2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumMatt Taibbi's piece: How the 'New York Times' Sandbagged Bernie Sanders
Really interesting article about the NY Times story on their piece, Bernie Sanders Scored Victories for Years Via Legislative Side Doors which was CHANGED TO Via Legislative Side Doors, Bernie Sanders Won Modest Victories. He shows how they "corrected" the original version to take on a completely different slant from what was originally printed.
I took notice of the piece by Jessica Steinhauer because I wrote essentially the same article nearly 11 years ago. Mine, called "Four Amendments and a Funeral," was quite a bit longer. Sanders back then was anxious that people know how Congress worked, and also how it didn't work, so he invited me to tag along for weeks to follow the process of a series of amendments he tried (and mostly succeeded) to pass in the House.
I came to the same conclusions that Steinhauer did initially: that Sanders was uniquely skilled at the amendment process and also had a unique ability to reach across the aisle to make deals.
"Sanders is the amendment king of the current House of Representative. Since the Republicans took over Congress in 1995, no other lawmaker has passed more roll-call amendments (amendments that actually went to a vote on the floor) than Bernie Sanders. He accomplishes this on the one hand by being relentlessly active, and on the other by using his status as an Independent to form left-right coalitions."
Steinhauer the other day wrote very nearly the same thing. She described how Bernie managed to get a $1.5 billion youth jobs amendment tacked onto an immigration bill through "wheeling and dealing, shaming and cajoling."
The amendment, she wrote, was "classic Bernie Sanders," a man she described as having "spent a quarter-century in Congress working the side door, tacking on amendments to larger bills that scratch his particular policy itches, generally focused on working-class Americans, income inequality and the environment."
SNIP
Not so fast! As noted first in this piece on Medium ("Proof That the New York Times Isn't Feeling the Bern" , the paper swiftly made a series of significant corrections online. A new version of the piece came out later the same day, and in my mind, the corrections changed the overall message of the article.
First, as noted in the Medium piece, they changed the headline. It went from:
Bernie Sanders Scored Victories for Years Via Legislative Side Doors
to:
Via Legislative Side Doors, Bernie Sanders Won Modest Victories
Then they yanked a quote from Bernie's longtime policy adviser Warren Gunnels that read, "It has been a very successful strategy."
They then added the following two paragraphs:
"But in his presidential campaign Mr. Sanders is trying to scale up those kinds of proposals as a national agenda, and there is little to draw from his small-ball legislative approach to suggest that he could succeed.
"Mr. Sanders is suddenly promising not just a few stars here and there, but the moon and a good part of the sun, from free college tuition paid for with giant tax hikes to a huge increase in government health care, which has made even liberal Democrats skeptical."
This stuff could have been written by the Clinton campaign. It's stridently derisive, essentially saying there's no evidence Bernie's "small-ball" approach (I guess Republicans aren't the only ones not above testicular innuendo) could ever succeed on the big stage.
Read the whole fascinating article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-new-york-times-sandbagged-bernie-sanders-20160315?page=2
greymouse
(872 posts)and here I had thought the NYTimes had seen the light. No wonder the Public Editor is resigning.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Margaret Sullivan: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/thepubliceditor/index.html
E-mail: [email protected]
Here is what I wrote - feel free to plunder.
To: Margaret Sullivan
Public Editor, New York Times
Dear Ms. Sullivan:
Can you please investigate why this article by Jennifer Steinhauer, on Bernie Sanders as a legislator --
https://web.archive.org/web/20160314164825/http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/us/politics/bernie-sanders-amendments.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
-- was edited after publication online? And why it was altered in a fashion that added two paragraphs of non-factual, sheer editorial content (against Sanders) and with other changes and especially a new headline that all served to weaken or change the message of the original published version?
Revised version:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/us/politics/bernie-sanders-amendments.html?_r=0
Matt Taibbi documents the changes well:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-the-new-york-times-sandbagged-bernie-sanders-20160315
I agree with Taibbi that this post-publication editing is consistent with a pro-Clinton, anti-Sanders bias in the Times. (As evinced among other things in the only recently withdrawn use of super-delegates as though they are pledged delegates, and in many other instances of ignoring Sanders or playing him down. I'd add that the Times also participates in the general bias of covering Republicans and especially a certain reality TV show star before and far more than the Democrats.)
