by Robert Reich 'The New York Times no longer reports all the news that's fit to print [View all]

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but only the news fit for Hillary Clinton.

Appearing in yesterday’s morning edition of the New York Times was an article entitled “Bernie Sanders Scored Victories for Years Via Legislative Side Doors.” It was the first article I’ve read in the Times that praised Bernie. This one focused on legislative victories he's achieved for working people and the poor by quietly and persistently amending and changing bills.
I was going to share the article with you, but by yesterday afternoon it had been significantly and mysteriously altered to become less praiseworthy and more snide. The headline was changed to: “Via Legislative Side Doors, Bernie Sanders Won Modest Victories.” Several complimentary quotes that had appeared in the morning edition were deleted (such as one from Senator John McCain, and another from Warren Gunnels, Bernie’s long-time policy adviser, calling his strategy “very successful.”) New paragraphs were added that criticized Bernie. (For example: “But in his presidential campaign Mr. Sanders is trying to scale up those kinds of proposals as a national agenda, and there is little to draw from his small-ball legislative approach to suggest he could succeed. Mr. Sanders is suddenly promising not just a few stars here and there, but the moon and a good part of the sun, from free college tuition paid for with giant tax hikes and a huge increase in government health care, which has made even liberal Democrats skeptical.”)

The original article had called Bernie an “effective, albeit modest, legislator.” In the altered version, an additional clause was added: “ — enacting his agenda piece by piece, in politically digestible chunks with few sweeping legislative achievements in a quarter-century in Congress.”

Many of us have long suspected the Times of anti-Bernie partisanship. This particular instance proves the point. I publicly call on the Times’s Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, to explain how an article praising Bernie Sanders the morning before several critical primaries could, just hours later, turn into an article criticizing him. Ms. Sullivan: Who at the Times made these changes, and why?'

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Fighting words from Robert Reich