By Gary Tilzer
The NY Times ignored the story of Elizabeth Gomes, a 33-year-old mother of two and a working-class security guard at JFK, now at risk of losing an eye in the Sept. 20 attack by a madman caught on security video inside the Howard Beach Subway Station. The former paper of record did not cover Gomes’s assault because the articulate minority woman would have broken The Times’ narrative control of the crime story, which is to silence victims’ to protect NY’s liberal bail laws. Recently The Times blacklisted crime victims Gomes and murder victim Tommy Bailey’s family’s belief that they were attacked because of the failure of elected officials and NY’s bail law. The media’s use of their narrative to control news content is a dangerous McCarthyism-type tactic, which includes smearing or ignoring any newsmaker that interferes with the message or ideology the paper is pushing on its readers. Since it is the media that uses narrative control of the news, there is no Edward R. Murrow (a reporter who fought McCarthyism) to expose the narrative cancer that is killing journalism and our democracy, which relies on the media’s objectivity to function properly.
In short, The Times uses its news narrative to silence victims. The Times name-calls elected officials like Adams to protect Albany’s liberal bail laws to limit the power of judges. On July 15th, The NY Times wrote a story that tried to blame the mayor who was elected last year to fight crime, for fighting crime, titled: “Eric Adams Can’t Stop Talking About Crime. There Are Risks to That.” The paper of record once prided itself on not mixing its editorial and news division. It now uses reporters to push its liberal narrative, its new form of editorial, to warn its readers that there are risks to Adams talking about changing the bail law and going to crime scenes. The Old Gray Lady even spins by someone called anonymous “that the mayor is fear-mongering.”
The Times labeled Mayor Adams a fear-monger to limit his ability to elect candidates to the Assembly in the August Primary, who support his proposed changes to the bail law to give judges the power to jail repeat career criminals and send the mentally ill to hospitals. Before the article was written, the mayor did well reelecting State Senate incumbents in the June primaries. Adams candidates who supported changing the bail law were being challenged by progressive candidates, backed by AOC. After the fear-mongering article was written in July, the candidates supported by the mayor were defeated in the August Primary, by Assembly progressive incumbents who blocked his bail reform attempts in Albany. It was not The Times’ narrative attack on Adams that won the Assembly election for the progressives, but the paper’s goal of using its news narrative to disrupt the public momentum that the crime wave is causing to change the bail law has been effective.
The Times further disrupts Adams’ attempt to build public opinion to support bail reform by silencing Gomes, the Bailey family, and other crime victims who blame the state’s bail law, lack of police, liberal DAs, and Judges who allowed dangerous criminals to return to the street. The Times did not cover the attack on Gomes because the paper of record does not want to put a human face on the crime wave to avoid building public support for changes to the state liberal bail law. Only Fox News covered the Bailey family’s attack on the state’s bail laws. The murder victim’s family blamed allowing Alvin Charles who was free without bail after being charged with the attempted murder of another man in April. Charles kill Tommy Bailey on the subway four months after Charles was released for another attempted murder. Tommy Bailey was stabbed to death after coming to the defense of a cop who was being attacked by Alvin Charles. Gore Vidal whom the NY Times called a prolific, elegant, acerbic writer used to say he would read daily all the papers from the left to the right to find the truth. Today in our polarized society most read or watch the narrative news media organizations that they agree with.
In The NY Post, Anthony DiMarco slammed the “liberal bulls–t” bail system that set his son’s attacker free, to kill Tommy Bailey aboard an L train. Alvin Charles, a homeless man who attempted to murder DiMarco’s son last April, was freed on bail by Judge Earle-Gargan, who denied prosecutors’ request for $50,000 bail. Only Fox News reported that the Bailey family blamed the bail law for the death of their son. Not only did The Times not interview the spokesman for the Bailey family, they also did not interview the father of the DiMarco family attempted murder of their son, by the same man charged with murdering Tommy Bailey. The Times did quote Alvin Charles’s public defender Roy S. Wasserman’s statement that his client never missed a court date and that they “had pizza together.”
The Times “Jumps the Shark” on Its Narrative Crime Coverage Attacking Adams
The Times even creates quotes to fit its ideological narrative. On July 15th reporter Emma G. Fitzsimmons twisted the beliefs of the Partnership for NYC CEO, Kathryn Wylde, who publicly stated that a reduction in crime was needed for office workers to return to the subways and office buildings, by writing that “Mayor Adams’s attempts to fight crime seem inconsistent.” To protect its liberal narrative, The Times routinely ignores in its crime coverage poll results showing that between 60 and 75% of the city residents want changes to the bail law, while Albany progressives were able to block Adams’ attempts to change the bail law. The majority, including the leadership in Albany, feared election challenges from the left if they voted to change the bail law. While it is understandable that young inexperienced ideological lefty pols do not see the reality that crime is pushing our city into a recession, it is shocking to see the growing control of The Times and other media organizations’ political narrative on news content since Trump ran for office. It almost appears that Trump destroyed the news objectivity. The power of the new narrative journalism is disrupting the role the paper has historically played in partnership with the City Hall, Albany, and big real estate in expanding and strengthening the city’s economy.
Former Lt. Governor and MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch wrote that The City Council must recognize that fiscal cliffs are looming over New York and prepare for the possibility of a recession. 1. With NYC office occupancy running well under 40% 2. The weakness in office property values could cost the city as much as $600 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023, alone. 3. The expiration of some $7.3 billion in federal COVID-19 relief money 4. Richard Ravitch, one of the last still around, helped save NYC from bankruptcy in the 70s. Reza Chowdhury Twitter @RezaC1: “NYC unemployment 6.6% in August 2022, up 0.6% from July. Not a single City Council member has mentioned this. Not a single tweet. However, there are collectively 342 tweets on bike lanes and 786 tweets on climate change.”
The Times Censured Crime Victim Gomes Exposing Councilwoman Cabán Progressive Policies as Wildly Out of Touch With Reality
Cabán’s advice when encountering an escalating conflict included distracting the troublemaker by “spilling your soda” or saying “Hey, didn’t I go to high school with you?” Clearly, the madman who attacked Gomes is not the only one who needs a mental health evaluation.
Progressive Socialists City Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán who supports defunding the police and the 2019 no-bail law, claimed on Twitter that the attack on Gomes was a “one-in-a-million event.” Cabán claimed that fear-mongering politicians and corporate media outlets scare us into thinking we have a dangerous, scary public transit system.” Gomes called Cabán’s statement ridiculous. The crime victim attacked Cabán’s claim that subways are safe, “there’s no help down there, the subway is a very dangerous place.” NY Times readers did not read Gomes’ strong reply to progressive leader Cabán. Unfortunately, only the readers of the NY Post knew of Cabán’s harmful acceptance of crime. Cabán offered pathetic and dangerous “alternative” ways Gomes could have confronted unhinged behavior, which was outlined in a poster she said her office has given to small businesses.
Last month, FDNY Lt. Alison Russo-Elling was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack in Astoria, Cabán’s district. Cabán tweeted her “deepest condolences” leading one Twitter user to respond, “No complaints about ‘fear mongering’ today (Cabán), huh. Perhaps she should have simply asked this man, ‘Hey, didn’t we go to school together?”
Gomes, who lives in Far Rockaway and was on her way to work when she was attacked, told Fox News her view that subway violence has increased since the pandemic. “People are afraid,” she said. “People are getting robbed. People are getting shot. People are getting molested. We need protection. That’s what we’re looking for.” Most New Yorkers did not hear Gomes’s emotional plea on the Conservative Fox News and the NY Post both of which have limited readership and viewership. Princeton media Professor Paul Starr said the death of the newspaper business ended the ability of the papers to set the public agenda. Controlling the news narrative gives The Times and other media organizations the ability to manipulate the public agenda.
Twitter is beginning to be the place to go, to find out what the media is censuring and what is really going on. The NY Post wrote: “Defund-the-police socialist City Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán tweeted that “Subway violence is a one-in-a-million event” — outraging Elizabeth Gomes who may lose sight in her right eye after being viciously attacked days earlier in the transit system.” “The subway system is dangerous, and for Cabán to post on Twitter something like that — it seems to me that she doesn’t ride the subway or have anyone to ride it. She doesn’t really understand.” Gomes said. Many of the NYC Twitter do:
ConcernedUWSider Twitter @sider_uw: How much more detached from reality can you get Cabán? Would love to watch you demonstrate your intervention technique @OZzSue5·Gomes is a victim of violent criminal Foster, who had been out on parole for beating his grandmother to death & a victim of @tiffany_caban @CabanD22 rubbish policies. @CabanD22 backs defunding cops. NYC bureaucrat Twitter @NycBureaucrat: I guess when Gomes was being savagely beaten by a deranged murderer (out on parole) she must have forgotten to consult the socialist’s guide to police alternatives, section 2b: try saying “no,” “stop,” or “that is not okay.” Thanks @tiffany_caban
The Times readers never knew that Gomes’ attacker Waheed Foster has a long history of violence and mental illness, dating back to the brutal 1995 killing of his grandmother inside her Brooklyn apartment, followed by Foster’s 2001 arrest for stabbing his sister in the hand with a screwdriver. Foster’s own attorney described him as “a diagnosed schizophrenic” with “a disturbing pattern of attacking women.” The Times readers do not know that before he attacked Gomes, Foster had four open cases in Manhattan and Queens on a variety of charges.
Instead of being held on a parole violation that ran through November 1, 2024 — as Foster’s parole officer wanted — a judge freed the mentally ill career criminal to attack Gomes. NYS’s new “Less is More” act — signed into law in 2021 — takes away the discretion of parole officers to be able to put dangerous criminals back behind bars themselves. One police source said the “Less is More Law” is as bad as the Bail Law.”
Foster notably told The Daily News after his subway attack on Gomes, that he stopped taking his psychiatric medications about two months prior to his subsequent release by a Judge. While The Times wastes its newsgathering resources on an ideological dispute over a homeless man’s killing of a dog in Prospect Park, The Times failed to investigate why a mentally ill killer, was released by the courts to beat Gomes’ eye with a bottle and stomp on her head after he stopped taking his psychiatric medication. The Times should investigate that not only are the mentally ill not taking their prescribed antipsychotic medications, they are taking fentanyl made in China and flowing over the border and methamphetamine that are flooding America’s streets, that making those suffering from emotional sickness even more violent and crazier. The Atlantic recently wrote that doctors and police noticed a rise in severe mental illness among the homeless and attribute this to increased meth use. New Yorkers are paying a high price for failed government drug interdiction.
The Changing Role of the Newspaper’s Effects on Government and Politics in NYC Has Gone Unreported
In 2009, Village Voice reporter Tom Robbins wrote about the important role that the strong newspaper business historically played in running the city, “when editors clamored for a strong, tough copy to fill them. Whenever one paper broke a scandal, the others scrambled after the story. This happy combination produced many full-strength competitive news stories, and educated voters, and brought visible shivers in City Hall.” Mass coverage of issues by newspaper and TV news outlets does not exist today because media outlets limit their coverage to news that only fits their narrative. Many important issues are not covered at all, creating what is called “news holes.” Most stories contain so much news bias, that the public is forced to choose between the media outlets’ spin and their own eyes.
The public does not like the new “Narrative News Journalism.” Today’s reporters seem to have taken Tom Wolfe’s 60s new journalism fictional techniques and replaced his fact-based approach of reporting with ideological wants. According to the latest Gallup Poll, Americans’ trust in the media dipped second lowest on record. According to the distinguished Princeton scholar, Paul Starr, newspapers helped organize issues for the public before the newspaper business model collapsed. The new journalism seeks to control public opinion around ideological lines, as opposed to helping the public to organize around issues that they care about.
The New York Times’s former Opinion Editor James Bennet quit the paper after a woke backlash inside the paper against him after he allowed a conservative Senator Tom Cotton to publish a column. Bennet believes that Sulzberger, the publisher, blew the opportunity to make clear that the New York Times doesn’t exist just to tell progressives how they should view reality. According to Bennet, the New York Times made a huge mistake and missed an opportunity to show the paper’s real strength and objectivity. The lack of objectivity in narrative media journalism created a generation of spin politicians and public relations consultants that disconnected the public from their government.
Media watchers of The Times blame the paper’s fierce hate of the Trump Administration, for “jumping the shark” on objective journalism. The Times’ current lack of objectivity in its journalism is damaging to the voters who rely on the Times for education about issues that affect their daily lives, undermining their ability to vote for leaders that can carry out their will. Readers of the NY Post see a very different city, state, and nation than the readers of The Times. All media organizations now ignore truths that don’t fit their narrative. The narrative-causing news holes that the media creates have not only dumbed down the information the average voters have about their government but have helped cause the polarization of our politics and government. The polarization caused by the media created a dysfunctional disconnect from the public government and a political swamp where ideological and pay-to-play candidates get elected in low-turnout elections, while public needs such as safe streets and subways are ignored. The growth of the public relations consultants-lobbyists is positive proof that elected officials and candidates use them as filters to block hard questions, and issues, and generate positive spin messages for their clients.
