Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The New York Times and Washington Post betray their own Pentagon Papers principles
American Thinker ^ | May 05, 2023 | Monica Showalter

Posted on 05/05/2023 7:00:54 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Back when I was a student at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in the mid-1990s, we were all required to take a First Amendment freedom of the press course at Columbia's School of Law during the second semester. Every Friday, we trudged over to the law school in the snow (which in our year extended well into May) to the big room with amphitheatre-style seating (which was quite a change from our usual classroom desks with typewriters) and learned all about the differences between slander and libel, what a public figure was, how a public figure differed from a private figure, what a "false light" report was, what prior restraint was, and a lot of other legal concepts we would absolutely need to know as journalists as we made our way.

In the first weeks of the course, we studied the heroism of the New York Times and other prominent media outlets in the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, where we learned that the Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets courageously asserted their right and obligation to publish the truth that is out there, with the case eventually making it to the Supreme Court, where the court ruled in favor of the Times.

One wonders what that Columbia course would be like now, given that the lesson has been scrapped by none other than the New York Times itself, and its media collaborator buddies based on their collusion with social media and the government itself to suppress the perfectly true Hunter Biden laptop revelations first reported by the New York Post.

That was observed by Matt Taibbi, who cited Michael Shellenberger's Twitter files reporting, with its unflattering revelations about the Times's behavior since.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bias; mediabias

1 posted on 05/05/2023 7:00:54 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the Revolution.”

— Saul Alinksy


2 posted on 05/05/2023 7:02:40 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (“You want it one way, but it's the other way”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

The only principle the Left is consistent with is the unending pursuit of absolute power.


3 posted on 05/05/2023 7:04:44 PM PDT by Nateman (If Mohammad was not the Anti Christ Mad Moe definitely comes in as a Strong second..)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

Bkmk


4 posted on 05/05/2023 7:10:03 PM PDT by sauropod (“If they don’t believe our lies, well, that’s just conspiracy theorist stuff, there.”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Nateman
The only principle the Left is consistent with is the unending pursuit of absolute power.

Exactly. If this Showalter woman actually believes that the Times and the Post ever had any "principles" to which they adhered, she's sadly delusional.

And, for most "conservatives," that's about all they have to offer, one-trick-pony-wise: calling out the Left and/or the press for their hypocrisy. Yeah? So?

A water pistol at a full-on gun battle.

5 posted on 05/05/2023 7:11:02 PM PDT by DSH
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum
Expect the usual refrain, "but that was different."

Different how?

It just was because we say it was.

-PJ

6 posted on 05/05/2023 7:14:25 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

Oh these fingerwagging conservatves and their earnest essays that list the ways that the other side isn’t playing up to some rules.

There are no more rules.

While you whine leftist extremists make their next step and take more ground.


7 posted on 05/05/2023 7:17:32 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Genocide is here. Leftist extremists are spearhheading the Genocide against conservatives. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

The NY Times has been printing fake news and propaganda since 1851.


8 posted on 05/05/2023 7:30:16 PM PDT by TigersEye (Woke is a cancer of the mind and humanity)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

Nothing has changed, really. With the Pentagon Papers, the objective was to help in bringing down Nixon. With the Hunter laptop, the objective was to help Biden in bringing down Trump.

Plus ca change, c’est la meme chose.


9 posted on 05/05/2023 7:33:31 PM PDT by RAldrich
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

10 posted on 05/05/2023 7:37:28 PM PDT by TigersEye (Woke is a cancer of the mind and humanity)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Nateman
The only principle the Left is consistent with is the unending pursuit of absolute power.

The "By Any Means Necessary" Party...

11 posted on 05/05/2023 7:37:40 PM PDT by kiryandil (China Joe and Paycheck Hunter - the Chink in America's defenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum
The press loses its institutional power the moment the public ceases to view it as being separate from government. If politicians aren’t worried about taking a beating in the newspapers, they won’t fear newspapers, and if the public sees that news reports are indistinguishable from party press releases, they’ll eventually skip past media and go straight to the source.

-- Matt Taibbi, The Press is Now Also the Police

12 posted on 05/05/2023 7:41:32 PM PDT by Magnatron
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RAldrich
Nothing has changed, really. With the Pentagon Papers, the objective was to help in bringing down Nixon. With the Hunter laptop, the objective was to help Biden in bringing down Trump.

What these papers have accomplished is that they revealed the Pentagon Papers to be a partisan act simply dressed up to appear as a principled one.

13 posted on 05/05/2023 7:54:37 PM PDT by Captain Walker (Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.-Pascal)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: E. Pluribus Unum

The New York Times has always been a polysyllabic rag that historically ALWAYS published narratives conforming to the interests of the Democrat Party. The Pentagon Papers narrative was published during Nixon’s presidency in 1971 purposely creating the impression that the Nixon administration that ultimately ended the Vietnam war authored them and not the Johnson administration that authored them as a propagandistic tool to prosecute the Vietnam war he was responsible for expanding


14 posted on 05/06/2023 5:59:05 AM PDT by chuckee ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson