Posted on 08/02/2004 3:07:19 PM PDT by Pikamax
Other Voices: The Liberal Question and the Privacy Question By DANIEL OKRENT
EW Public Editor columns have attracted reader mail as intense as the comments provoked by my last two, "Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?" (July 25) and "When the Right to Know Confronts the Need to Know" (July 11). Many of the messages were informed by experience both personal and professional, especially those concerning the latter piece, about an alleged case of sexual abuse.
In addition to the letters published here, readers might be interested in a particularly eloquent demurrer from Times reporter Nina Bernstein, which I've posted on my Web journal: www.nytimes.com/danielokrent Posting 32.
Is The Times Liberal?
Is it liberal to be concerned by huge budget deficits? Is it liberal to think that the Constitution is not to be trifled with? Is it liberal to be against the erasing of lines separating church and state? Is it liberal to worry that special interest money is harming our democracy? Is it liberal to think that government must be transparent because it is supposed to represent its citizens?
Your job is to cast the unbiased eye and call them as you see them. You can't do that if you allow political interests to frame the issues and then make judgments from that frame.
FRED POLVERE Yonkers, July 27, 2004
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Your examination of where The Times fits - left or right - seems to accept the right's contention that there should be equality between the two. But where the left looks for empirical evidence to support its views, the right already has the theological received wisdom that brooks no contradiction. Why give the right's views the same weight as the left's? Why present religiously based arguments as equally valid?
ROBERT GLATZER Spokane, Wash., July 26, 2004
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Does any conservative publication bother to wring its hands over being what it is, as you did? Where's your spine?
HARVEY LISZT Granada, Spain, July 26, 2004
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In making the case that The Times's coverage of the gay marriage issue has shown a liberal imbalance by printing articles portraying gay marital bliss over articles describing potential marital strife, you confuse balance with illogical overextension.
During the civil rights movement, it was not incumbent upon newspapers to run articles about the risks of African-Americans drowning in public swimming pools as arguments against desegregating those pools.
LAURA NEWMAN Astoria, Queens, July 26, 2004
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I believe there can be a reasoned debate about tax law, environmental policy, gun control and even abortion. But to me, gay rights should be in the same category as creationism vs. science.
Most people who are antigay or creationists base their views on the mindless repetition of tradition, ignorance and prejudice, rather than on careful consideration.
It is appropriate for a newspaper intended for a relatively educated audience to privilege science over creationism. Likewise, it is appropriate to privilege tolerance over bigotry, or democracy over totalitarianism.
ZACK SUBIN Arlington, Mass., July 25, 2004
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Far more than so-called balance (which really means having no impact), The Times's greatest responsibility is to report the facts as its researchers and writers gather them and as its editors interpret them.
Why should The Times pander to its readership? After all, why are its readers reading the paper in the first place? If they want "balanced" reporting, they can tune into any TV news outlet.
MARK MARABELLA Norfolk, Va., July 25, 2004
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It isn't necessary for readers to agree with The Times's decisions, only that they be made so that readers can evaluate the meaning of the information and the ranking of its importance for themselves.
And if consumers don't approve of or trust the way the decisions are made, they can always find another source for information that makes decisions more to their liking.
That's the nature of the free market in information: if enough consumers repudiate the decisions made by the editors - if the facts are wrong or their meaning distorted - the publication will eventually go broke.
CARLTON SMITH South Pasadena, Calif., July 25, 2004
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It appears that "liberal" has been redefined by archconservatives. Accept their definition and The Times is inescapably "liberal."
But politically, being to the left of Mel Gibson, John Ashcroft or creationists is not a sign of liberalism, any more than criticizing Al Sharpton and Michael Moore or communism makes The Times conservative.
In fashion and the arts, the revisionists confuse "new" with "liberal," and The Times usefully focuses on innovation. How can music be "liberal" or "conservative"? Is Phillip Glass's music "liberal"? Schönberg's?
I suppose by definition, "conservatives" oppose the new, but imagine a newspaper that's moderate and intellectually curious: what else would it print?
TOM BINKOW Philadelphia, July 25, 2004
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You write that only 50 percent of Times readers live in metropolitan New York. But how many of the other 50 percent are former New Yorkers (like me), wish-they-were-in-New-York-ers or New Yorkers at heart? I love the cosmopolitan, multicultural, sophisticated, "urban" perspective of The Times.
I read our local paper for that "different worldview."
RUTH BAROLSKY Charlottesville, Va., July 26, 2004
When has the Times ever criticized Sharpton, Moore, or communism?
the letters show what assholes these NYT readers are
MARK MARABELLA Norfolk, Va., July 25, 2004
Hey, Mark! Go buy a clue; you obviously don't have one.
make that "elite, arrogant assholes" and you and I will agree 100%.
LOL!
too true
But this article just underscores the fact that on politics (always) and on history (sometimes), the Times is not to be trusted.
I especially liked the letter to the Editor which claimed that liberalism was "based on facts you could look up" but conservatism was "based on revealed theology which was not to be questioned." That particular dummy got it exactly wrong. The libs have a secular religion, whose tenets are not to be questioned, as witness most of the speeches at the DemCom.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "Down the Memory Hole: Joseph Wilson Disappears"
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Remember: These people elected Hillary Clinton to represent them.
Some of these letters reinforce my belief that I'd rather live in Baghdad than on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The letters only confirm that liberals read a liberal newspaper. Duh.
These scumbags always end up in the same circle jerk anyway, so who cares?
I actually think the NYT's bias makes sense, because their customers expect it and subscribe because they want a paper that mirror's their bias. What that means is the NYT will never again be the nation's newspaper; even liberals now submit important op-ed pieces to the Wall Street Journal, which has overtaken the Gray Lady.
Further proof of his idiocy is this beauty, "If they want "balanced" reporting, they can tune into any TV news outlet." Is this guy from Uranus? He must live in some parallel Bizarro World.
What a bunch of pompous jerks. Do all NYT readers have to brag about how smart they are?
Goes to show you how different Europe is from the USA. Most cities in Europe still have left-leaning and right-leaning newspapers.
What Mr. Liszt failes to understand is that, unlike most European papers, the NYT (as well as other papers in the USA) have tried to feed Americians a line of BS by claiming they were "objective". I went to J-school and the mantra of "objectivity" was pounded into us, not realizing until I got a little older that there's really no such thing as true objectivity.
In someways it's refreshing to see the NYT tell the truth for once.
That they have not even a remotely accurate picture of conservative thought is a testament to the ability of NYT and the rest of the liberal hegemony to drown out any expression of it.
A major difference between conservatives and liberals is that many conservatives have held more liberal views at some point in their life, and eventually rejected those views. It's a rare liberal bird who has a one time called himself a conservative.
When im bored at my internship, one of the places I go is the NYT editorial page and read those letters and editorials (I also spend much time at NRO :)). You know to see who reads that crap and what people like them think. They are so full of themselves and a bunch of elitist snobs who probably only write a letter so they can show all the other elitist snobs that read the NYT how witty and intelligent they are or congratulate themselves on their wittiness and moral superiority. It really shows that these people have never met a conservative, Republican, or someone who's religious and dont care to.
Naaaahh!!!! I'd kill to live on the Upper West Side and I'm a conservative.
I'm in a liberal hell city here in Massachusetts and would love NYC.
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