Will This Be The Year For The Obituary Of 'The New York Times'?

This may be one of the most important and happy years in the history of American journalism — this may be the year when we can write the obituary of The New York Times, one of the most dangerous enemies of America and American values and one of the best friends of terrorists, genocidists and Chinese communists. Read on for the full explanation of what may lead you to sing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

In September 2008, Accuracy in Media (AIM), the respected media watchdog, launched its boycott of The New York Times and established a Web site to carry that boycott forward called Boycott The New York Times, located at boycottnyt.com. Within a matter of months, The Atlantic (January/February 2009) was reporting that The New York Times might be going out of business, perhaps as soon as May of 2009.

The Atlantic article by Michael Hirschorn, “End Times: Can America’s Paper of Record Survive? Can Journalism?” finds the early demise of The Times is “certainly plausible.” Even if it manages to survive, The Times will be transformed into a smaller and less important organization.

Is there a connection between the boycott and the perilous state of The New York Times? There certainly is a connection. Of course, the boycott of The Times is not the whole explanation as it is also sinking due to a recessionary economy and due to the special problems of the newspaper industry, which might well be described as a dying industry.

But The Times boycott came at a perfect time, hitting The Times when it was most vulnerable. So this boycott sends a message to all of those who have long seen The Times as the enemy of American values — join the boycott. Cancel your subscription to The Times. Avoid its online presence. And avoid its advertisers. You can sign a petition by going to the boycott site, which also posts excellent articles by Don Feder, editor of the site, on the bias of The Times.

The new boycott is a symbol of widespread dissatisfaction and even hatred of The Times and is mobilizing enough force to make a real difference. It may well be the boycott, more than the straw that breaks the back of The Times.

Mr. Feder, editor of the Boycott The Times Web site, who spent many years at the Boston Herald and earned his spurs as an editorial writer and a syndicated political columnist, points out that The Times has done everything it can to undermine the war against terrorism. For example, The Times opposes warrantless intercepts of phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists. It opposes Guantanomo. Mr. Feder says it has opposed every technique used to fight the war on terror. What’s more, it has a habit of reporting national security secrets on its front-page. Mr. Feder points out if the present editors of The Times were on the job during World War II, they would have put the date of the Normandy invasion on the front-page. They would say the public has a right to know. They would ignore the question of whether the German High Command had the right to know. And they would also ignore the American blood that would be shed by the usual irresponsibility and disloyalty of the treasonous Times.

Mr. Feder says The Times has its gun sites on America, on American values, on gun owners, on conservatives, on the American military, on law enforcement personnel, on the religious, on the Judeo-Christian tradition and on about everything else most Americans consider vital to America as we know it.

But in addition, The Times is even more dangerous as it sets the news table for the mainstream media. Almost in lock step, most of the mainstream media not only covers the same stories as The Times but also covers them in the same way. So The Times, in a real sense, poisons the biggest segment of the media with its biased, dishonest and fraudulent coverage.

One aspect of this influence of The Times, which I’ve never seen discussed, is what kind of feeble puppets in the mainstream media are unable to make their own decisions on what stories to cover and how to cover them.

The Atlantic documents just how vulnerable The Times is now:

“Earnings reports released by The New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400 million in debt. With more than $1 billion in debt already on the books, only $46 million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.”

The Times announced in October of 2008 the mounting problems it faces:

“As part of our analysis of our uses of cash, we are evaluating future financing arrangements. Based on the conversation we have had with lenders, we expect that we will be able to manage our debts and our credit obligations as they mature.”

But Henry Blodgett, an analyst considered one of the most reliable on the condition of The Times saw some danger signals in that statement:

“We expect that we may be able to manage’? Translation: There’s a possibility that we won’t be able to manage.”

Consider some of the metrics showing that The Times faces a credit crisis at the worst possible time. In November alone, ad revenue was down 21 percent from the year before. The year 2009 is expected to continue the decline but at a slower rate. The drop was 16 percent in October and 13 percent in September. At the same time, circulation continues to plummet.

The Times has already cut jobs, but it may have to undertake more extensive layoffs. It has cut its dividend. It is trying to sell assets, such as its share of the Boston Red Sox and it may be selling off some of its newspaper holdings, such as the Boston Globe, or simply closing them down. This is not a good environment for such sales.

To buy some breathing room for unloading these hard to sell assets, The Times has just negotiated a $250 billion loan from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim. That’s both good and bad news for The Times. The good news is that it may buy them some time. The bad news is that because of its desperate plight, The Times will have to pay a steep interest rate — more than 14 percent for the six-year term of the loan. That means it will have a $35 million dollar a year interest payment putting further stress on its cash-flow problem.

But that $35 million in annual interest is only a small part of a larger problem. The Wall Street Journal reported The Times has a $400 million credit obligation that expires in May. Then $250 million in notes come due in 2010 and there’s another $400 million obligation due in 2011.

While the financial position of The Times has been deteriorating in recent years, so has the journalistic quality of The Times, which has been nose-diving. The worst meltdown of journalistic quality appeared during the recent presidential campaign. The mainstream media (including The Times) was transformed from journalism into outright advocate and propagandist for the Obama election. It can be truly said that journalism died in 2008. But the bias and fraud of the mainstream media operates not only in the election area but also across much of the board, as the boycottnyt.com site has demonstrated.

The site has had a posting on the anti-religion agenda of The Times, on one of the most ridiculous proposals of all history — a government bailout of The Times, on the economic illiteracy of The Times, on how The Times parrots Communist China on Tibet, on how The Times in order to indict Israel presents the corrupt UN as an unbiased source, and how The Times accuses the Republicans of racism and says that’s why they lost the election.

To give you some more of the flavor of just how bad The Times is consider the claim of one of its leading columnist: that the Republican Party is racist and that’s why it lost the election. Paul Krugman writes (Jan. 2), “Forty years ago the G.O.P decided, in effect, to make itself the party of racial backlash. And everything that has happened in recent years, from the choice of Mr. Bush as the party’s champion, to the Bush administration’s pervasive incompetence, to the party’s shrinking base, is a consequence of that decision.”

Mr. Krugman even claims that the Republican’s drive for smaller government and lower taxes is based on racism. He believes the campaign for smaller government is not designed to giving more room for private sector businesses and job creation. Its campaign to cut taxes has nothing to do with fairness and letting people keep more of their own money.

No, it’s all about keeping racial minorities from receiving their benefits. In the eyes of Mr. Krugman, it’s all about keeping racial minorities down by denying the government funds and programs needed to deliver benefits to them.

Mr. Feder rebuts Mr. Krugman’s arguments:

“If Big Government is great for blacks, then the community should have thrived under the welfare programs instituted by the Great Society. Instead, these policies destroyed the black family.

“How about public education, which The Times worships? Inner-city schools are both the most expensive and the worst in the nation. It comes as no surprise that the Obamas just enrolled their daughters in the private Sidwell Friends School.”

And then Mr. Feder delivers a great punch line: “Perhaps The Times’ financial misfortunes are another racist, Republican conspiracy to undermine a media champion of minorities. That may be the gist of the next Krugman column.”

I might add that the only one that played the race card during the presidential election was Barack Hussein Obama. He falsely accused the Republicans of saying he was different than other presidents, he was black, etc. So this was a double race card whammy: Falsely accusing the Republicans of playing the race card while playing it himself. The mainstream media lets the “post-racial” candidate get away with blatant racism and hypocrisy.

The Times has long been a severe critic of Israel’s self-defense and an apologist for the terrorist/genocidist Hamas. It always sheds tears for the Palestinians who fall as collateral damage during Israel’s self-defensive attacks, but never shows concern for the victims of Hamas’ illegal, terrorist rocketing and bombing of civilians. The Times has no outrage for Hamas but unlimited outrage for Israel when it tries to defend itself. The Times won’t even call terrorists by that name, instead calling them militants or gunman or using some other euphemism to santitize and perfume terror and murder.

The Times is not content to lend aid and comfort to terrorists and genocidists. One recent piece parroted and supported the position of the Chinese communists positions on Tibet. On Dec. 26, it essentially reprinted the press release of the Chinese Politburo on issues arising out of Tibet.

Mr. Feder, in a piece on The Times’ role as a propagandist for communist China, corrects The Times’ report.

• The Times, following the Chinese press release, referred to the “Tibet autonomous region of China.” Feder writes, “The People’s Republic (Communist China) invaded and conquered Tibet (an ancient kingdom with a distinct language, religion and racial composition) in 1949 and made it a territory of China. The Times routinely, and incorrectly, refers to the ‘Israeli occupied West Bank.’ Why not ‘Chinese occupied Tibet?’ “ When a nation conquers land in self-defense, that is “disputed territory,” not occupied territory, as in the case of the West Bank. But here China conquered Tibet in an act of illegal aggression, not in self-defense.

• The Chinese press release claimed that subversive elements in Tibet “are accused of threatening national security by advocating for an independent Tibet and by expressing disdain for the ethnic Han migrants who now dominate commerce in Lhasa and other Tibetan cities.” Mr. Feder notes, “China has been flooding Tibet with these ‘Han migrants’ in order to destroy the country’s unity and make the Tibetans a minority in their own land.”

• The Chinese press release and The Times reported that “rioting” in Tibet last March “left at least 21 people dead and traumatized Beijing.” Mr. Feder comments, “The poor communists, how they must suffer.”

He also explains the truth hidden by The Times and Chinese communist propaganda: “In March, state security forces murdered at least 21 people who demonstrated for Tibetan independence. Of 4,000 arrested (many of whom were tortured), more than 200 of the detainees are still unaccounted for… If The New York Times is going to act as a conduit for Beijing’s propaganda, at least it should have the decency to run it as press releases from the Chinese News Service, instead of pretending it’s reporting the news.”

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.