NY Times public editor and DC deputy editor agree: Paper should have covered Colbert's speech
In a May 15 post on his official Web journal, New York Times public editor Byron Calame agreed with the conclusion of the newspaper's Washington bureau deputy editor Richard W. Stevenson that the Times should have run an article on comedian Stephen Colbert's speech at the April 29 White House Correspondents Association dinner. As Media Matters for America noted, the Times' -- like numerous other news outlets -- devoted its coverage of the event solely to President Bush's performance. Indeed, reporter Elisabeth Bumiller's lengthy May 1 article focused on the light-hearted act involving Bush and a presidential impersonator but made no mention of Colbert's scathing routine at the dinner. The Times subsequently ran a May 3 article on the contentious debate surrounding Colbert's speech. In the Web journal post, Calame concurred with Stevenson's opinion that the paper should have initially published "a separate story that anticipated the reaction the [Colbert] routine generated and explained its political significance, rather than waiting to capture it after the fact."
Does anyone else find it curious that this is posted in a web journal instead of the print version of the Times? Most of the folks who would read it on the web already know that the times screwed up. It's the people who only read the print version that were let down by the Time's failure. Why isn't this in the print paper?
This is two weeks after the fact and oopsy we should have covered it. Bulmiller is known to have lap dogged BushieCo on several occasions, do you think she is uncritically going to report on Colbert's brilliant skewering of such lap doggery? The NYT lazily took their reporters stories, they end up being embarassed by the reaction, mostly in cyberspace, on Colbert's piece. So two weeks after the press cycle, they offer a mea culpa (in cyberspace). They used to be the paper of record, now they have stooped to cleaning up after themselves.
Are the readers of the NYT/Post battered spouses? seems like it, the editors are pretty much textbook abusers: "Sorry about that war, and the anti-christ president, but we promise we will never ignore our ethics, ever again, and this time we really mean it." It's time to move and get an unlisted number.
The paper has been exposed as merely a delivery vehicle for the BushCo Empire over the alst few years. The laundry list of examples of shameless propaganda, lies and misdirection is an awesome thing to behold.
Also, I think the NYT ought to "buckle up" as it is now being reported that Judith "I'm not a spook" Miller AND the senior staff at the NYT were aware of an Al-Queda plot to attack the US PRIOR to 9/11 and sat on the story. If this is true, the vast bulk of their reporting about 9/11 was deliberately incomplete and selective. One must ask why? The answers to the obvious complicity between the NYT and BushCo is terrifying to contemplate.
Indeed, the apparent complicity between the NYTimes and Bush Co is terrifying to contemplate. I have been in denial for the last three years. My subscription will not be renewed.
The only HELPFUL analysis coming out of the New York Times would be an honest appraisal of WHY they decided to ignore Colbert while getting giddy over Bush's "doppleganger" performance.
Obviously, the Times was taken by surprise, that they missed the event/performance that most energized the American People. A mere "oops" doesn't explain their conscious decision to showcase one, while burying the other.
It's time for the Times to come clean. It's time for an expose' of analysis of the considerations the Times employs when deciding what to cover, and what NOT to cover. What is their criteria? Who said, "Colbert was the FEATURED speaker, but we don't need to even MENTION him, let alone relay what he SAID."?
WHY was it decided that Bush's "hilarious" performance was newsworthy, but Colbert's performance was of no interest? Aside from being a flat WRONG decision -- America was moved and energized by Colbert's words -- it was a decision that had great PARTISAN implications, to which the Times adhered.
Without deep analysis, one thing is clear: the White House was served by the coverage. The White House wishes for Bush to be held in the best light. The White House wanted Bush praised as funny when he wants to be, self depricating, and brilliant in his comedic delivery. The Times delivered. The White House also wishes for brilliant anti-Bush satire, which cuts to the core of issues the White House does NOT wish discuss, to be ignored and buried. Again, the Times delivered.
It is no coincidence that the Times delivered exactly the coverage the White House desired. It's also undeniable that, by ignoring Colbert, the Times missed the BIG STORY of the evening, the one which the American citizens and their readership were highly interested in, but which the Times missed entirely.
An apology on one website is hardly sufficient. What is called for is the THINKING behind the decision making in this instance. What would be REFRESHING would be for the Times to come clean and admit they are trying their best to make the White House happy, and if this means spiking big news stories, that's exactly what they will do.
After all, the Consortium Report BIG NEWS was that GORE actually won in Florida, when all the legal valid votes were counted. The TIMES reported ... falsely ... that Bush would have won anyway, burying the LEAD. Again, doing the bidding of the Republicans.
They may as well admit the obvious; the New York Times has fallen into being a wholly-operated subsidiary of the GOP.
It seems also that the NYT and hell, all the other media outlets (no one really covered Colbert) wants to be a propagandic arm to this failed administration. It's perplexing in its continuing nature, given the poll numbers. It seems to go beyond even the ridiculous notion of "honoring" the presidential office (they never used that rule with Clinton).
Colbert's performance had a Boston Tea Party quality to it, with the perfect Trojan horse approach (if I can mix historical metaphors).
Always a pleasure to read your input.