Weekend Economists Go Eat Worms March 27-29, 2015

[Demeter]

3. Always Remember, the NY Times Pushed, Hard, for War in Iraq

http://www.ianwelsh.net/always-remember-the-nytimes-pushed-hard-for-war-in-iraq/

The New York Times is beloved by many liberals, but I despise them. Part of my reason is their role in making the Iraq war happen. I was following it in real time and I remember how they pushed administration lies; the headlines of their articles on Iraq were almost always alarmist and the lead paragraphs were as well. Often enough, the truth would be buried in the equivalent of paragraph twelve. For those not in the business, here’s the rule: Most people only read the headlines and you lose half of those actually reading past the headline incrementally per paragraph. Maybe the Times numbers are slightly better than that (probably because their headlines are truly atrocious and uninformative), but the rule is broadly true and few people are able to write long-form without losing their readers.

The Times is essentially reactionary. A look at their columnists and who they have chosen to be new columnists makes the point: Ross Douthat, the reactionary Catholic? David Brooks, master of the inane right wing observation?....A lot of people think the Times is in some way left wing because they have a lot of excellent long form arts and culture coverage, but they are also the newspaper which knew the US, under Bush II, was spying on its own citizens in a widespread way and buried the story because it might influence the election.

Journalists without any preference for right or left wing, might think that information about what the government is actually doing should influence the election. They might even think it was their job to reveal such information. Not the editors at the Times, however....

The Times makes the world a more dangerous place by lying. It’s just that simple. Every time journalists lie to millions about the actual state of the world, they degrade those people’s ability to make good decisions about the world, especially good political decisions about voting. Democracy, which puts power in ordinary people’s hands, requires an informed populace, which requires a media that does not knowingly distort facts or conceal unfortunate truths. MORE

HE'S RIGHT, YOU KNOW...BUT IT'S EVEN WORSE IN THE HINTERLANDS.
THE AANEWS DOESN'T EVEN REPORT ON LOCAL EVENTS, AND THE DETROIT FREE PRESS DOESN'T GET COVERAGE EVEN AS FAR AS THE STATE CAPITAL, LET ALONE THE NATION'S.

AND AS FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD....IT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST! EXCEPT MAYBE ON THE SPORTS PAGES. WE HAVE A LOT OF SPORTS COVERAGE.