Does anybody actually edit the WashTimes?
May 13, 2009 4:44 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
Just an additional thought about what CF highlighted earlier today, and how the WashTimes used photos of the Obama schoolchildren for a news article about schoolchildren being murdered in Chicago:
And the additional thought is this, does anybody edit that newspaper or is it just a hodgepodge of whatever scraps of content employees can slap together? I'm serious. The egregious crimes against journalism that now regularly seep out that newsroom are just mind-boggling.
Think about the specifics of today's case. The Obama children, of course, are not actually mentioned in the news story. But somebody at the WashTimes thought it made perfect sense to insert the image of the underage White House occupants into a story about murdered kids in Chicago.
And no, this was not an example of an unfortunate juxtaposition, where the the Obama girls photo was actually part of another, more innocuous story and because of a layout quirk simply appeared near the murdered-kids story. Instead, the Obama girls photo was specifically selected to accompany the article.
Ordinarily I'd say that's just God-awful judgment on the part of the Times editors. But increasingly, I get the feeling that there isn't anybody at the Times actually making editorial decisions.
(h/t No More Mr. Nice Blog and Shakesville)
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Or it could have been intentional like Foxaganda's repeated mislabeling of elected officials' political affiliations.
What do you want to bet that the Secret Service is running checks on the employees of that newspaper?
Ah, the old 'whoopie we used a photo of President Obama's children to highlight a story about dead kids' maneuver.
YOU ARE A MORON!
I notice that on the other thread you wondered if this might have been juxtaposition, which would make it fine. Well, it wasn't, and now you're coming up with this incredibly generous theory to excuse the behavior. Are you open-minded on this? I'm not saying for certain what the thought process or intent behind this was, but I don't think it's disputable that this looks absolutely horrible for them. An innocuous explanation does not seem to be at hand here.
Even I can go on the internet and retrieve a photo of black children in front of one these Chicago schools, in an instant! I may pay be required to pay copyright fees, and then I could freely publish it. This is ridiculous. This is rubbish.
If they had used closed in shots of other black children, who are alive and healthy, their parents could /would sue the newspaper.
They are banking on the president not wanting to get down in the gutter with them.
Having said that, the only time Obama has ever come close to losing his cool was over his wife and children. There are many ways of putting pressure to bear, without going public. I hope he uses everyone of them at his disposal.
If the Times is short staffed and their staff is that ignorant it is no excuse. Any youngster running a school newspaper would know better.
This is sensationalism, to sell copy, pure and simple.
I would have figured by now that they would have come in here and posted that this was nothing more than a simply mistake... they took it down... its a non-story.
This is not the biggest story of the day, but I agree that someone over at the WaTimes should either be fired or hired to be Dick Cheney's biographer...
the second short answer: yes.
the times isn't a real newspaper, merely the moonie's weirdo propaganda rag, fit for use as bird cage liner mostly. it's never suffered the embarassment of actually making a profit, because so few people are stupid enough to buy it.
this was absolutely intentional.
By the way, Fox News and Fox Nation are worse. The suits at this cheesy network hate Obama. The feds should investigate the suits behind these publications and news outlets.