"It’s official. The Wall Street Journal has been Fox-ified.
It took Rupert Murdoch only three and a half years to get there, starting with the moment he acquired the paper from the dysfunctional Bancroft family in December 2007, a purchase that was completed after he vowed to protect The Journal’s editorial integrity and agreed to a (toothless) board that was supposed to make sure he kept that promise.
. . . .
The political articles grew more and more slanted toward the Republican party line."
I'm certain Nocera has heard the adage, "Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." However, he is apparently unwilling to recognize the political leanings of his own newspaper, which in the past were acknowledged by Clark Hoyt, the former public editor of the Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/opinion/13pubed.html?ref=thepubliceditor):
"There is no question that the editorial page is liberal and the regular columnists on the Op-Ed page are heavily weighted in that direction. There is also no question that The Times, though a national newspaper, shares the prevailing sensibilities of the city and region where it is published."
However, quite apart from the political leanings of The New York Times, manifested by its coverage and its editorial content, there is something far more insidious that has found its way into Nocera's newspaper.
Yesterday, my online comment in response to Roger Cohen's op-ed was censored by the "moderators" of The New York Times (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/07/roger-cohens-year-of-waste.html). It didn't come as a surprise. The chances of being censored if you disagree with the leftist leanings of many of the Times's op-ed writers are high.
Also, strident anti-Semitic readers' comments have often been published by the Times, despite its purported policy to refuse posting of comments if they are "abusive." This phenomenon got so bad that one of its most senior editors was forced to intervene and personally remove many of these comments following correspondence that I had with him.
Do you recall the Roger Cohen op-ed entitled "Obama in Netanyahu's Web". I complained to the Times that the imagery evoked by this title was apt to enflame anti-Semitism, and one of the Times's most senior editors responded that the op-ed had already been published by the International Herald Tribune, and it should have been changed (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/10/further-insensitivity-of-new-york-times.html).
Cohen wrote another op-ed entitled "What Iran's Jews Say," which sought to demonstrate that the life of Iran's remaining Jews was not so bad, but subsequently acknowledged - not in his column (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/was-roger-cohens-what-irans-jews-say-in_17.html) - that his interviews were conducted with the assistance of a government appointed translator. Was there nothing ethically wrong with this?
And then there was the instance where the Times's "moderators" permitted a post calling for the murder of a high ranking Republican government official. Again, one of the Times's most senior editors was forced to intervene.
By the way, what ever happened to Maureen Dowd after she was caught plagiarizing a blog? Was there even a slap on the wrist, beyond the criticism of the public editor at the time?
In short, a columnist for The New York Times, which arguably needs to be "detox-ified," is hardly in a position to be criticizing The Wall Street Journal.
[I sent Mr. Nocera an e-mail, asking that he "swallow the red pill" and read this blog entry. Let's see if he has the courage.]
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