Thomas to moderate comments at the request of shadow owner Carlos Slim.

    Based on how the NYT is covering the New York elections (a complete abandonment of any ethics or judgment as both the editorial and news pages now function as a propaganda tool to further poisonous personal attacks while ignoring the issues), I expect a big drop to their home delivery as more people switch to the Wall Street Journal. When the NYT tries to charge for online access next year, they will go into shock at the lack of interest.

    Perhaps CNN DOES read complaints - when Sanchez started his anchor gig, I was so offended by his blatant anti-Israel bias that I sent an email. I was not alone. I believe his being fired was not just for his comments about Jon Stewart, but in conjunction with complaints like mine, and viewership dropping off the cliff.

    K2K

    ReplyDelete
  3. K2K,

    If you haven't already seen Jon Stewart poke fun at Obama, see:

    http://tv.gawker.com/5651825/the-night-jon-stewart-turned-on-president-obama

    It had me roaring with laughter.

    Jeffrey

    ReplyDelete
  4. Also:

    http://tv.gawker.com/5652707/jon-stewart-continues-to-mock-president-obama

    Jeffrey

    ReplyDelete