In Matters Big and Small, Crossing Giuliani Had Price (Rudy Hits Low and Hard)

The New York Times ^ | January 22, 2008 | MICHAEL POWELL and RUSS BUETTNER

[xsmommy]

it appears your positive feelings towards Giuliani want to give him the benefit of that doubt. i don’t share them. With fred now out, i will vote for Mitt as the least distasteful alternative in the VA primary on 2/13.

[what's up]

it appears your positive feelings towards Giuliani want to give him the benefit of that doubt

Actually, my comments here are based on observations of what the NYT has printed and is printing. Their motives may not be that hard to figure out. Being riddled with communist ideology, the paper hates fiscal conservatism with a passion.

I do have my reservations about Giuliani and always have had, but I tend to believe he's the most fiscally conservative of the 3. I believe the NYT tendency to soft-pedal McCain and Romney while blasting Rudy in this and many other columns support my belief.

[Our man in washington]

But I'm willing to be persuaded. Whom would you suggest?

One of the rules of good journalism is "if your mother says she loves, you, check it out." If the New York Times were a good newspaper, and some guy says "I had a nervous breakdown because of what Giuliani did to me" I would call the heads of the agency that made the decision against the guy. Why did they say they did it?

After printing both sides' explanations, the next step is to find any relevant facts that may influence the argument. Let's say person A says "I was fired because I stood up to the administration" and person B says "Not true. We had to let everyone go with less than two years of experience because of budget cuts." The reporter should then see if everyone with less than two years of experience really was fired. The resolution of that question will make one side's argument look better than the other side's, but that's not bias--only reporting the facts.

The next step would be to provide some context. One of the shoddiest articles I ever read was trying to make the case that nearby military testing in the town where I grew up was causing increased rates of cancer. The article claimed "this town had a higher rate of cancer than what would be expected." Any decent journalist would have asked a few experts and noted that the town in question was a farming community at high altitude, and thus had a high rate of skin cancer. They didn't consider the larger picture that cancer rates vary from place to place.

Anyway, the New York Times in this case neither provided the opposing arguments nor gave many supporting facts nor provided context. It's not the way a real newspaper would behave.

[Senator Goldwater]

I don’t want Rudy around next year to stick his knife in every conservative group that crosses him

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Neither do I, but I do want Rudy around next year to stick his knife in every LIBERAL group that crosses him, like the congressional Democrats.

[keepitreal]

Not sure who I’m backing, but isn’t this the same paper that told us that our soldiers are coming back from Iraq and turning into murderers?

[Mrs. Don-o]

I wish you had a great deal of influence over the news media in this country. You seem to have high standards of researching and presenting verifiable facts. It would be good for our intellects to be exposed to such muscular and principled journalism on a regular basis.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Yeah, it’s the crap NYT. So your scepticism is entirely appropriate. TIFWIW.