Listen to what Jack London wrote about our press in IRON HEEL: "You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it."
Hoa binh

For the 100th time-- George Bush makes his own reality. The NYTimes dutifully prints what he says.

Removing the blather their pitch is this: We're in Iraq, we're staying, screw the Sunnis and Shiites if they get in our way.

We leave when the oil runs dry.

Rudy, Hillary, etc. have already signed onto the plan.

Dr.Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers.

Quote

"One of the curiosities of the New York Times is its habit, since George W. Bush took office, of assigning a gal reporter to the White House, apparently to generate warm and fuzzy puff pieces about the Commander in Chief. I've had difficulty fathoming this obsequious approach to a president.... blah blah blah..."

Aren't there, ahem, "gal" reporters who are not obsequious writers of fluff? The first sentence in this article is ridiculous. Give me a break.

The "liberal" NY Times . . . ?

This is an establishment newspaper spreading lies of WMD via Judith Miller-gate and involved in an immoral and destructive 40 year alliance with ExxonMobil to deny Global Warming on its Op-Ed pages.

Not to mention cooperating with CIA's MOCKINGBIRD and other questionable services they have performed for government ---the latest being not advising Americans that they were being wiretapped by Bush until after the 2006 election!

And as Rich M outlines for us here . . .
QUOTE: That's the job of institutions like the NYT — to make cerebral-sounding sweet talk that sounds principled, so we can go on murdering people, stealing their resources, & controlling their economies.UNQUOTE

I did see the NY Times article which was FRONT page . . .
and found it disgusting from every angle.

Whew, RichM, that is an excellent summary of reality. Looking deeper into reality we see the great benefits of change, the relative tranquility of strong social democracies, similar prosperity and less gluttony for far less effort, waste, and destructio. We see dignity and peace of mind, not to mention friends, true friends, not business associates posing as friends.

The New York Times is liberal?
I guess you can fool some of the people all of the time.

The NYT is simply playing to the Loonitary Decider's need to be mommied. From tyrant Barb to robot Laura to lyin Condi to utter failure Hughes, the smart money knows he plays "tough" but is really nothing more than a wimp mama's boy who's only had sex with two women during the pathetic sixty years he's spent on our planet.

Ever see him "bully" a woman? No? So who would you send into the psychotic den?

C'mon, it's New York. People there are about money and power. Temporarily shifting from backbone to slackbone is a long standing tradition. Wake up and smell the rot, it's everywhere. Remember, life is a test and moral failure is the norm. Democrats kill babies and Republicans kill brown skin people. Death has it's own rewards. Sexy airhead reporters are just another manifestation of it. Death is overwhelming us. Welcome to your own creation.

I agree with the author's critique of the NY Times, but find the sexist implications a bit silly and therefore self destructive to the overall message in the piece.

"This is an establishment newspaper spreading lies of WMD via Judith Miller-gate and involved in an immoral and destructive 40 year alliance with ExxonMobil to deny Global Warming on its Op-Ed pages.

Not to mention cooperating with CIA's MOCKINGBIRD and other questionable services they have performed for government —the latest being not advising Americans that they were being wiretapped by Bush until after the 2006 election!"

Or the unreported bulge in W.'s jacket during the initial debate; and the reporting of the Swiftboaters as if they were anything but a gang of dirty tricksters. (And I'm no Kerry fan.)

Michael Gordon has picked up where Judith Miller left off, and is currently doing for the war against Iran what Miller did for the invasion of Iraq.

Any paper that would keep Tommy Bomb'em Friedman on staff is toilet paper. Only Bob Herbert and, sporadically, Frank Rich are worth reading.

The NY Times supported the coup against the democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, because he was preaching liberation theology. The NYT initially supported the coup against Hugo Chavez, but then retracted it's support. The NYT, reporter Larry Rohter, had such contempt for Hugo Chavez that his reporting was no longer journalism but a crusade against Chavez.

When it comes to certain "social issue" the NYT maybe moderate, however, NYT can be just as Hawkish as the Wall Street Journal when it comes US foreign Policy.

Last time I checked CommonDreams.org was a progressive website. If you have read neither The Second Sex nor Manufacturing Consent, maybe you should close your laptop and put down your pen. Women reporters are just as critical as men reporters: watch Amy Goodman's program Democracy Now! or read her column. And second, as several people have pointed out above, the New York Times is not a "liberal" newspaper. They are an establishment newspaper, supported by major corporate interests. Take your sexism and your ignorance elsewhere, please.

