THE OLD GREY LADY SHOWS HER JAUNDICE

All The News That Fits, They’ll Print

By Barbara Stanley

The NYTimes gets caught letting a liar write for the front page, (Jason Blair, who is resting in hospital from the stress of this whole mess) and is commended in a perfect Donahue-esque moment for “exposing the story themselves.” Now, don’t that beat all. Guilt is absolved by the guilty for just coming clean. Or sorta clean.

Never mind that the writer was straight out of (not graduating) college and given such a plum job; nevermind that the NYTimes had to correct Jason’s errors dozens of times over a number of years and nevermind that Jason was being paid for his traveling expenses when he wasn’t leaving home. But do mind that the NYTimes is still considered a journal of record.

When I was just a girl, my dad used the NYTimes as an example of yellow journalism. How is it that even after all the propaganda during the Vietnam conflict put out by what some call the Pravda-On-The-Hudson, this rag still commands such respect as anything more than a wing of the antiAmerican liberal media (aka America’s foremost propaganda machine)?

You cannot turn on C-SPAN without seeing the NYTimes as the first paper of note. You can’t even find any stations, even FNS, that doesn’t trumpet their so-called news articles. And yet, even with all the crapolitics the NYTimes has spewed for decades, still it is held in high regard by way too many. Boggles the mind. You would at the very least expect the greenies to complain about how many old growth forests have been decimated for the Sunday one-ton editions alone. I suspect there are those who even buy it to carry around without even reading, just to show how au courant they are.

However, now with this latest flap, an African-American, who seems to have been selected solely on the colour of his skin and not the content of his character, gets the press coverage and, thus far, the excuses are flying like pancakes at the firehouse breakfast. The latest to make me laugh is that the reason Jason lied and plagiarized is that the stressors are so intense, he just couldn’t help himself and he, alas, is just another poor victim of society. Paging Officer Krupke.

Will anyone step up and ask the question: is this symptomatic of the quota system run in our schools and in the public arena? Probably not. Nobody will let this hot potato land in his hand for long. Watch as folks bend over backwards to ignore the elephant in the middle of the living room simply because to mention anything having to do with a suspect liar who is black, er, excuse me, African-American is to leave oneself open to charges of racism. I expect Jesse Jackson to come out in defense of Jason. Wow, now there’s a benefactor, eh? The corrupt defending the guilty!

About The Author
Award-winning writer and Federal Observer contributor Barbara Stanley is a conservative writer of commentary on a broad range of subjects and a Sentry Editorial Excellence Award-winning journalist residing in the upstate forest of New York. In addition to political and social commentary, Barbara writes fictional short stories at her website.

Copyright (c) 2003 Barbara Stanley All Rights Reserved