Signs of The Times

Chart from TimesWatch.org

Growing up, I’ve always believed that the news I read in the papers was just that: an account of what happened. The facts were carefully gathered and written together into a story that’s printed in the papers as a report. They called the people that did this “reporters”, didn’t they? My teachers taught me this. My parents told me the same.

I’ve always understood that if I wanted the paper’s view on the news, I could always go to the “Editorials” or the “Opinion” page.

In this arrangement, my own ability to decide for myself how I want to look at the news is respected. This way, I am free to think for myself.

Mess with this arrangement and my freedom to think for myself is gone. Someone else is deciding for me how I should look at the “news”. My ability to form my own views is insulted.

Call it propaganda, slant, bias, call it anything but it isn’t news.

Take for example the New York Times’ coverage of NY (D) Sen. Hillary Clinton. To quote the TimesWatch:

The American Conservative Union, which tracks the voting records of all congressmen and rates them on their faithfulness to conservative principles, awards Sen. Hillary Clinton a lifetime rating of 9 out of a possible 100.

Yet far from accurately terming Clinton a liberal, the Times has actually insisted that she is in some respects a conservative.

Clay Waters, in his posting today at humaneventsonline.com titled, Hillary: At Home With New York Times, finds:

Since Election Day 2004, the Times has assisted Clinton by falsely positioning her as a political centrist, sliming her Senate opponents, and downplaying her most controversial anti-Republican comments.

...a Nexis search of 641 news stories in the Times from November 2004 through March 2006 found a mere three direct labels of Clinton as liberal by the Times.

In fact, the paper spent as much time specifically dismissing accusations of Clinton's liberalism as "caricature,"

Let's grant, for the sake of discussion, that the Times has a right to conduct their reporting the way they want it. Is it good business policy?

The New York Times published yesterday a story by Katharine Q. Seelye titled, 28% of Votes Are Withheld at Times Company Meeting (You may be asked to register first to access the page). Here are some excerpts:

Investors holding more than a quarter of the shares of The New York Times Company withheld their votes for directors at the annual meeting yesterday, registering their dissatisfaction with how the company is performing.

Since January 2004, the company shares have fallen 47 percent; an index of industry stocks has fallen 35.8 percent. In the same period, stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index have climbed more than 17 percent.

Read the whole story.

Now, there's a saying that what goes around comes around. But I need to be objective so I should say that perhaps news like the one posted today by the Binghamton News Channel 34 website titled, NY Times Website Crashes for Four Hours, is probably purely coincidental.

Or could it just be one of the signs of the Times?