Dan 8865 said: Whatever credibility the New York Times built up since the end of WWII, they've spent it over the last 7 years.

The last 7 years?? You need to study history. During the Vietnam War, the NYT dutifully reported VietCong daily kill rates by the military until they had exceeded the entire population of Vietnam. They were major cheerleaders for the Vietnam war. I doubt they have ever met a war they didn't love. Yeah, they sound - somewhat - liberal on social issues, but when it comes to where the money is, they can be counted on to protect corporate interests. And THEY decide what's fit to print.

This isn't about gender. That's a red herring. This is about what was once a reasonably fine publication having sold out...another one. The NYT is just another arm of the propaganda machine, like NPR, FOX, et al.

Norman Salomon, hunted down the gentleman who was the editor of the New York Times at the time of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and asked him, "if the Times had ever retracted they story on the incident".
Which reported the governments story on what supposedly took place.
The gentleman replied " that if the Times retracted the story on the Gulf of Tonkin incident,it would have had to retract everything it had every written on the Vietnam War."
Imagine that.

Wow. NYTimes can't even throw the guy a bone in the form of fluffy throwaway crap? I've got an idea, why don't they just send over a squad to beat the guy into a bloodstain and set up a cable channel so you guys can watch it on a continuous loop?

Common Dreams of peace... through mists of hatred. If there really were CIA/NSA conspiracy, this surely site would be disposed of. You you're own proof against the things you espouse. Good bye & good luck.

Kulthur This site would never be disposed of. Talk is cheap and harmless to them. Just keep talking and everything will be fine. Talk all you want. They really don't care. Its what keeps everyone so docile and harmless in 2007...typing... just like what I'm doing now, instead of in the streets taking them on. They LOVE it when you talk.

And for the NYT, who cares? They're useless except for the power you give them by reading them and using their advertisers. Don't read them. Don't watch their scumbag brothers & sisters on the tube. Don't let them activate you. Cut them off.

Don't acknowledge them in any way.

"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." Napoleon Bonaparte

"I keep reading between the lies." Goodman Ace

Most historians agree that early on, and into the mid-19th century, what constituted the US Mainstream News Media was unapologetically ideological and blatantly partisan.

The few national newspapers that decisively gained in repute and respect for their willingness to spearate fact-reporting from editorial slant, after the Civil War, grew in circulation and influence for obvious reasons.

The Civil War had come close to deconstructing a Union that proved to be still valued by a majority of Americans, well past their regional views about the outcome of States' Rights and chattel slavery.

But there is nothing in our constitutional system that required then, or requires now, the fourth estate to function in the name of Public Educator or Defender of Democracy.

Crucial to democracy as factual news reporting is, and has ever been, the nobler fourth estate function is something that popular culture either demands and rewards thru voluntary patronage/subscription, or instead fails to demand because fragmenting doctrines far less provable than the common sense of democracy, have capitivated and displaced any deeper historical comprehension.

There is no mystery about how a modern democracy must work and alow interal accountability, in order to hold it own. The mystery today is how the USA can endure as a democracy, given that its popular culture and fourth estate is allowing legitimation of undemocratic principles - a march toward tyranny not inconspicuously led by the New York Times.

The Tel Aviv..er.. I mean the New York times prints all the news that's fit ti print. Everyone knows that.

kulthur---nice knowing you although I never really could figure out where you were coming from.

So you got a little taste of just how angry some of us patriots are, as we watch our country and our constitution get trashed? Welcome to reality central! That's right---trashed, AND with the full knowledge and collaboration of the NYT, the poster boy of the so called "liberal" corporate media. So what's the deal?

Did you believe Rush and O'Reilly? Are you now alittle confused to find that those of us on the left find the NYT almost as dispicable as you do, but for very different reasons?

Stick around awhile. You might learn something. This is by far the best site because although some of the articles disappoint, the comments never do. There are some very smart people here and I for one, feel grateful for their insights and their information.

It's hard most days to stay upbeat when we are looking for common dreams while living out a nightmare, but if you read enough you'll find us dreamers, and you'll definitely find humor---usually gallows humor, but hey! Cut us some slack. these are dark times, and laughs are not that easyto come by.

And as for the NYT's "throwaway bone fluff piece", EXCUSE ME???? It's propaganda of the worst kind, pure and simple----did you even read the article? Did you catch how scripted every move, every gesture, comprised this farce of compassion??? We are supposed to believe that this war criminal GWB is just a softie at heart. There is nothing innocuous about ANYTHING that comes out of this Administration through it's propaganda arm, the MSM.

