Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

An obituary for The New York Times
American Thinker ^ | April 13, 2020 | Michael Widlanski

Posted on 04/14/2020 11:39:39 AM PDT by richardtavor

When prominent people die, the press publishes "obituaries," reports of their deaths and a summary of their lives. I recently read a New York Times obituary that accidentally summarized the last years of The New York Times, a once great newspaper.

The Times obit was meant to be about Dr. S. Fred Singer, a noted scientist, prolific writer (including at American Thinker), and prominent critic of popular climate change models that contend that man has heated up the Earth.

The entire N.Y. Times report — including a snooty and biased headline — was not a factual account, but an ideological argument meant to discredit the life and work of Fred Singer, once the chief atmospheric scientist at NASA and a man who had penned a book of more than 1,000 pages critiquing popular climate theory.

"A leading climate change contrarian." That is how The Times headline describes Singer. The article never mentions that Singer was chief atmospheric scientist for NASA, a science-based organization not known for employing quacks. In fact, the article never mentions NASA or quotes anyone from NASA who knew Singer.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Hitler WAS proud of the NYT. They sure published some attractive stories about him. They failed to say anything about the Holocaust as well, naturally. NYT - where reporters go to die and become propagandist leftist...
1 posted on 04/14/2020 11:39:39 AM PDT by richardtavor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: richardtavor

I used to read a lot of his stuff in the Washington Times back in the day.

RIP Dr. Singer.


2 posted on 04/14/2020 11:43:25 AM PDT by sauropod (Pelosi Galore: We know she's lying when we see her dentures flying.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: richardtavor

Too bad it wasn’t PETER SINGER from Princeton who wants parents to be able to KILL their CHILDREN UP TO 2 YEARS OLD!!! EVIL!!!!


3 posted on 04/14/2020 11:45:46 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: richardtavor

Dang it, I thought the NYT was shutting down. Misleading headline.


4 posted on 04/14/2020 11:47:00 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie ( Stop the fearmongering! Post flu statistics along side COVID-19 statistics!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ann Archy

I was planning on throwing a big party for the death of the SF Chronicle. That was 15-20 years ago. They’re still around so I’m not counting on the big fish going down.


5 posted on 04/14/2020 11:48:44 AM PDT by DIRTYSECRET (urope. Why do they put up with this.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: richardtavor

Ahhhhh.....

The New York Times.....

“The old grey underwear”.....


6 posted on 04/14/2020 12:01:06 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The_Media_never_lie
Dang it, I thought the NYT was shutting down

Well they've already shut down their objective thinking, so they shouldn't properly be regarded as a true news organization anymore

Now they're just a biased propaganda outlet for the Democrat / DeepState Complex


7 posted on 04/14/2020 12:03:18 PM PDT by canuck_conservative
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: richardtavor

Hitler, Stalin, Castro ... the Times has always been a tyrant’s friend.


8 posted on 04/14/2020 12:24:23 PM PDT by IronJack
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DIRTYSECRET; The_Media_never_lie
I was planning on throwing a big party for the death of the SF Chronicle. That was 15-20 years ago. They’re still around so I’m not counting on the big fish going down.
There is a ticking time bomb the Times - along with the rest - should be scared to death of:
JUSTICE SCALIA: THE 45 WORDS — AND ORIGINAL MEANING — OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT
That article states in part:
Scalia argued his view on “textualism” was the ultimate defense of the First Amendment. In March 2012, an Associated Press report said he told an audience at Wesleyan University that the Court’s early justices would be “astonished that the notion of the Constitution changes to mean whatever each successive generation would like it to mean. … In fact, it would be not much use to have a First Amendment, for example, if the freedom of speech included only what some future generation wanted it to include. That would guarantee nothing at all.”

That opinion didn’t prevent Scalia from harsh criticism of what is widely viewed as one of the essential court rulings protecting free speech and a free press — the 1964 decision in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.

At the Newseum in the Aspen Institute 2011 Washington Ideas Forum, Scalia said the landmark ruling meant “you can libel public figures without liability so long as you are relying on some statement from a reliable source, whether it’s true or not.

“Now the old libel law used to be (that) you’re responsible, you say something false that harms somebody’s reputation, we don’t care if it was told to you by nine bishops, you are liable,” Scalia said. “New York Times v. Sullivan just cast that aside because the Court thought in modern society, it’d be a good idea if the press could say a lot of stuff about public figures without having to worry. And that may be correct, that may be right, but if it was right it should have been adopted by the people. It should have been debated in the New York Legislature and the New York Legislature could have said, ‘Yes, we’re going to change our libel law.’”

But in Times v. Sullivan, Scalia said the Supreme Court, under Justice Earl Warren, “… simply decided, ‘Yes, it used to be that … George Washington could sue somebody that libeled him, but we don’t think that’s a good idea anymore.’”

The Sullivan decision claimed that
". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment”
but, as Scalia noted elsewhere, the whole point of adding the first ten amendments to the Constitution was to reassure the public that the Constitution did not subvert any of their rights. It was no part of the agenda of the ratifiers to change a thing in that regard, because that would have invited controversy - the very opposite of the framers’ objective. Scandalous as it sounds, IOW, the First Amendment thru the Eighth Amendment are overrated. Overrated, in the sense that they never assayed to or pretended to create rights, only to state those rights within the Constitution.

The Ninth Amendment says that the enumerated rights are not the only rights which are to be respected. Meaning, that the first eight amendments went without saying and the Federalists thought they were unexceptionable but unnecessary. The First eight amendments “enumerate” only those rights which had historically been abused by tyrants. They could almost be described as being there for show - because their precise meaning was and is a matter of common law.

The bottom line is that, unanimous or no, Sullivan is bad law - and now that the Warren Court is ancient history, the Sullivan decision should be history, too. George Washington had the right to sue for libel. Donald Trump, rightfully, does too. And does he ever have a case!!!


9 posted on 04/14/2020 12:34:21 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (Socialism is cynicism directed towards society and - correspondingly - naivete towards government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: The_Media_never_lie

I am with you. I thought this was about the NYT closing


10 posted on 04/14/2020 12:56:11 PM PDT by RWGinger (Does anyone else really)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: richardtavor
The entire N.Y. Times report — including a snooty and biased headline — was not a factual account, but an ideological argument meant to discredit the life and work of Fred Singer, once the chief atmospheric scientist at NASA.

Fred Singer never worked for NASA.

These idiots posting at American Thinker are getting out of hand. I know it's a click-based revenue model for the authors but they could try to maintain some minimal standards.

Aside from the most basic factual error on Singer's career this guy mis-characterizes the NYT obit. Their rundown of his professional career wasn't bad:

"Before he was a vocal climate-change contrarian, Dr. Singer had an illustrious scientific career. An early rocket scientist whose work was important to the development of earth observation satellites, he was a professor at the University of Maryland, the University of Miami and the University of Virginia, among other institutions, alternating with positions in government.

From 1962 to 1964, he was director of what was known as the National Weather Satellite Center. He was the deputy assistant secretary for water quality and research at the Department of the Interior from 1967 to 1970 and then, until 1971, the deputy assistant administrator for policy at the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency. From 1987 to 1989, he was chief scientist at the Department of Transportation."


11 posted on 04/14/2020 1:05:32 PM PDT by semimojo
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: richardtavor

Wishful thinking.


12 posted on 04/14/2020 2:43:42 PM PDT by JimRed (TERM LIMITS, NOW! Build the Wall Faster! TRUTH is the new HATE SPEECH.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: richardtavor

NYT = Walking Dead.
Just doesn’t know it yet.


13 posted on 04/14/2020 3:04:56 PM PDT by Pennsyltucky Boy (bitterly clinging to our constitutional rights in PA)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DIRTYSECRET
Don't count on any major media outlet going down; as long as there are billionaires, who realize that ownership of a media company is a way to get around campaign-finance laws. Or, who realize that publishing/production contracts are a handy way to launder post hoc bribes to favoured government officials. (Hello, Netflix/Obamas -- book publishers/Clinton, etc.)
14 posted on 04/14/2020 3:13:17 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion
At the Newseum in the Aspen Institute 2011 Washington Ideas Forum, Scalia said the landmark ruling meant “you can libel public figures without liability so long as you are relying on some statement from a reliable source, whether it’s true or not


Wow, what is a reliable source? This could be the Achilles heal of the lying democrat activist media! Shouldn't the statement defaming a public figure be required to be true?
15 posted on 04/14/2020 3:24:37 PM PDT by The_Media_never_lie ( Stop the fearmongering! Post flu statistics along side COVID-19 statistics!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: The_Media_never_lie
At the Newseum in the Aspen Institute 2011 Washington Ideas Forum, Scalia said the landmark ruling meant “you can libel public figures without liability so long as you are relying on some statement from a reliable source, whether it’s true or not
Wow, what is a reliable source? This could be the Achilles heal of the lying democrat activist media! Shouldn't the statement defaming a public figure be required to be true?
See, that’s a point that Scalia was condemning the Sullivan decision about.

Proper interpretation of the Bill of Rights says that neither you nor anyone else has the right commit libel. The bastardized interpretation of the Warren Court in Sullivan basically turns the journalism cartel into a priestly class.

The author of the link I provided was outraged that Scalia didn’t think that journalists rightly are a privileged class.


16 posted on 04/15/2020 4:51:40 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (Socialism is cynicism directed towards society and - correspondingly - naivete towards government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: conservatism_IS_compassion
The author of the link I provided was outraged that Scalia didn’t think that journalists rightly are a privileged class.


In the past few years, the journalists as a privileged class have gotten much worse.
17 posted on 04/15/2020 4:59:53 AM PDT by The_Media_never_lie ( Stop the fearmongering! Post flu statistics along side COVID-19 statistics!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: The_Media_never_lie
Exactly. And they’ll continue until SCOTUS gets a case allowing it to reconsider the Sullivan decision - allows punitive damages against “sacred journalists” who deceive the public to its detriment by lying about Republicans (nobody libels about Democrats).
18 posted on 04/15/2020 10:04:34 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (Socialism is cynicism directed towards society and - correspondingly - naivete towards government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson