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All the Crude Ideological Ranting that's Unfit to Print

Filed under: US Elections

NewYorkPostNYTMorganStanleyGraphic.jpg

As you may know, on September 10th the George Soros-funded moonbat propaganda campaign known as "MoveOn.org" ran a full-page add in the New York Times attacking General Petraeus as a traitor because he failed to agree with MoveOn's position on the Iraq war. Rudolph Giuliani, among many others, has sternly criticized the advertisement on substantive grounds which raise issues for another day.

The point of interest right now is that the Times sold the ad space to MoveOn at a huge discount -- close to one third of the standard published rate of over $180,000. This was a cause of considerable outrage since not only has the Times refused to give such a discount to political groups associated with right-wing causes, it has been unwilling to run their ads even at full price.

When challenged by Giuliani, the Times claimed that the rate paid by MoveOn was a so-called "standby" rate, implying that MoveOn's ad would only run if the Times couldn't find any other advertiser willing to pay more, similar to "standby" airline tickets. Now, to be sure, the Times is foundering in a sea of red ink. Its stock price has fallen to the lowest level of the past decade, with ad revenues down dramatically. But even with all that failure, is it really credible for the Times to claim that it couldn't sell a full page ad for more than the $65,000 that MoveOn paid? What would the Times editorial page say if George Bush attempted to justify his conduct with this kind of "explanation"?

In perhaps the ultimate display of hubris, both of the Times' political blogs, The Caucus and The Lede, addressed the ad and completely ignored the controversy over its financing.

Not long ago, we pointed out how the Times had outrageously skewed its review of Michael Moore's "documentary" film Sicko for blatantly partisan reasons, and it really does begin to seem that the paper no longer has any interest in being a source of factual information about the world. The paper has the right, of course, to become a nakedly partisan propaganda screed, but it doesn't have the right to continue to pretend to be something else. It's been an influential source of information about world affairs and if it continues to trade on a reputation that no longer applies that's a danger to everything this blog stands for.

I've written to the Times Public Editor and asked for an investigation (maybe you'd like to join me and send him a missive of your own). We shall see what develops, but remember that the only reason the Times even has a Public Editor is the fact that Jayson Blair got his hand caught in the cookie jar, not because the paper decided on its own to seek safeguards of accuracy in reporting. As noted above, the blogger at BlackFive has written the FEC to call for an investigation of whether the conduct described above may have violated federal elections laws.

UPDATE: The Times' Public Editor has investigated and condemned the Times action, forcing an admission from the editors following their sordid coverup.

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