Posted on 11/01/2004 9:18:13 AM PST by atomic_dog
Pebble Beach resident's book gives conservative critique
By JONATHAN SEGAL
Herald Staff Writer
The man in the white house is fighting a war with The New York Times.
But this white house isn't in Washington, D.C. And the man isn't George Bush.
It's Bob Kohn.
Kohn's white colonial, overlooking the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach, is a continent away from the bustle of Times Square. But the distance hasn't kept Kohn, 47, from becoming a leading conservative critic of The New York Times.
Since the publication of his book, "Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why it can No Longer Be Trusted," Kohn has toured the 24-hour cable squawkfest, appearing on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News. Two weeks ago, the New York Times' ombudsman Daniel Okrent gave Kohn precious space inside The Times to critique the paper, a coup for conservatives.
Kohn's thesis, advanced in his book and in the piece that ran last month, is that The Times slants news against the Bush administration in their news pages through subtle linguistic techniques and biased story placement. Critics on the left argue just as vociferously that The Times takes official sources at their word too often and does not question the administration as harshly as it should.
In the cacophony of this conflict, Kohn's civil tone helped him stand out, Okrent said.
"I think, of The Times' critics on the right, I think he argues his case well," said Okrent. "He's not inflexible."
While Kohn may be flexible, he infuses politics into his interests.
Growing up in Queens, N.Y., his childhood heroes were Mickey Mantle, trickle-down economist Milton Friedman, and Capt. James T. Kirk. Though his new heroes are Aristotle, William Shakespeare and 18th-century English essayist Samuel Johnson, Kohn's love for "Star Trek" lingers. He's recorded so many episodes of the show, he said, that his teenage son is sick of watching them.
Sitting in his wood-paneled study last week, Kohn fiddled with a Palm Pilot/cellphone that looked like something Capt. Kirk & Co. might have carried to one of their strange new worlds. The device's ring plays the Star Trek theme.
The 1960s cult sci-fi hit, Kohn said, showcases the best that conservatism has to offer. It's an environment where all people are equal and the human intellect is allowed to achieve to its highest potential.
"It was a multi-ethnic environment where ethnicity was unimportant," he said. "Liberals like to emphasize what is different."
If Kohn is this excited about starship politics, it's easy to understand how he turned a daily newspaper habit into a second career as a media critic and talking head. But he said he didn't expect it when he was writing the book.
"It came as a complete surprise," he said. "It's been a gas."
Kohn's first career as an entertainment lawyer specializing in music copyright law took him to Santa Cruz County in the late 1980s to become general counsel for Borland Software. Later, he founded E.Music.com, one of the first companies to sell digital music downloads over the Internet. E.Music's sale to media conglomerate Vivendi/Universal gave him the financial freedom to pursue other interests.
One of those interests, he said, was reading The New York Times. Traveling with his wife in New England in 2002, Kohn didn't have any other reading material, so The Times was his sole source of entertainment.
"When you're on vacation, when you have very little else to do, you read every line," he said. "I started to notice some very peculiar things going on."
So, he got out his Palm Pilot and started making notes about patterns of bias. When he got home from vacation, he said, he already had 20 pages of observations. Soon, his living room floor was covered in newspapers and he was on his way to writing "Journalistic Fraud."
A few lucky twists helped expedite Kohn's journey from the living room to the green room. He originally planned on self-publishing the book until a college buddy of his introduced him to an agent who found him a publisher, Thomas Nelson, a publisher of Christian and conservative titles.
But Kohn's biggest thanks may be due to Jayson Blair, the young reporter whose plagiarism and fabrications led to the resignations of The Times' two top editors and gave critics of the paper a fat target.
The scandal broke in May 2003. Kohn published in June.
After adding a quick section on Blair, the only things he had to change were the verb tenses when he wrote about then-editors Gerald Boyd and Howell Raines. While the book wasn't a bestseller, the scandal helped assure that it would get attention. The Blair debacle also led to the hiring of Okrent, The Times' first ombudsman.
"I think I heard from him the first week I started," Okrent said.
While Kohn sent copies of the books to several higher-ups at The Times, including Executive Editor Bill Keller, who declined to comment on Kohn's book, he hasn't heard many responses outside of Okrent's office.
Kohn's contact with Okrent led to an ongoing e-mail conversation that was distinguished by its civility, Okrent said, especially during a time when critics on the left and the right are determined to despise the paper no matter what.
The ombudsman doesn't agree with many of Kohn's criticisms, but he appreciates the tone.
"In these insane times, I find that appealing," Okrent said.
Although he's the author of a book whose cover screams "FRAUD" in scarlet type, Kohn said he tries to play nice with his ideological adversaries.
"I'm passionate about it, but not so passionate as to be rude," he said.
But if a cable-news opponent forces Kohn to adopt a tone that's a little more assertive, he's happy to increase the volume. The first time he was on television, Kohn was facing off against Michael Wolff, a New York-based magazine writer known for scalding some of the biggest names in the media world. Kohn's politeness kept him from interrupting as Wolff criticized him. He vowed it would never happen again.
Last week on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," Kohn talked over conservative guest host Pat Buchanan, a veteran of television vitriol in his own right.
"I still try to remain polite," said Kohn. "But when someone interrupts me and it's not the host, I just keep talking and maybe raise the level of my voice. It usually works."
It is time for a media cleansing.
It was total and utter fluff.
It's just a puff piece trying to sell the book. Didn't work. There's not even a decent teaser in it.
Wasn't Earth's economy in Star Trek basically communist? No money, working only for the advancement of society?
Well consider the source.
Two things I got out of it.
1.) I was not aware of this book and am going to get it from Amazon today.
2.) It illustrates the civility of most conservatives when contrasted with much liberal behavior.
Although, in the long run, the latter may be a liability.
Of course the NY Times can't be trusted. Neither can CBS or ABC. Not real sure about NBC either, but at least their aired the story about their imbedded reporter at Al Qaaqaa.
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