New York Times

If Self-Plagiarism in Editorial Cartoons Is Bad, How About NY Times Editorials?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Times recycledA couple of weeks ago, Ethics Alarms gave political cartoonist Ted Rall an Ethics Hero designation for calling out his own profession for the practice of lifting the work of other cartoonists, as well recycling their previous cartoons as new. I hadn’t been aware of the problem, but apparently Rall wasn’t the first in his field to condemn it. Now James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal blog “Best of the Web” has found evidence of self-plagiarism in actual editorials…those of the New York Times! Taranto, who has been on a real roll lately, reveals of the Times editors…

“In a Jan. 8 editorial in praise of Hagel’s nomination, they wrote:

“On national security policy, there is much to like about Mr. Hagel, one of a fading breed of sensible moderate Republicans.”

“In a  Feb. 1 editorial after the hearings, they had a slightly different take:

“There is much to like about the approach to national security policy taken by this decorated Vietnam veteran and former senator who is among a fading breed of sensible, moderate Republicans.”

“The Jan. 8 editorial also included this trenchant observation:

“The opponents are worried that Mr. Hagel will not be sufficiently in lock step with the current Israeli government and cannot be counted on to go to war against Iran over its nuclear program if it comes to that.”

“And here’s what they said after the hearing:

“Mr. Hagel’s opponents fret that he will not be sufficiently in lock step with the current Israeli government and cannot be counted on to go to war over Iran’s nuclear program if it comes to that.” Continue reading →

Fair Is Fair: The Times Isn’t Perfect, But It’s Time I Paid For It

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

nyt-paywallEver since the New York Times instituted its paywall system, which forces you to subscribe to its cyber-version once you use the site more than 20 times in a 30 day period, I have been economizing on my Times use rather than pay its (reasonable) subscription fee. One reason was money; one reason was that I usually don’t have to use the Times more than 20 times a month, with other good news sources out there that charge nothing at all; and a last reason is that the Times annoys me with its hard left-wing bias, well to the left of the Washington Post, which is hardly balanced, and inappropriate, in my view, for the publication that holds itself up as the exemplar of American journalism. The exemplar of American journalism should be objective and non-partisan, damn it, or at least try to be.

I have to admit, however, that even with its biases, the New York Times is still the best news source I know. I get the Post delivered to my door every day, and read the print copy of the Times only when I am on the road. I am always struck at how often a Times story or feature is directly relevant to my work, compared to any of its competition, including the acclaimed publication I read every day. Yesterday I learned that the Times has scheduled yet another round of lay-offs and buy-outs. It is in financial trouble, like all newspapers, and I can no longer justify refusing to do my part to help it survive as long as it can. The Times has given a lot to me, my readers and my field, and what it has provided has come with tangible expenses that are becoming more difficult to cover. The paper drives me crazy sometimes, but it remains a vital resource; it is unfair to focus my disillusionment with the journalistic field at the best of it, much as I would like to see the Times set an even higher standard. Right now, the battle is to allow the Times to maintain the journalistic standard, however flawed, that it sets now.

I just signed up for a cyber-subscription. The Times has earned my support, and with it struggling to keep the print flowing, I can no longer justify taking my 19 free articles a month and giving nothing back in return.

Remember, This Is The Best Newspaper in America

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

All the News That’s Fit..oh, the hell with it.

From an editor’s note to the New York Times article, “Last Call for College Bars,” which originally ran on September 26:

“An article on Thursday described the effect of social media use on the bar scene in several college towns, including the area around Cornell. After the article was published, questions were raised by the blog IvyGate about the identities of six Cornell students quoted in the article or shown in an accompanying photo. None of the names provided by those students to a reporter and photographer for The Times — Michelle Guida, Vanessa Gilen, Tracy O’Hara, John Montana, David Lieberman and Ben Johnson — match listings in the Cornell student directory, and The Times has not subsequently been able to contact anyone by those names. The Times should have worked to verify the students’ identities independently before quoting or picturing them for the article.”

Think about this the next time you read a Times story from an anonymous source. Continue reading →

The Despicable Ryan Holiday

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Sub-title: “Buy This Book—You’re An Idiot”

You know those science fiction movies where a scientist can’t get anyone to listen to him about the threat of a man-made virus getting out of control and destroying the world decides to prove his point by creating a virus that then gets out of control and destroys the world? Or the ones about the government computer geek who drives people crazy complaining that the nation’s systems are vulnerable to cyber-attack, so he creates a bug to prove his point and it sends the country back to the stone age?

Ryan Holiday is like those guys. Fortunately, he isn’t a scientist or tech whiz, just an unscrupulous writer and a liar, so his unconscionable stunts to “prove a point” don’t risk ending civilization. Ethically, however, he is no better than those fictional characters, and arguably he is worse. At least those brilliant boobs were trying to prevent a catastrophe. Holiday is just trying to sell his book.

The book is about the news media’s vulnerability to bad information, so Holiday, a 25-year-old marketing director for American Apparel, decided to prove his thesis with an “experiment.” He got himself listed as an “expert” on an online resource for reporters, and when they contacted him, he lied to them. One of the media sources that fell for his deception was the New York Times, which subsequently published this after a story using Holiday’s lies made it into the News That’s Fit to Print, when it wasn’t: Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: Opinion-NYTimes.Com

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Yes, it is also an extremely well-done unethical website, a clone of the New York Times editorial pages, even featuring links to the real Times.

It is, however, a web hoax that presents a defense of Wikileaks, itself an unethical position, under the by-line of a real person, former Times editor Bill Keller, who didn’t write it, in order to mislead and fool people. One of those fooled was Times technology editor Nick Bilton, who passed on the link on Twitter. Keller eventually used a tweet to expose the hoax.

What a riot.

Hoaxes like this are constitutionally protected, but they are the news and commentary equivalent of the scene in “The Naked Gun” in which Leslie Nielsen throws  ten baseballs into the air as a catcher is trying to catch a foul pop-fly. They are information vandalism, and until the media and the public stops regarding them as newsworthy or funny, they will proliferate, and some will cause tangible harm

The technical term for the purveyors of web hoaxes like this is “assholes.” Once that is agreed upon, unequivocal and clear, we might have a chance of discouraging them.

Update: I had just finished writing the post when I  learned that Wikileaks itself has taken responsibility for the hoax. You see? The technical term was accurate.

_______________________________________________

Facts: Yahoo!

Source and Graphic: Care 2 Make a Difference

 

 

Racism, the Media, and Reverend Wright Distortions

/ Jack Marshall / 25 Comments

He’s b-a-a-a-a-a-c-k! (Sort of….)

This has been happening to me a lot lately. I see a political story with ethical implications, and decide to pass. I think, “Nah, this is another ‘the news media is in the tank for Obama story”—it’s pretty obvious; I don’t need to go there.” Then the story starts to churn, the news media, left and right, distorts it thoroughly through spin and stupidity, and pretty soon I can’t stand it any more.

The controversy over a proposed, and rejected, Super-Pac ad blitz focusing on the President’s controversial relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright—demagogue, radical, racist—began when a leaked copy of a proposal prepared for conservative billionaire Joe Ricketts was leaked to the New York Times. The Times’ decision to put the proposal on its front page was sadly typical, and irresponsible. We don’t what wacky proposals circulate in the back rooms of both parties and their allies, and I don’t see why we would want to know, unless, as in this case, the objective was to suggest a series of things that aren’t true. Prime among them was that the Romney campaign was preparing to mount a full-bore attack on the President’s character. Nothing has suggested that, except the Times, whose story forced the presumed GOP nominee to apologize for a mode of attack 1) he had nothing to do with and 2) had never been approved anyway.

This was unfair, slanted and biased conduct by the Times, and the point at which I decided, “Oh, heck, we’ll be seeing the Times and the Washington Post, not to mention the broadcast media, pulling this until November. People either will recognize it for the partisan bias  it is, or they won’t.”

Then came Carol Costello on a typical morning for CNN, when she or the regular morning host Soledad O’Brien spend every AM sneering at Republicans and looking at the camera all dewy-eyed whenever President Obama’s name comes up. Costello, who I have concluded sets my teeth on edge even worse than the smug O’Brien, began her day with this: “Today’s question: Will racial politics work in 2012?” Continue reading →

NOW the New York Times Is Going To Be Fair And Objective?