But for the moment I am sure I'm not the only one who would like to see you address this above matter with regard to Jennifer Steinhauer's article.
Thank you for your timely attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Omaha Steve
(99,060 posts)This will be the second time we have had to complain about their coverage of Bernie.
K&R!
OS
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)noretreatnosurrender
(1,890 posts)they got called on it. That's pathetic. They should be ashamed but of course they aren't.
ebayfool
(3,411 posts)more snips/
This stuff could have been written by the Clinton campaign. It's stridently derisive, essentially saying there's no evidence Bernie's "small-ball" approach (I guess Republicans aren't the only ones not above testicular innuendo) could ever succeed on the big stage.
The second paragraph just reeks of a passage written by an editor. It's horrible English. Attention, New York Times: "A few stars here and there" is actually more than "the moon and a good part of the sun."
But the rest of these changes go to the heart of the meaning of the article, which is unusual and seemingly a nasty thing to do to the reporter, particularly since the changes read like talking points added by a Clinton aide. I would go ape if an editor pulled something like that on me in public.
If you're Sanders, you now know what's going to shake loose when reporting about you goes upstairs to the Times editors. It's not immoral or anything, just sort of crass. And odd, that they don't care that their readers now know, too.
merrily
(45,251 posts)Even today, as I listen to Baby Super Tuesday coverage, it's a "stop Trump" movement on the Republican establishment side, but, on the Democratic side, it's "overwhelming support for Hillary." LOL, the DNC and establishment Democrats have been trying to stop Bernie since well before he announced he was running.
Media and the system are corrupt and undemocratic. This primary has certainly underscored that. And, yes, the NYT has been among the worst from the start. WAPO has revved up its attacks to literally one per hour. Democracy, my ass. Fourth Estate, my ass.
farleftlib
(2,125 posts)This is but another case in point of a long, long laundry list of failures on their part. They were de facto stenographers during BushCo's run-up to the invasion of Iraq and they haven't improved any since then.
Snotcicles
(9,089 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Skwmom
(12,685 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)big corporations and big money all stick together to get their candidate elected. All Democrats should reject the power of the Big Money and Corp control.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)nashville_brook
(20,958 posts)olymoly
(2 posts)My REMOVED reply to the Rolling Stone article "How the 'New York Times' Sandbagged Bernie Sanders":
-----
-----
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Here it is 12 years later, and Bernie, even with the advantages of social media, and virtually the same Medicare for All, free preschool to college, anti-NAFTA, anti-Iraq War platform that Dennis Kucinich offered the country in 2003-2004 (when there was still a chance to just not start that war), is suffering the same treatment at the heavy hands of the New York Times.
From an interview with the Toledo City Paper in February 2004 ("Fighting for recognition, finding an audience" :
----
TCP: Why do you think youve been marginalized by mainstream media?
DK: I dont ask The New York Times for permission to run for public office. The things I talk about relate to peoples practical aspirations jobs, health care, education, retirement and peace. Big media monopolies generally arent interested in seeing these things as part of the debate. Ive also been very vocal in advocating media reform to break up media monopolies so, naturally, I run the risk of being ignored or misrepresented.
----
It is enough to make one feel like losing hope, but it is really just further motivation to keep fighting harder for what is right.
-----
-----
Not sure what was objectionable in that, but all I can guess is that Rolling Stone/US Weekly might be sensitive to discussions of breaking up "big media monopolies".
Reminds me of Grandpa's Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rule."
The same can be said to be true of freedom of the press: "He who owns the press has the freedom."