Wake up, dude! Like Cheney said, "Sometimes we have to go to the dark side." HELLO!!! We're there, and many of here on CD are appalled.

After 15 years of having the little blue bag dropped at my doorstep I cancelled my subscription. Now I've narrowed it down to Sunday only just to read Frank Rich. Which is completely stupid. I figure if he has anything of substance to say I'll read it someplace else, like here or on Drudge or where ever.

After tomorrow I'm canceling the Sunday NYT because all it seems to be is a bunch of bourgeois advertising for a bunch of Christmas CRAP none of us should be buying...even if we can afford it. It's a capitalistic, lying scam. Period.

I've heard that if the American people don't buy into the "Christmas" shopping BS that our economy will take a dive. It's already on the board. Perhaps giving it a little shove off the end will wake people up and get them to shut the damn television off long enough to pay attention to the REAL news. And it AIN'T in THE New York Times!

The NY Times has always been schizophrenic... on one hand it has a steady flow of Op Eds that continuously show us the Emperor's latest fancy attire... while at the same time pandering to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce foriegn trade policies and the American Enterprise Institute's favorable policies towards Israel... thus serving a nation's conscience, corporate pimps and the Likud Party all at the same time.

Frankly, it has reached the point where I only believe some of what I read from overseas, NONE of what I read in the U.S. Press and very little that I see on TV... even Lou Dobbs and Keith Olberman can be misled occasionally by the spin doctors!

I think that Chomsky or someone of that stature made the point about the Times a long while ago, that it's outright propaganda. We have to look it over daily just to get a sense of what's going on in the propaganda world. which though unfortunate, we have to keep an eye on it.

Dave Lindorff wrote an article over at Counterpunch on Nov. 8 pretty much going over the same kind of points about The Times:

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff11082007.html

I wrote Mr. Lindorff suggesting that maybe he could just start with the premise that The Times was propaganda, and then continue with an analysis from there. To save time.

Mr. Lindorff was nice enough to reply with the following:

No, I disagree.
You have to hammer it home to people.
It's amazing how people will read these articles (in the Times) and not notice how they're being played.

You give people too much credit.
Besides, I have friends who work at the Times, and I really love trashing it.

Dave

So, this is why they continue to write articles demonstrating the bias of the Times. I guess we realize it, but there are so many people apparently who don't that it still has to be proved to them. Oh well.

"generally liberal profile"
Are you insane? The New York Times is the entire MSM in a nutshell - promulgators of fascism as a hot fudge sundae.

"Its what keeps everyone so docile and harmless in 2007…typing… just like what I'm doing now, instead of in the streets taking them on. "

Anarchists and others like to talk about "taking them on" or "going into the streets", as if it were 1910 and one could rout authorities by occupying the post office and the railroad station. This would be like sending out calvary vs. Panzers & Stukas. Otnay ootay artsmay.

Even in the age of revolution, revolutionaries prepared themselves for decades, not a couple of years; it isn't one single revolt but a series of many smaller changes and revolutions that prepare the ground.

The primary act of resistance is simply to keep speaking truth, not so much TO power as the truth ABOUT power -- trace its course & curve carefully, and continually arraign the myths and the propagandists before the courts that as yet lack power: because those courts will exercise it when the populace no longer sustains or endures the illusions produced for them.

It's as impossible for the New York Times or any "paper of record" to catch reality as it is for security agencies to catch real "terrorists" -- neither is designed to do so.

Judith Miller should be sharing a cell with Bush/Cheney, for helping them deceive us into war.

As we all know, the first amendment has its limitations, for example we cannot falsely yell fire in a crowded theater, the way Ms. Miller did.

She blatantly distorted the big WMD story on the front page of the NY Times, using unsubstantiated sources and Ahmed Chalibi a convicted embezzler to help convince the American public that war with Iraq was essential.

When you have a Jewish publisher and a Pulitzer Prize winning Jewish reporter both sympathetic with Israel and willing lie to provoke a war with Iraq to help Israel deal with her neighbors, you have a recipe for disaster.

But all we get from the NY Times for helping Bush justify going to war is, sorry we will try to do better next time.

There must be some accountability for these outrageous lies, jail time for the Publisher, Editor and Reporter, would be a good start.

I'm sorry. This sexist piece of rubbish is beneath contempt. I cannot believe you'd even publish an article that refers to "gal" or "girl" reporters.

While it's true that the Times is pandering by running these "soft and fuzzy" puff pieces on the president and his family, the problem is not that they've assigned women to do them. It's that they run them at all.

Female journalists are every bit as principled and tough as their male counterparts, and there are plenty of "boy" reporters who are writing fluff about the administration that is every bit as loathsome as the stuff being written by Stolberg.

Finally, it needs to be noted that the Times is hardly being tough on the administration aside from its puff pieces. It has yet to call the president the liar he is, or the criminal he is, has yet to seriously report on the impeachment movement, or to actually write about the massive imperial enterprise of the US which has American forces located in over 700 bases around the globe, with more planned.

Dave Lindorff
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net

Acutally, I have found a much better use for the NYT: a birdcage liner. That is about all it is worth. I must admit that it is an expensive birdcage liner, but when the articles increasingly get worse, I just feed my bird two cups of birdseed.

Chomsky was writing about the NYT in the 80's in Manufacturing Consent. Nothing new here that started at the beginning of the Bush Admin like this author claims.

As other commenters have noted. The NYT is always the voice of the wealthy 'establishment'. When the wealthy don't agree on a policy, like Irag, you might see some of the disagreement in the pages of the NYT. But when they agree on a policy, like protecting Bush from impeachment, the NYT will bury the issue.

The easiest solution is not to read the NYT. There's much better news out there.

Actually, after Judy Miller and the Iraq WMDs, all you get from the NYT is exactly the same behaviour in helping to try to start another war with Iran.

The paper that outed Valerie Plame for the neocon agenda? Hell no wouldn't buy that rag nor its twin rag the Washington Post. Actually I avoid mainstream media whether in print or on TV.

common dreams is clearly just as sexist as the new york times. why did the editors let the "gal reporter = fluff" bit stand?

you need to clear this one up, common dreams. it's bad.

The NYT, NPR and all the "liberal" media are not offering any kind of different perspective. There is always an underlying implied alliance with big business.

Most media outlets, with the exception of Pacifica radio sometimes, tacitly or overtly offer stories that have a "what's good for big business" attitude lurking behind them. They are coming from this perspective even if they try to disguise it, or even if the reporters themselves are too culturally inexperienced to understand or care about what they are perpetuating. All over the TV and radio this is passed off as mainstream American news perspective.

Our whole implied "we" in media tends to have this culturally oblivious white collar bias. But since most Americans are not on the boards of big businesses and do not have multi-million dollar investments, it seems unlikely this represents useful information or perspective as it applies to real people in this country.

It's not serving the interest of most Americans, nor, for other reasons, most people in the world. In fact big business minimizes or denies the reality of most of their existences. It is a bubble of unreality that is perpetuated by the media over and over, as it goes on referencing itself and calling itself the news.

How many times have I read stories in the Times about the pitiful Haitians who cannot manage to have a democracy, or the warring tribes of the Niger Gulf? Without any thought of portraying the real context and history of these situations? Nigerian people or Haitians are not folks with real situations to the media drivel machine.

Every situation has real causes and consequences, but big business' implied message through it's influence over the media, is - whatever is good for our interests is eventually good for everyone. Even though time and time again we see how that is not the case.

SO IT LOOKS LIKE THE VOTE IS IN, ----

Folks who have never read the NYT----Mot sure--too vague.

Folks who WILL never read the NYT----1

Folks who think it's a propaganda tool, a rag----33---that's assuming they actually HAVE read it.

Folks who defend the NYT------0

See now, whoever said there was no consensus on Common Dreams?

As for the uproar about "girl" or "gal", well let's say for me, it seemed he was making the point that this particular reporter was a naive, idealistic young Republican "girl," as in inexperienced and easy to manipulate. I didn't have the sense he was implying that every woman (let's just say, Helen Thomas, or Molly Ivins) would write a fluff piece. We need to lighten up alittle bit folks--the guy was pointing out the gross manipulation---that's a GOOD thing.

If Bush cared about these "folk" one lick, instead of caring about his own political legacy, he would no longer be sacrificing their precious children.

If he's such kinfolk with the yokels, why does he not send one of his daughters to Fallujah?

I don't agree with you, Star. What the article is doing is capitalizing on a stereotype - and we hardly need reinforcement of those. The article would have been just as powerful without introducing it with "gal reporter". It was simply unnecessary and decidedly unliberal. The author should be called on it, in spite of whatever validity his main message has.