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

I nearly entitled this “Jaw-Dropping Confession Of The Decade.”

Stop, you're killing me! My drink just came out my nose!

In his column today, Arthur Brisbane, The New York Times’ timid ombudsman (the Times calls him its “public editor”), writes a long post about widespread accusations that the Times has not applied the same objective rigor to Barack Obama that it could have, should have, and typically has done to other politicians despite its openly liberal tilt. Oh, Arthur’s defensive about it, all right, but his defense boils down to “it wasn’t intentional.” Brisbane appears to be convinced by an assortment of media scholars he respects that the accusations on the Right that the Times has been “in the tank” for Obama is not that far from the truth after all. Bias can be overcome, though, he concludes. Yes we ca…uh, well, you know.

Brisbane writes, Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Charles M. Blow’s Anti-Mormon Tweet, Chapter 2…”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Michael, who is now the Ethics Alarms all-time leader in the Comment of the Day category, scores another with a thought-provoking post inspired by the New York Times’ stunning disinterest in its columnist tweeting a religious slur about Mitt Romney. I’ll have some added reflections at the end. Here is his Comment of the Day on “Charles M. Blow’s Anti-Mormon Tweet, Chapter 2…”:

“I remember an article about this when I was in college. In analyzing how the news media treated different races, they came up with the PC Hierarchy. Anyone higher on the hierarchy can criticize or be insensitive to anyone below them. If there is a conflict between two groups, the one higher on the PC scale is assumed to be right”

PC Hierarchy of Races… Continue reading →

Charles M. Blow’s Bigoted Anti-Mormon Tweet, Chapter 2: Ironies, Regrets, and Hypocrisy on the Left

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Charles M. Blow, trapped in regret-apology hypocrisy. Fortunately for him, his paper doesn't care.

Charles M. Blow, the New York Times columnist who sent his followers an uncivil, unprofessional and bigoted tweet regarding Mitt Romney and his faith during Wednesday’s debate [“Let me just tell you this Mitt ‘Muddle Mouth’: I’m a single parent and my kids are *amazing*! Stick that in your magic underwear.”] issued a fascinating…something...today in response to criticism, which did not come from the supposedly bigotry-sensitive left. He tweeted:

“Btw, the comment I made about Mormonism during Wed.’s debate was inappropriate, and I regret it. I’m willing to admit that with no caveats.”

It is fascinating to me that this is being called an apology by Blow’s supporters and conservative critics alike. If it is an apology, and that is open to dispute, I’d like someone to explain to me how Blow can use “regret” as a stand-in for “I apologize,” and yet the same commentators who are interpreting the word that way have insisted that President Obama’s repeated use of “regret”to refer to past U.S. foreign policy actions was not the equivalent of apologizing, and have in fact stated that this interpretation by conservative critics is “a lie.”

Among those who have defended the President in this way, I believe, is Charles M. Blow. Continue reading →

Easy Question With A Sad Answer: If The New York Times Is The Nation’s Most Respected Newspaper, What Does The Patrick Witt Story Say About The State of American Journalism?

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Patrick Witt, rapist. Well, accused rapist. OK, he was accused of something that might have been rape.All right, all right, we can't say what he is accused of or did, but he must be a bad guy, or we wouldn't be publishing this story about what some people say he did. Because the public has a right to know. Thank god for Freedom of the Press!

The jaw-dropping Patrick Witt story in Friday’s New York Times was heavy on my mind when I wrote yesterday’s post about the collapse of the news media’s ethical standards. I decided that it needed its own spotlight. When I read the piece about Yale’s former quarterback, what kept going through my mind was, “What does the Times think it’s doing?” I still can’t figure it out.

Reporter Richard Perez-Pena uses an anonymous complaint of sexual assault levied against Witt as justification for raising questions about a young man’s integrity and character and to undermine his reputation with innuendo, speculation and rumor. The article would be outrageous if it was written about a public figure. Publishing such a cruel and unfair attack on a relatively obscure student athlete defies all reason. Obviously, it is also bottom of the barrel journalism…from America’s premier newspaper. Continue reading →