GP6971
(31,014 posts)olymoly
(2 posts)pa28
(6,145 posts)http://usuncut.com/politics/washington-post-bias-against-bernie-sanders/
We all know what they're up to and it's not subtle or clever.
cosmicone
(11,014 posts)OMG OMG OMG OMG
Nanjeanne
(4,877 posts)Times article was changed. People are intelligent (some) enough to draw conclusions from that - but perhaps you simply don't know the definition of conspiracy. Just for your edification:
Simple Definition of conspiracy
: a secret plan made by two or more people to do something that is harmful or illegal
: the act of secretly planning to do something that is harmful or illegal
Perhaps you can retire "conspiracy" with "under the bus" when someone doesn't like what someone else says.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)In another thread I mentioned the media was in the tank for Hillary and got an emotional reaction of "Are you kidding Me?"
Either these people are blind, or they have so contorted what they see, to make it more comfortable, that it doesn't even begin to resemble the truth any more.
Cognitive Dissonance. Yeah...there it is.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...even more so because of the array of nasty gifs you included.
Taibbi references both the before and after versions of the headline and article. So if you have a refutation to make, you'll have to make it in that context.
But of course, you won't and indeed can't do so -- because truth can't be refuted.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts).... of a simple reporting of what happened.
Clinton fans have a huge problem with reality. (Sanders hates blacks and loves guns!) Almost as bad as Teabaggers. Certainly as negative and as anti-intellectual, anti-progress.
There seems to be nothing to say about Hillary but goo-goo praise for things that there is no proof of (Only she can win! She's the most qualified!) and just a bunch of "LOL" and snide dismissals of really damning stuff on Clinton. It's like Clinton supporters simply can't get past her surname.... and her sex. That seems to be all that matters.
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)Last edited Tue Mar 15, 2016, 07:26 PM - Edit history (1)
And now they're shoving Hillary down our throats. One more disaster in the making.
Peregrine Took
(7,408 posts)have to find another broadsheet for him to relieve himself on!
winter is coming
(11,785 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Like the time when people were asking stupid stuff about torture just before a general election.
Correspondence and collusion between the New York Times and the CIA
Mark Mazzetti's emails with the CIA expose the degradation of journalism that has lost the imperative to be a check to power
Glenn Greenwald
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 29 August 2012 14.58 EDT
EXCERPT...
But what is news in this disclosure are the newly released emails between Mark Mazzetti, the New York Times's national security and intelligence reporter, and CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf. The CIA had evidently heard that Maureen Dowd was planning to write a column on the CIA's role in pumping the film-makers with information about the Bin Laden raid in order to boost Obama's re-election chances, and was apparently worried about how Dowd's column would reflect on them. On 5 August 2011 (a Friday night), Harf wrote an email to Mazzetti with the subject line: "Any word??", suggesting, obviously, that she and Mazzetti had already discussed Dowd's impending column and she was expecting an update from the NYT reporter.
SNIP...
Even more amazing is the reaction of the newspaper's managing editor, Dean Baquet, to these revelations, as reported by Politico's Dylan Byers:
"New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet called POLITICO to explain the situation, but provided little clarity, saying he could not go into detail on the issue because it was an intelligence matter.
CONTINUED with LINKS...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/correspondence-collusion-new-york-times-cia
If they weren't corrupt, they'd tell the truth, no matter what, about CIA torture or Bernie Sanders' accomplishments.
amborin
(16,631 posts)wherein the author mentions berniebros, etc....totally negative article....
the paper's layout dept chooses the worst photos of Bernie, trivializes his huge wins, champions hillary, etc....
one of hrc's huge donors, carlos slim, partly owns the paper; plus the paper represents the elite; it's an elite establishment
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Thanks for posting it.
Uncle Joe
(58,107 posts)Thanks for the thread, Nanjeanne.
ChiciB1
(15,435 posts)by John Adams. They both died on the same day July 4th, but Jefferson was younger. They had quite a relationship where Adams, who fought so hard for the Constitution became much more Conservative. For years they fought each other, but in the end made up right before their deaths.
But Jefferson always fought for THE FOURTH ESTATE! I weep with you Thomas Jefferson, this country it seems may soon go the way of Rome.
Thanks for posting this, I've seen both these newspapers turn to the right over the years and hardly recognize them anymore.