The Times narrative not only affects that paper’s coverage but also influences what stories are covered by the rest of the city’s local news media. The Voice’s Robbins said that when the newspaper business was strong Local TV news got its morning bearings from the city’s dailies. The NY Post is looked at as too conservative and pro-Trump for the city’s liberal TV news assignment editors to include their stories in what they choose to appear on its news shows. The Daily News does not have enough original local stories to be considered a source of news. Today’s local TV news writers rely on the Times for what news to cover and how. However, The Times no longer speaks for the city; they spin their news narrative in an attempt to create the kind of city they want to see.
Printer/Reporter Zenger Arrested in 1734 Created A NYC Style of Journalism the Media Narrative is Ending
In 1734 Journalist John Peter Zenger, buried in an unmarked grave at NYC’s iconic Trinity Church, was arrested for telling New Yorkers the truth about Governor William Cosby’s Colonial Government.
The iconic reporter Gabe Pressman said that “the Printers Trial,” which Zenger won, led to generations of American journalists playing an important role in preserving democracy by informing the public on current issues, fighting political corruption, and empowering the public voice. Thomas Jefferson’s preference for “newspapers without government” over “government without newspapers,” is a canary in the coal mine warning that any changes to journalism endanger democracy. The 14% turnout in June and the 9% primary turnout in NYC this year, are proof that the canary is dead, and that democracy is dead in the city’s election system. Princeton Professor Paul Starr maintains that the end of the age of newspapers resulted in a change in our political system itself, where insiders and left-wing no-bail activists gain more control.
The hypocrisy behind the NY Times’ liberal narrative is that while the p
aper covers the progressive talk about the need for diversity and a non-racist criminal justice system, it ignores the resegregation in the formerly diverse neighborhoods whose minority residents are pushed out by high rents, brought out by the wealthy white progressives who elect their ideological progressive candidates that block changes to the bail law that Mayor Adams wants to protect New Yorkers from crime, especially in high crime neighborhoods.
Donovan Richards Jr. Twitter @DRichardsQNS: Black and Brown Queens residents deserve to live in Astoria. We were pushed out nearly a decade ago, because of no affordable housing production.
The Times can no longer honestly set the NYC agenda or speak for the city because its business model limits its ability to speak to the average New Yorker. The liberal NY Times’ new business model is supported by liberal online subscribers from all over the world, and not NYC newsstand sales or local business ads which depended on the objectivity of news coverage in the city. The current business model of the Times is why the paper failed to cover articulate crime victims like Elizabeth Gomes, who blamed elected officials by name, and the Bailey family who blamed the state bail law for the murder of their son. Even in their October 8th article about how the minority residents of Cypress Hills were fed up with crime, the paper never mentioned the bail law, Albany lawmakers, the mentally ill, or the courts. The article was a dog whistle to most of The Times’ white liberal readers that the crime does not affect them.
Working Class Reporters Gone Replaced by an Elite Class Narrative Script Following Stenographers
Being a reporter used to be a middle-class trade, a low-status job. Journalists were paid working-class salaries and used to live in and be part of the working-class neighborhoods they came from. Working-class reporters used to see themselves as outside of power, demanding justice for the middle class and the poor, the little guy. Today’s upper-class reporters from elite families and schools see themselves as part of the political class. They think reporting is speaking for the insiders, reading press releases, they don’t understand. The elite TV news high-paid narcissistic news readers have dumbed down a generation of voters and made government, elections, and even their own newspaper or TV news shows, into scripted fiction, written to keep those in power in power.
The Meyer Berger-type journalists are long gone from The Times. Throughout the course of the 20th Century, there was a status revolution in Journalism. Journalists now come from elite families and schools. Berger dropped out of school, was a WWI Purple Heart veteran, and went on to earn a Pulitzer for his long-time coverage of NYC while writing for The Times. Berger was a member of the past generation of middle-class reporters, driven to fight for the values of the working class they came from. The late Village Voice reporter, Jack Newfield, grew up in Bed Stuy in a single-family, attended CUNY’s Hunter College, and was known for his yearly investigation features which included the 10 Worst Landlords, 10 Worst Judges, and his book about corruption in the Koch administration called “City for Sale.” Jimmy Breslin grew up in Queens, Pete Hamill in the then working-class Park Slope, Brooklyn. WWII veteran Gabe Pressman grew up in a tenement building in the South Bronx. Andrew W. Cooper was from Central Brooklyn and founded The City Sun, a weekly independent newspaper that covered issues of interest to African Americans. Jewish Voice In the Scripted News Era, Journalists & Elected Officials Become Actors, NY Special Interests Pull the Strings
Times reporter Berger wrote extensively on the crime committed by mob gangs of his time. On October 14th, The Times wrote about another subway murder that interconnects with Councilwoman Cabán. Queens Assistant District Attorney Christine Occhiogrosso called the slaying of 15-year-old Jayjon Burnett “a gang-related incident,” and said accused murderer Keyondre Russell was picked out in two lineups and “multiple identification procedures.” The NY Times article on October 14 did not even mention that the murder of 15-year-old Jayjon Burnett was gang-related, thereby working to strengthen the argument that Councilwoman Cabán and others are making for the NYPD to get rid of its gang database.
