Ten years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and it wasn’t long after the devastation that liberal reporters, hosts and columnists politicized the tragedy - from the left. Everything from George W. Bush’s “big oil” buddies to America’s racism to even tax cuts were blamed for the high human toll.
Howell Raines
Howell Raines, Former Lefty NYT Editor, Predicts Democrats Will Rise Again in South Thanks to 'Punitive' GOP
By Clay Waters | July 13, 2015 | 10:25 PM EDT Howell Raines, the controversial former editor of the New York Times and self-described "liberal to radical," notorious for using his perch to crusade against the all-male policies of Augusta National Golf Club and Fox News, is back with some helpful advice for the "punitive" political party he loathes in a guest column for the paper's Sunday Review: "Anecdotal evidence indicates that affluent Southern Republicans continue to believe that minority voters can be attracted with punitive polices based on the Paul Ryan model....The region’s most affluent citizens always resist the obvious at first....In the ’60s Birmingham’s business leaders allowed George Wallace to run amok in their town. It will take awhile for Southern and national Republicans to understand that, as Mr. Frey put it, 'Demographics is destiny.'"
Raines Rants About 2012: Bill Clinton Convention Speech Was 'Spellbinding,' Clint Eastwood Was... Monty Python?
By Tim Graham | August 5, 2013 | 10:39 PM EDT Former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines (sacked in the 2003 Jayson Blair debacle) provided a positive review Sunday of Washington Post political reporter Dan Balz’s 2012-campaign book “Collision.” Raines claimed Balz was “a fair-minded reporter” in the mold of the late David Broder.
You can’t say the same for Raines, who insists Mitt Romney is “excruciatingly delusional” in assessing what happened last year. Bill Clinton’s convention speech gets “deservedly heroic treatment” from Balz, but somehow, Raines saw Clint Eastwood’s erratic convention speech as a “Monty Python moment,” perhaps one of few times anyone’s ever tried to put Dirty Harry next to Eric Idle in the cultural realm:
By Clay Waters | April 25, 2013 | 11:04 AM EDT
Politico media reporter Dylan Byers stirred up media indignation with an unflattering article Tuesday on Jill Abramson, the New York Times executive editor, "Turbulence at the Times", based largely on anonymous Times sources who snipe that Abramson is detached, brusque, and a "very, very unpopular" presence in the newsroom.
One Monday morning in April, Jill Abramson called Dean Baquet into her office to complain. The executive editor of The New York Times was upset about the paper’s recent news coverage -- she felt it wasn’t “buzzy” enough, a source there said -- and placed blame on Baquet, her managing editor. A debate ensued, which gave way to an argument.
Top 10 for the 10th Anniversary of Times Watch: Presenting the Absolute Worst From the New York Times
By Clay Waters | March 31, 2013 | 11:24 AM EDT This week marks 10 years of Times Watch, the Media Research Center's project monitoring the liberal bias of the New York Times, America's most influential newspaper. Over the course of roughly 3,500 posts since March 2003, we have followed the Times through events historic (wars in Afghanistan and Iraq), pathetic (Jayson Blair, Howell Raines) and dangerous (the paper scuttling two separate anti-terror programs.)
Here in rough chronological order are the Top Ten highlights of the New York Times' 10-year investigation into the bias of the New York Times.
By Rich Noyes | September 19, 2012 | 7:56 AM EDT
Since September 2, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala next week.
Click here for blog posts recounting the worst of 1988 through 2004. Today, the worst bias of 2005: NBC’s Brian Williams equates America’s Founding Fathers with the zealots running Iran; ex-New York Times editor Howell Raines goes on a post-Katrina rant about the human carnage caused by the Bush administration’s “churchgoing populism,” and Ted Turner tries to defend North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il . [Quotes and video below the jump.]
By Clay Waters | August 21, 2012 | 3:41 PM EDT
Somewhere, former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines is smiling (or at least wearing a less-prominent scowl). The Augusta National Golf Club's surprise decision to admit two women as members made the front of Tuesday's paper: "Host to Masters Drops a Barrier With Its First 2 Female Members."
As executive editor, Raines caused controversy even among the liberal media in 2003 for his constant front-page crusade against the all-male membership policies of a private entity, The Augusta National Golf Club, home of The Masters golf tournament. Raines went so far as to spike columns by two of his own writers for taking issue with the paper's embarrassing editorial suggesting Tiger Woods boycott the Masters in the name of solidarity with women.
Golf writer Karen Crouse, the author of Tuesday's front-page piece, who had her own ideological fender-bender on the issue, wrote in typical overheated fashion: