December 14, 2003
GOOD NEWS IS NO NEWS
Remember Chris Toensing, the Washington-based editor of Middle East Report who didn't know of the anti-terrorism marches in Iraq?
I've only seen this picture, so I'm not sure what the demonstration was about.
Toensing wasn’t alone. Senior staff at The New York Times also had no idea. Asked if he'd heard of the demonstration in Baghdad, NYT Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman replied:
"I was not aware of that, but that's something that you really should take up with the correspondents who work for the Times in Baghdad. I don't know what their decision-making was that day. But I can assure you that we make every effort every day to try to be fair and balanced in our coverage."
Fair and balanced? Fox News should sue. And here’s NYT chief diplomatic correspondent Steven Weisman answering a similar question:
"I'm not sure that I know about that specific episode, that demonstration that you just referred to. But I would say that we, the readers of the Times ought to be aware that many things are going well in Iraq, but the fact that the security situation is not going well is not something that we can ignore."
The readers of the Times are only going to be aware that many things are going well in Iraq if they don’t read the Times.
To its enormous credit, The Weekly Standard devotes an entire page of its latest edition to Zeyad's demonstration coverage. Shows the importance of a diverse media. Yet The Weekly Standard is part of an Evil Big Media Murdoch Entity that Howard Dean would seek to dismantle:
MATTHEWS: Would you break it up? Rupert Murdoch has "The Weekly Standard." It has got a lot of other interests. It has got "The New York Post." Would you break it up?
DEAN: On ideological grounds, absolutely yes, but … I would say that there is too much penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this country ... What I'm going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the political spectrum, not just one.
So break up the New York Times.