Three Queens City Councilmembers — Tiffany Cabán (D-Astoria), Shekar Krishnan (D-Jackson Heights) and Julie Won (D-Long Island City) — are co-sponsoring a bill calling for the abolition of the NYPD’s Criminal Group Database, which allows the department to track those with perceived gang affiliations.
In almost every story about crime, The Times provides data and statistics supporting the perception that crime is not as bad as it used to be in the 70s. The existence of conflicting statistics, especially about subway crime, allows numbers to be easily manipulated, to prove whatever point a writer is trying to make. What is insightful are the views of New Yorkers who lived through the 70 and 80s when crime was also out of control. Former Governor David Paterson recently said, “NYC feels unsafe ‘for the first time in my life.” The Times not only ignored Paterson’s views on the crime wave, but it is also ignoring the randomness of today’s vicious attacks, the turnstile bail-free justice system’s effect on creating career criminals, the mistreatment of the mentally ill causing them to prey on the innocent, and the cost to society of looting a drug store in plain sight without a care of any consequences.
Michael Henry Twitter @michaelhenry4ag The owner of a small pharmacy on Bay Parkway in Brooklyn said crime has gotten bad because there’s no fear. He said his shop experiences theft every single day thanks to bail reform.
Green Shoots of Old-Time Journalism Showing Up on Twitter Informing New Yorkers What Is Really Going On Before the Musk Takeover
New Yorker Magazine writer Ken Auletta who covers the media and the NYC tabloid wars of the 70s and 80s said, the goal of a journalist was to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” New Yorkers looking for what Auletta called real journalists who go after the elected officials by name, do investigative reporting, not censured by a political narrative, can find it on Twitter, not in the city’s mainstream media. Twitters have become the real NYC journalists, investigating stories and by writing about parts of stories ignored or repressed by the mainstream media’s (MSM) news narrative. Twitter also attacks elected officials, and lobbyists by name discussing breaking news and expressing outrage: “We are not going to take it anymore,” as their TV news readers counterparts read, like robots, their press release scripts and never comment on what they just read.
Last week, The NY Post wrote a story about Twitter users reacting to NY1’s Errol Louis after he appeared to mock concerns about coverage of New York City subway crimes. Louis sarcastically tweeted “going home on the violent NYC subways. Riders paralyzed with fright,” alongside a video taken from inside the 14th Street MTA Subway showing an uncrowded subway station, with straphangers waiting patiently by the tracks, a man crouching down with his young son, and a trumpet player. Twitter users did not agree with newsman Louis’s narrative message that crime was not that bad:
Gina (Mignona) Newman Twitter @GinaMignonaReplying to @errollouis: “facts are the facts–you seem to constantly gaslight people. Crime IS up – knives, random punching, purse snatching. Mentally ill men & addicts doing drugs on trains make women/kids scared. Politicians are failing the people of NYC. The DA needs to keep ‘super perps’ in jail.” Robert Pacifici tweeted “I’m not shocked at your post. I have the highest respect for you, but facts are facts. Subway crime is up, violence on subways is real and yes women [sic] are fearful. Would not allow either of my daughters to ride the subway.” Sam E. Antar Twitter @SamAntar: “Every time a child is slayed on the subways, please remember the efforts of @tiffany_caban, @errollouis, @MarkLevineNYC, and @BilldeBlasio to play down subway violence and give New Yorkers a false sense of security.” Harlem East Block Association Twitter @harlemeastblock: “Felony Assault and Burglary increased by 91% and 81% relative to 12 years ago….when the crime rate was terrible in Harlem. Why are elected officials and @errollouis claiming that crime is not worsening?” Isaiah L. Carter Twitter @IsaiahLCarter: “I could give a damn about a quiet moment at a busy station in CHELSEA on a holiday Monday night. It’s disingenuous as hell, Errol. You KNOW better.”
@GaryTilzerTips
