The New York Times has an editorial, Vladimir Putin’s Outlaw State, denouncing Mr. Putin for, among other things, lying about the fate of the Malaysian airliner shot down over Ukraine in July 2014 and for continuing to support Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in that nation’s ongoing civil war. With regard to the downing of the…
Tag: New York Times follies
Economic recession not a good thing, the New York Times discovers
The New York Times has an elaborate article (by Dionne Searcey and Robert Gebeloff) cum interactive display (by Alicia Parlapiano1, Bob, and Shan Carter), all four of whom, it seems, are stunned to learn that the last six years have been pretty terrible in economic terms. The article is titled “Middle Class Shrinks Further as…
“Hey! Hey! Read all about it! An Oklahoma Oilman’s Billion-Dollar Divorce! Harold Hamm to Pay One of the Biggest Divorce Settlements in History! Read all about it!”
Harold Hamm started up way the hard way—thirteenth child of a family of sharecroppers. Now he’s sitting on the oil rights to about a million acres of what geologists call the Bakken Formation, worth about $18 billion. Some folks might think that $18 billion should buy a man a little respect. But for the New…
NYT gets its penis caught in a wringer
One thing is clear: Jill Abramson is not the worst manager at the New York Times. Let the shell-shocked media editor David Carr put the whole thing in perspective: I have witnessed some fraught moments at the New York Times. Jayson Blair was a friend of mine. I watched Howell Raines fly into a mountain…
O the Times! O the Fashions!
About 20 years ago I was throwing away some trash in the trash room of my building when I saw a “special issue” of the New York Times magazine titled “Fifty Years of Fashion,” promising a review of the Times’ coverage of fashion over the past 50 years. The idea sounded promising, so I took…
Dianne Feinstein, Pretty but Dumb, or Pretty Dumb?
Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, led off her committee’s hearing on John Brennan’s nomination to be head of the CIA by proudly announcing that the CIA’s “Death from the Skies” drone program, which is pretty much John’s baby, had been able to keep civilian casualties “in the single digits” for each year…
NYT finds new supply of terrorists in North Africa, thank God
Were you as worried as I was that the U.S. would run out of terrorists to kill? If so, Michael R. Gordon and the New York Times have some good news for you: The bloody resolution of the hostage crisis in Algeria has brought into focus the broader challenges the United States and its allies…
Who’s worse, Leon Panetta or the New York Times?
Okay, not the whole New York Times. I mean, their food criticism is pretty bitchin’, and their coverage of the fashion scene is consistently awesome, but when it comes to world events, they’re not so hot. A case in point is a recent “article” attributed to Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger bearing the head…
Which of these three is different from the others?
Last week the New York Times broke an important story, on the widespread practice of the willingness of the press, including the New York Times itself, to let political and government officials write their own quotes. “Quote approval is standard practice for the Obama campaign, used by many top strategists and almost all midlevel aides…
Hillary’s helicopters, and the world-historical moment that wasn’t
It’s been a while now since Hillary Clinton left Wesleyan in search of ecstasy, but she’s still at it, currently auditioning for the title of Joan of Arc for the Middle East, a position eminently available ever since George Bush fell on his Andover-educated ass in its pursuit. Just a couple of days ago she…