Liberal Bias of MSM Evident as the Left Holds 2,000 Deaths PartiesThe following is my first ever letter to an editor – and to the NY Times no less. Kudos to the Times for posting the contact info for their Public Editor. Shame on me for perhaps being less than truthful. I state that I haven’t had any reason to believe the NYT would deliberately mislead the public. In fact, I make that assertion about the MSM in general, and I’ll have to look thru my archives to see if I call out the NYT in particular for misleading its readers. If I have, I forgive myself for my trespasses…************************************************************************
Sir:
Although I’m not a subscriber, I read a lot of NY Times articles via the Early Bird. Doing so provides perspective of how the media reacts to world events of import to the Department of Defense. I haven’t had any reason to believe that your paper would purposely mislead its readers - more just putting forth your editor's/owner's perspectives.
Now, however, after reading the on-line response to your article entitled “2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, a Grim Mark” (
link), I have to change my opinion of the Times. By omitting the very next sentences of your quote of CPL Starr’s letter, wherein he states his lack of regret for serving, and his belief that what he is doing is bigger than his own sacrifice, you do a disservice to your reading public. This omission is deliberately misleading, as I cannot believe in an article of over 4,000 word, that you could not find the space to complete the young soldier’s thoughts and beliefs.
Sometimes you really can tell the mindset of a media outlet more for what it leaves out than for what it puts in. Disgraceful.
/r,
Bob M.
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The following are the omitted sentences to which I refer, as sent in by CPL Starr’s uncle (hattip Michelle Malkin):
“…I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.”
May God rest his soul. Semper fi, Corporal...
[UPDATE
: Well, that didn’t take long! Just a quick look at the posts below, without delving into my archives, shows that I call out the NYT for inaccurate reporting, and for being a shill for the way-left agenda. Is that the same as saying the NYT has purposely mislead its readers? Not quite, but I am embarrassed that I didn’t check my own blog before e-mailing the letter to the editor – I would’ve used the word “much” in place of “any” in the "I haven’t had any reason to believe...” sentence, and called it good.]
[Editor's note: This was written 17 Oct 2005; unable to post from hotel that night, so it's a bit stale - as usual...]The Undeniable Liberal Bias of the MainStreamMedia (MSM)Just read today’s USAToday page 7A
article on the Iraqi constitutional referendum. The headline is appropriately neutral “Sunni Arabs boost turnout for charter vote”; and the text of the article, not at all.
If you want to bother in this exercise of revealing the obvious (again!), read the text. Journalist Rick Jervis has an entire country of 15.5 million registered voters to interview, but rightly culls it down to one city in Iraq’s Sunni provinces, Baquoba. Is it possible that there could be any Baquoba resident who might’ve voted “yes” to the referendum? Not according to Mr. Jervis’ in-depth investigation. Of his 7 sources, only the 2nd & 3rd (in order of appearance), are relatively neutral in their assessment. The others (including a nebulous “crowd of 10 men with purple thumbs”) are 100% against the draft constitution. It would’ve been a more believable account of the event if Mr. Jervis would’ve presented at least one voice in opposition to his editor's story line.
Oh, and another thing…I agree with Nation of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan…
What? How can that be?! Well, turns out this race-baiter has hit the nail on the head when he
stated that “We can charge the government with criminal neglect of the people of New Orleans…”. And I agree with him 100%. Unfortunately, he has targeted the wrong level of government. Farrakhan singles out the Federal government, when the reality is the failure was at the local level. Kinda hard to call out another black American as having failed his people – besides, that’s what white Republicans are for!! At least he wasn’t quoted as stating that the Bush Admin actually conjured up the storm to rid New Orleans of blacks, as others in the victim hood association have charged (although there were the moonbat claims by others – actual speakers at the Million More rally – that the federal government broke open the levees in order to rid New Orleans of minorities)…
And dontcha just love the crowd estimation numbers as reported in the USAToday (and elsewhere). I quote the “newspaper-lite”: “…Saturday’s numbers appeared smaller than those of a decade earlier. Estimates ranged from 600,000 to 1 million people in 1995”. That leaves the impression that – though smaller – the crowds were similar in size. WRONG!! Any fool – even Thomas Frank of “newspaper-lite” – who saw the pictures taken from the Washington Monument of then and now could easily see that the numbers were not even close to ¼ of the march in 1995. Heck, I’d be surprised if they even had 100,000 – a lot of people in the 2005 picture are likely everyday tourists who just happened to be on the Mall when the camera shutter clicked. Sheesh…
Rant over...
