Gray Lady gives a free pass to tyrants, conspiracy theorists and serial murderers – but reserves invective for a U.S. senator.
By: Ari Lieberman
I think that by now, it is painfully obvious to all but the most myopic that the New York Times represents the embodiment of fake news. In fact, in this era when false and misleading, partisan leftist propaganda is disseminated with dizzying regularity, it is not a stretch to argue that the New York Times represents the mother of all fake news. It is also fair to characterize the New York Times as a leftist blog akin to Mother Jones or Buzzfeed, rather than a legitimate, newsworthy paper.
Several recent incidents plaguing this troubled paper highlight this unfortunate development. Recently, the New York Times published an article stating that “former President George W. Bush won’t support the re-election of [Donald] Trump,” and cited “people familiar with [his] thinking.” There is no indication that the journalist responsible for authoring this drivel made any effort to corroborate the claim with Bush. In fact, Freddy Ford, a spokesman for Bush, said the report was simply not true and characterized it as “completely made up.”
On June 5, a Rasmussen daily tracking poll showed that black likely voter approval of Trump was at over 40 percent. Rasmussen is a serious, well-respected public opinion polling source and the June 5th polling data, even if considered an outlier, is a significant news story considering historic black voting patterns. In 2016, Trump garnered only 8 percent of the black vote and still won. If this recent Rasmussen polling is accurate, it bodes poorly for Democratic chances to reclaim the White House in 2020. Yet this newsworthy development failed to grace the pages of the Gray Lady. The reason is obvious: the New York Times is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party and negative polling data that runs counter to the narrative the New York Times wishes to present is all but ignored and censored. Omission of newsworthy events due to political considerations is just as malignant as publication of false facts, and in any event, that strategy worked out poorly for the so-called establishment media in 2016.
Last week, the New York Times announced that its Editorial Page Editor James Bennet was resigning. The reason: Bennet had the gall to publish an op-ed piece written by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) in which Cotton “called for using military force as a backup—only if police are overwhelmed—to stop riots, not to be used against protesters.” Cotton’s op-ed piece proved to be too much for the cancel culture mob, which called for heads to roll. Times staff members were in open revolt, claiming that Cotton’s op-ed piece endangered black staff. Some refrained from showing up to work in protest. New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and his editorial board originally defended their decision to publish the piece but pressure from the “Woke,” group-think mob proved too much to bear for the feckless decision-makers at the Times. Sulzberger bent the knee and subsequently characterized the publication of the op-ed as a “significant breakdown in our editing processes, not the first we’ve experienced in recent years…”
Sulzberger is actually correct on at least one point. The New York Times has frequently experienced significant breakdowns in its editing processes. The Times has in the past allowed the likes of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Max Blumenthal and Marwan Barghouti, among others, to grace its op-ed pages without any negative repercussion.
Erdoğan is among the most malevolent, anti-Semitic tyrants to rule Turkey in recent memory and he’s arguably the most anti-Semitic leader in the Muslim world. He is a peddler of numerous anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and routinely denies due process to political opponents. Turkey under Erdoğan holds the dubious distinction of imprisoning more journalists than any other nation on the planet. Turkish journalists and political dissidents, including Kurds, have been imprisoned for contrived crimes such as “insulting the president.”
Max Blumenthal is the consummate anti-Semite, whose works have been featured by neo-Nazi and Hezbollah affiliated blogs. The Simon Wiesenthal Center characterized him as an anti-Semite and his comments earned him a spot in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s “Top 10” list of anti-Semitic slurs. Frazier Glenn Miller, the KKK murderer who massacred three people at two separate Jewish community centers in Overland Park, Kansas, cited Blumenthal’s comments with approval. The dossier on Blumenthal can fill dozens of pages but you got the picture.
Marwan Barghouti is a convicted serial murderer. He was convicted of five counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. In a brief op-ed bio, the New York Times described him as “a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” while glaringly failing to note his murder convictions. Outrage on the deceptive op-ed piece produced instant backlash prompting the dishonest editorial board to acknowledge Barghouti’s murder convictions in a subsequent corrected version of the op-ed piece.
Last year, the New York Times featured a cartoon on its editorial page depicting a blind Trump wearing a yarmulke being led by a leashed dog bearing the face of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A Star of David dangles from Netanyahu’s neck. The New York Times was subsequently forced to apologize but only after enduring a storm of criticism.
To my knowledge, no senior member of the New York Times editorial board resigned over featuring anti-Semitic cartoons or hosting op-eds from assorted tyrants, murderers and Jew haters. Yet a respected United States Senator, who’s responsible for setting U.S. policy and enacting its laws, manages to garner the invective of a hateful New York Times mob simply because he had the temerity to demand an end to looting and called for military force as a backup—only if police are overwhelmed. Sadly, the New York Times has morphed into an irredeemably flawed propaganda outlet and is beyond reformation.
(Front Page Mag)
