Open Letter to revoke Duranty's Pulizer on behalf of Gareth Jones (bad PR for the New York Times)

Gareth Jones Archives Website ^ | 6/24/03 | Dr. Margaret Siriol Colley/ Nigel Colley

[DPB101]

Admin Mod...Nigel Colley was kind enough to email me notification of this letter. Posted it in breaking news because it is an FR exclusive--for now. It has been sent to other media outlets and we should see reporting on it in a day or two. If you think it should be moved to another catagory, no problem.

[MEG33]

I love it.Let's see if it's published!Thank you for spreading the word.

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks! Great stuff! We may have to put this up for a KnickerBocker Award ;-)

What's a Pulitzer worth on the Open Market these days?

[MEG33]

FYI

[Cicero]

We have seen earlier stories here about Gareth Jones, but I certainly think this is newsworthy.

And I think it's helpful to provide this further evidence that the Times has been dishonest for a very long time.

In fact there's one point in this story I haven't seen elsewhere: "Eugene Lyons in his 1937 book, Assignment in Utopia, described how the foreign press corps in Moscow was assembled by the Soviet Press Censor, Oumansky, to conspire as to how they could repudiate Gareth Jones’ Berlin report, especially since they were being inundated with enquiries from their home news desks about his revelations. Duranty then took it upon himself to deny there was a terrible famine situation in Russia."

In other words, the situation back then was similar to what I remember of news reports of the early days of Castro in Cuba. The Times led the way with its stories about agrarian reformers, but virtually the whole western press was pro-Communist in its reporting. That's been going on for a very long time, although they were a bit more cautious at the height of the Cold War.

[rwfromkansas]

website is down

[DPB101]

Email campaign to revoke Duranty's Pulitzer:

Revoke Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize' - International Protest Campaign

If the New York Times had any sense, it would return the prize

[DPB101]

Perhaps too many hits all at once. I got in the home page here:

http://www.colley.co.uk/garethjones/

[plusone]

Thanks very much for posting this info!! Hadn't heard of Jones before. But I know about Durranty!!!

[Bernard Marx]

Excellent work! The NYT has much to account for.

[Burkeman1]

Perhaps Bill O'Reilly could get on this and make it one of his causes (though I despise him)? What about Rush? This is the perfect time to press this issue home. As I understand it Duranty's Pulitzer still hangs in the main lobby of the New York Times. This is shameful. Want to put a nail in the coffin of the New York Times as the "paper of record"? This would be perfect.

[DPB101]

Alistair Cooke's memory of events is fading:

The maddest and most criminal of tyrants

Alistair Cooke : Letter from America
Monday, 23 June, 2003

. . .1933 was the first year of Stalin's triumph in enforcing his collectivist plan. In shorter words - in that year 4.2 million Ukrainians starved to death, another 1.7 millions were driven away to outdoor threadbare camps and left for the perishing winter to kill them off.

No Western reporter that I've heard about managed to get a word about the Ukraine through to his/her paper . . .

Progressive liberal people in both Britain and America were reluctant to believe that he'd ever executed anybody except genuine, dangerous party plotters. . .

In Nick Clarke's biography of Cook, Gareth Jones is standing next to Alistair Cooke in a team photograph of the 1929 Cambridge University Granta Society.

[Libertina]

BUMP Thank you for this "special report"! This man does indeed deserve vindication, and Duranty's actions the light of truth.

[VOA]

bump

[Cicero]

I haven't seen many paper copies of the New York Times in recent years, but they used to run an annual full page ad patting themselves on the back for all their Pulitzers, and Duranty always had pride of place for winning their very first Pulitzer.

I think that Rush, O'Reilly, and others regularly get ideas from FR, and hopefully they will also get notification of this web site.

[DPB101]

the situation back then was similar to what I remember of news reports of the early days of Castro in Cuba.

Congress investigated Herbert Matthews and the New York Times influence with pro-Castro forces in the State Department but not much, that I know of, came of it. Some of the testimony is below. How the Times and others promoted Fidel is unbelievable but true:

COMMUNIST THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES
THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
PART 9
AUGUST 27, 30, 1960

[Burkeman1]

Oh- I agree. FR is often days ahead of Rush.

[lelio]

There's zero chance of the NY Times agreeing to revoke Duranty's pulitizer. Why? Because they just went through the Jayson Blair episode calling it the darkest day in their 150 year career.
So the NYT would have to go back on that and say that it was the 2nd darkest day, behind excusing the killing of millions Ukranians.

[MEG33]

Do send him your information.It is a terrible indictment of Stalin and the crimes we ignored or were ignorant of.Yes the pictures from the concentration camps were implanted in my brain when I was still a youngster and we have no pictures to commemorate Stalin's horrors.We can learn from reading and it is important to hold the apologists feet to the fire.I'll bet Cooke would correct the record about no western reporter writing about the famine with pleasure.

[Fracas]

Thanks for keeping us up-dated on this story. The NYT wallowed in the Pulitzer for years, and it's time the scales were balanced.

There are other interesting items on the links you provided...wonderful 'rainy day' reading.