Saturday, November 2, 2013

The New York Times Tries to Rescue Obama

As of now, many mainstream media outlets have run fair and balanced reports about the Obamacare fiasco.

Now, however, the editors of the New York Times seem to have decided that the coverage is hurting the president and the Democratic Party. They are going to show you how to kill a story that makes them and their favorite politicians look bad.

Ann Althouse draws our attention to yet another instance of editorial  malpractice in The New York Times.

Take a look at the front page of the Times website. How long does it take you to find any reference to the Obamacare debacle?

Scroll down to the U. S. Politics section and you will find this:

Troubleshooter Reports Progress and Barriers in Bid to Repair the Health Care Portal.

With one ambiguous headline the Times has trivialized the calamity of Obamacare, dissociated it from the name of its architect, ignored the question of whether or not Obama lied and made it all seem like a technological glitch. How many people are going to grasp that the “portal” in question is the dysfunctional Obamacare website?

What articles did the Times believe to be more important than the Obamacare debacle:

A Pakistani comic moving to Australia.

LED bulbs are catching on.

Climate change posing a risk to food supplies.

Angela Merkel is being transformed from fiscal scold to profligate spender.

U. S. drones kill a terrorist leader.

Improved service by Aeroflot.

I have occasionally praised the good work of some Times writers. But, this morning’s website shows that the paper’s editors see themselves as propagandists, not as journalists. They are not interested in informing their readers by reporting the news. They want to manipulate the minds of their readers. In that they have had considerable success.

Perhaps, it’s too subtle for most readers to notice. Perhaps, many Times readers prefer to have their prejudices stoked than to learn what is happening in the world.

There is more to propaganda than purveying lies. Editorial judgments in selecting stories can also be a fraud.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excepting the sports page, Pravda is a better source of news and commentary than the Times.

Sam L. said...

I think the NYT knows its readers and what they want--reassurance that "all is well".

The Dark Lord said...

"Perhaps, many Times readers prefer to have their prejudices stoked than to learn what is happening in the world."

Perhaps ? You do live in New York right ? The only thing they want from the NY Times to stimulate their brain is the crossword puzzle.

Anonymous said...

Can someone please explain why the New York Times still considered the newspaper of record?

Whenever a conservative policy seems to be gaining favor, an army of reporters to commissioned with finding key sob stories where the policy "failed" one or more persons. Now hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, are losing the health coverage they were repeatedly and explicitly promised they could keep. Few if any of those whose premiums will be doubling and trebling will be interviewed to testify to the real human wreckage left in ObamaCare's wake. And journalists wonder why their profession is so maligned? Spit spit, I say.

Beyond the website, the real scandal of ObamaCare is that high-deductible, low-premium plans are being replaced by high-deductible, high-premium plans. It is an absurdity that only blind ideological thinking could produce. There is no part of human nature considered by this law other than the desire to want something without consequences. Demand will soar, while supply will contract with doctors' exiting the profession. And wait until our elected leaders mandate that all doctors take Medicaid and Medicare patients... third world medical schools won't be able to export doctors fast enough. All the while, our government leaders have subsidized themselves out of the problem they've created for the rest of us. Where's that article in the New York Times? That, my friends, is professional malpractice.

When is President Obama ever going to be held accountable for this DISASTROUS economy we have? What economic demand will fuel a recovery when millions will be abruptly saddled with skyrocketing health insurance premiums?

As Kim Jong Il said, "Great ideology makes for great times."

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