Posted on 09/23/2007 6:50:04 PM PDT by LdSentinal
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Pajamas Media CEO Roger Simon underestimated how deep the institutional bias in the New York Times truly runs. That won’t happen again.
It’s not often I underestimate the stuck-in-time, fuddy-duddy sixties traditionalism of the New York Times, but in this case I did.
Not in my wildest dreams was the paper capable of deliberately giving a fifty percent advertising discount to the George Soros-supported Moveon.org for a juvenile advertisement calling General Petraeus General Betray-us, of all things.
Despite what many had said, I had just assumed it was a business decision. The Times had ad space left over and, as everyone knows, they have economic problems. I went so far as to tell Pajamas Media’s Jim Hanson that he was over the top in his FEC suit. (I apologize, Jim.)
Quite clearly the Times’ favoritism to Moveon was deliberate.
In many ways this is worse than the Jayson Blair affair that so embarrassed the Times and caused a change in editorial administration. That was the result of inept fact checking. It could partially be excused as accidental, although the “accident” was repeated many times. The Moveon Affair goes much further, showing a functional and deliberate bias pervading the newspaper’s operations.
The question is how systemic is this – how high and deep this bias goes in the paper’s structure?. How long has the Times been showing this kind of favoritism and to whom? More specifically - who knew about the Moveon ad and when did they know it?
Sound familiar? Papers like the Times and the Washington Post make their reputations conducting such investigations. It will be interesting to see if they do one here. We will be waiting. At a moment in history when the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is visiting New York, it is no small matter that the city and the country’s most respected newspaper – or the one that for many years claimed to be – is guilty of unethical behavior that risks jeopardizing our nation’s security.
A few years ago, in a loose-lipped moment that now seems more like projection than anything else, Bill Keller, the editor of the New York Times, accused blogging of being a “one man circle jerk.” What greater “circle jerk” exists today than the New York Times?
“Quite clearly the Times’ favoritism to Moveon was deliberate.”
Shocking. </sarc>
Yep, of all the circle jerks in the world the New York times is the circlejerkiest!
Is this the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning OR has anything even begun yet?
Look for an ad in tomorrow’s Times from that Iranian “bad boy.”
Read Jim Hanson’s article. It seems NYT was in violation of federal law when they discounted to Moveon.com or org. or whatever. Are there not any decent people that do the right thing amongst these people. Obviously, they are dirt bags.
I hope Soros and the rest and I’ll bet one of the Clintons was involved, will go to jail which is what they so richly deserve.
I am really sick of them breaking the law and getting away with it.
Another one, Doug. This time Big Daddy Soros.
Check this out. The phrase “yeah right” comes to mind.
Statement by Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org Political Action Executive Director, Resolving the New York Times Ad Rate Issue
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In the Public Editor
column of today’s New York Times, the Times’ vice president admits that,
without the knowledge or consent of MoveOn.org Political Action, the Times
“made a mistake” in charging MoveOn its standby rate of $65,000 for the
advertisement run on Monday September 10. According to the Public Editor,
the Times’ vice president admitted that the company’s advertising
representative “failed to make it clear that for that rate the Times could
not guarantee the Monday placement but left MoveOn.org with the
understanding that the ad would run then.” According to the Public Editor,
“the group should have paid $142,083.”
Now that the Times has revealed this mistake for the first time, and
while we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by
most organizations, out of an abundance of caution we have decided to pay
that rate for this ad. We will therefore wire the $77,083 difference to the
Times tomorrow (Monday, September 24, 2007).
We call on Mayor Giuliani, who received exactly the same ad deal for
the same price, to pay the corrected fee also.
The Public Editor’s column makes crystal clear that at no time did
MoveOn have any reason to believe that it was receiving from the Times
anything other than the normal and usual charge for the advertisement. And
there is no evidence of any kind that the error in quoting of rates was in
any way based on the content of the advertisement or the identity of its
sponsor. Of course, MoveOn believed that it was engaged in an arms length
negotiation regarding advertising rates with the Times and assumed that it
was being quoted advertising prices consistent with the Times’ usual and
normal charge.
MoveOn continues, of course, to stand by the content of the
advertisement and to urge citizens and their elected representatives in the
Congress to focus on the continued dishonesty of the Bush Administration
and the American blood and treasure being lost in a war for which the
Administration has no exit strategy. Certainly that issue is more worthy of
the attention of the electorate and the media than the mistake of an
advertising representative or the wording of an advertisement.
SOURCE MoveOn.org Political Action
Interesting. My take is that Macys and Dreamworks and all their other regular big advertisers have been dialing the number.
Shoot, Dreamworks or some other lefty company probably ponied up the money to pay the imbalance. They got caught and have decided this is the best course of action. Pay up and call it a mistake. This defense falls apart when you hear the NYT’s initial response to the scandal. They said they charged the rate for an ad that wasn’t guaranteed to run. Only if they had space. However announcements for the ad were running in the NYT and other media days before the ad was to run. This moveon guy had to know that.
“we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by most organizations”
That’s what Roger is saying — who knows how many other anti-Bush organizations have gotten special discounted prices for their political advertisements? Someone should do a search of political ads in the Times over the past six years (at least) and audit the rates paid for each of them.
And how many Americans have died in Iraq due to terrorists emboldened by the NY Times and other left wing rags...
“Moveon.org, just another hate group that believes The First Amendment exists only for them. A KKK without robes.”
Moveon.org = NY Times = Washington Post = a circle group that would see this country in hell, led by DIM national socialists. Concentration camps for all intelligent freedom seeking RealAmericans who might become the reincarnation of those who originally founded this country by declaring Independence 231 years ago.
When the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can come to New York and be treated like a respectable head (NOT) of a respectable country (NOT), be embraced by a previously prestigious university and given a forum to spew venom, is it so far removed from our thinking that this same evil housed in the UN might provide the muscle to make the concentration camps happen?
Be vigilant, any of you who are RealAmericans.
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