NYT Pays Tribute to Hastings by Attacking Him After Death

[G_j]

http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/06/20/nyt-pays-tribute-to-hastings-by-attacking-him-after-death/.

NYT Pays Tribute to Hastings by Attacking Him After Death

Posted by Jim Naureckas

When a journalist dies, how can you tell if they've had a career that's upheld the proudest journalistic traditions of challenging the powerful and fearlessly exposing the truth?

The New York Times will attempt to piss on that career in the journalist's obituary.

The Paper of Record did that with John Hess, himself a Times veteran and one of the paper's most incisive critics. When he died (Extra!, 3-4/05), the Times (1/22/05) called him "cranky," "curmudgeonly" and "grudging"–not to mention bungling his birthplace (The Bronx, not Salt Lake City) and alma mater (City College, not the University of Utah). John, who actually worked on the paper's obituary desk, would have just said it proved his point.

Then in its obituary for Barbara Seaman, the groundbreaking critic of corporate media health coverage (Extra!, 3-4/08), the Times (3/1/08) offered this as its only sustained evaluation of her work–a quote from a Washington Post book review (10/5/03):

Seaman is a conspiracy theorist by temperament and training. In her presentation, every drug company is working against the interests of its patients, and every journalist who fails to question this or that bad study has probably been bought off.

Here's a theory for you: Every journalist who quotes hyperbolic attacks on a colleague who can no longer defend herself is most likely suffering from a bad conscience.

.. More..

[Catherina]

1. Excellent breakdown of the NYT's dishonesty.

[–]YouthInRevolt 3 points 1 year ago

Have you ever been warned/threatened by any of the interests whose power your style of reporting threatens to jeopardize?

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[–]Michael_Hastings[S] 6 points 1 year ago

Yes. Every once and awhile, I'll get a death threat from someone--like, "if we don't like what you write, we'll hunt you down and kill you" kind of thing. But there's a more insidious response most of the time when you piss off the powerful. They come after your career, they try to come after your credibility. They do cocktail party whisper campaigns. They try to make you "controversial." Sadly, The Powers That Be are often aided by other journalists.

The Pentagon has launched three investigations into stories I've done over the past 18 months under the pretense of finding the wrongdoing we were exposing. But the investigations were really about creating a Pentagon approved official document to criticize journalism they don't like.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=post&forum=1002&pid=3067297

[no_hypocrisy]

2. The Times couldn't stand the fact that Hastings was the caliber of journalist once

employed by The Times.

[GoldenOldie]

3. Few Journalists left with the ability to actually report the truth.

As an Oldie, who still remembers the correspondents/journalists who reported during FDR's term, WWII, McCarthy Commie hearings, etc., etc., I learned what a Journalist/Reporter is responsible for and their responsibility to keep "We The People," informed.

The honored professionalism of Journalism and our Democracy, has been greatly harmed when the REAL Journalists are attacked, ignored, under utilized, and under-paid and have been slowly replaced by talking-heads, young, blond bimbo's, read prompters, with scripts written by other untrained hacks who have received the/their latest news from Facebook, Twitter, and DU. They then write their scripts in 10-second spots, flitting from one story to another.....none of them related and leaving no time for questions or digestion of what was said.

All of these Media talking heads receive millions in compensation, ie., Matt Lauer, Mika Brzezinski, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc, etc., etc., while those who write/report from the sites of the actual battlefields, be they wars, demonstrations, disasters, Congressional Hearings, Foreign Affairs, are paid little for all their hard work. The majority of the Talking Heads have never been educated nor trained in Journalism.......the only protected professional in the Constitution....therefore they see no need to defend or protect the Journalistic works of true Journalists. Their only need, is to protect their perks.

[Iliyah]

4. The NYT is full of shit

UGH