Article

2012-01-12 -Short Attention Span Theater-

NYT Asks Readers If They Can Drop The Pretense Of Objectivity Or Fairness

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Posted by Anonymoose 2012-01-12 14:13|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 They'll go full forward once the new president is installed. Questioning the President's every gesture, phrase or implication. If they start now, durign the drive-by voters who put Obama in office previously might even notice they don't challenge him.

Posted by rjschwarz 2012-01-12 14:39|| 2012-01-12 14:39|| Front Page Top

#2 Sounds like the NY Slimes can't tell the difference between a rag and legitimate press. Or maybe they don't trust their readers are familiar with the concept. Says a lot either way. At least the founding fathers got it. So maybe that means we are endowed with an understanding of the concept through our genes or something.

Posted by gorb 2012-01-12 14:57|| 2012-01-12 14:57|| Front Page Top

#3 Essentially they're asking for a return to 200 years ago, when newspapers were openly partisan. Or if you want a contemporary example, the papers in the U.K. The only thing NYT would do would be to add a layer of polyurethaned 'sophistication'.

Posted by Pappy 2012-01-12 15:19|| 2012-01-12 15:19|| Front Page Top

#4 It's a useless newspaper.

Posted by newc 2012-01-12 15:23|| 2012-01-12 15:23|| Front Page Top

#5 when newspapers were openly partisan.

Wgaddya mean "Were".

Posted by Redneck Jim 2012-01-12 15:49|| 2012-01-12 15:49|| Front Page Top

#6 Gonna corner the snotty lecturer market huh. Sounds better than taking on a load of debt and asking for government money.

The Kansas City Star sucked in the '90s, blatently ingnoring major stories. In fact, I wonder if it would have stayed in business if it were not for the Chiefs, Weather, and waiting rooms.

Posted by swksvolFF 2012-01-12 16:24|| 2012-01-12 16:24|| Front Page Top

#7 New Yourk Grauniad, with a circulation figure to match.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-01-12 16:33|| 2012-01-12 16:33|| Front Page Top

#8 The comments are great.

Some are asking, "why aren't you doing this already and sticking it to those evil Rethuglicans?"

Some are pointing out that they wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

And a few are asking whether the 'pretense' would be dropped if the object of the exercise was Barack Obama instead of Sarah Palin.

The public editor, of course, does not respond.

Posted by Steve White 2012-01-12 18:02|| 2012-01-12 18:02|| Front Page Top

#9 Wgaddya mean "Were".

If you ever get a chance to look at newspapers between 1800-1875, you'd be surprised at the open partisanship and downright rudeness. It makes certain and unnamed Rantburgers look positively unbiased. The diference now is that it's discreet and covered by a veneer of 'professionalism'.

Posted by Pappy 2012-01-12 18:26|| 2012-01-12 18:26|| Front Page Top

#10 I ran across this.

"For journalists fretting about the media's plummeting reputation, a new survey on support for the First Amendment in high schools brings more bad tidings.

More than a third of the nation's high school students think First Amendment rights go too far. Almost three-quarters take the First Amendment for granted or don't know how they feel about it. And more students than adults believe the government should approve news stories, according to a study commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation."

The US Constitution guarantees freedom of press. The main responsibility of that press is to bring out facts and put them before the people. Objectivity in reporting is essential. The failure of the mainstream media to meet its obligations has consequences. If judges could be bought and sold, would high school students hold them in any higher regard than the main stream media?

BTW, the purpose of including the right to freedom of the press in the constitution was to remove the fear of the common law doctrine of seditious libel, the intentional publication, without lawful excuse or justification, of written blame of any public man, or of the law, or of any institution established by law. (Stephen, History of the Criminal Law)

Alexander Hamilton argues in Federalist No. 84
"Why for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority, which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it, was intended to be vested in the national government."

And we have a department of education; where is that in the constitution?

Posted by Mike Ramsey 2012-01-12 18:30|| 2012-01-12 18:30|| Front Page Top

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