On September 30, the New York Times ran a front-page story that smeared St. Junipero Serra. Repeated attempts to have the paper correct the record have failed. This is yellow journalism at its worst. When I submit paid ads to the Times, I am often asked to identify my sources. Yet it accepts hit jobs like Holson's. The fact is there is no list of historians who claim Fr. Serra tortured Indians, and the Times knows it.
New York Times
By Tom Blumer | October 7, 2015 | 10:25 AM EDT
On Saturday, conservative Australian columnist Miranda Devine revealed that an Australian engineer claims to have "fixed two errors" in "the basic climate model which underpins all climate science."
The person making this claim was a "climate modeller for the Government’s Australian Greenhouse Office," and has "six degrees in applied mathematics." What he found is that "the new corrected model finds the climate’s sensitivity to carbon dioxide (CO2) is much lower than was thought." While some U.S. blogs have begun to relay the news (examples here, here and here), the nation's establishment press is ignoring it.
By Tom Blumer | October 4, 2015 | 11:11 PM EDT
One of the more tiresome criticisms the establishment press still levels at New Media from time to time is that they, unlike those awful bloggers, make sure their facts are right before they go to print or post a story online.
A story published at the New York Times on Wednesday about Donald Trump's wife Melania shows what obvious rubbish that claim often is. The Old Gray Lady had to issue six corrections over two days to (one would hope) finally get it right. One of the errors was so pathetically obvious that it's hard to imagine that Guy Trebay's story was subjected at all to the scrutiny of an editor.
By Clay Waters | October 4, 2015 | 9:35 PM EDT
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni quailed in horror at the prospect of concealed firearms being permitted in college classrooms at the University of Texas: "Guns, Campuses and Madness." Bruni, a former White House correspondent for the Times, at least found a novel angle to attack gun rights after the killings on a college campus in Oregon, by bizarrely suggesting conservatives want to infiltrate campuses with gun-toters as a way to (metaphorically?) attack liberal colleges. Bruni goes along with the infantalizing liberal concept of college students as fragile, overgrown children who require coddling from "microaggressions" and frightening thoughts about firearms.
By Tom Blumer | October 4, 2015 | 12:13 AM EDT
In their coverage of government and other economic reports, the business press routinely tells readers that the figures they are relaying are "seasonally adjusted." That is, raw results are smoothed out to supposedly "remove normal, recurring variations" in data.
There's one notable exception: The government's monthly employment report.
By Tom Blumer | October 3, 2015 | 10:02 PM EDT
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the United Nations. As described by George Jahn at the Associated Press, it was "an impassioned speech interspersed with bouts of dramatic silence."
Jahn failed to report the absence of U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power and Secretary of State John Kerry. So did Rick Gladstone and Judi Rudoren at the New York Times. An unbylined Reuters report drily noted that U.S. representation at Netanyahu's speech consisted of "Ambassador Samantha Power's deputy, David Pressman, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro." Breitbart also noted the presence of "Richard Erdman, Alternate Representative to the UN General Assembly." Reuters uniquely explained why Power and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who was in town, did not attend (bolds are mine throughout this post):
By Clay Waters | October 3, 2015 | 8:07 AM EDT
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush was blasted by the New York Times for allegedly dismissing the mass killings by a gunman at an Oregon community college as "stuff happens." The Times then invited President Obama to lambaste Bush's out-of-context two words in a Saturday print story. (Meanwhile, true Democratic gaffe-masters like Joe Biden get an "off-the-cuff" pass from the newspaper.) Although the Times accused Bush of having "invited" the firestorm with his comments, it was the Times and other outlets that poured the gasoline by using the wildly out-of-context quote to paint Bush as being flippant about the tragedy.
By Kristine Marsh | October 2, 2015 | 4:20 PM EDT
Thursday evening, news broke that the Oregon school shooter had questioned students about their faith before he shot them. Later Thursday, The New York Post reported an incredible detail: Christian students were specifically singled out by the shooter. By Friday morning, all three networks had told viewers of that nightmare scenario on their morning shows. The Washington Post and The LA Times followed up with the story shortly after.
But, for some reason, one notable media outlet was silent for the majority of Friday -- The New York Times.
After Fawning Over Pope's Economic Stands, NYT Accuses Him of Reigniting 'Culture Wars' by Meeting Kim Davis
By Clay Waters | October 1, 2015 | 11:44 PM EDT Religious double standards on the front of Thursday's New York Times: "The Pope, the Clerk and Culture Wars Revisited." During his U.S. tour, the Times celebrated Pope Francis's liberal tone on economic, environmental, and immigration issues. But when he reaffirmed his belief in religious freedom (and the Church's opposition to gay marriage) by secretly meeting with Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who went to jail instead of issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, the Times adopted a puzzled, chiding tone, fretting that the Pope was reigniting the U.S. "culture war."
By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2015 | 11:59 PM EDT
Apparently, the establishment press is waiting for its marching orders on how to handle what an Investor's Business Daily editorial has already called a "scandal."
This one's a joint effort involving Hillary Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, a recently deceased former CIA operative named Tyler Drumheller who worked with Blumenthal — and CBS News. As Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard reported Tuesday afternoon (i.e., now approaching two overnight news cycles ago), "Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s clandestine service in Europe who was working directly with Blumenthal as a member of Clinton’s spy network, was concurrently working as a consultant to CBS News and its venerable news program 60 Minutes." IBD's question, reacting to Hemingway's report: "Who is more corrupt, Clinton or the mainstream media?"
By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2015 | 7:29 PM EDT
In three previous posts yesterday and today, I have noted obvious distortions and untruths in Cecile Richards' testimony this week before a House committee.
I didn't mean to save the best (really the worst) for a fourth post, but I came across an jaw-dropping item at LifeNews.com this afternoon. It covers an assertion Richards made during the House hearing that is either one of the biggest lies of the 21st century thus far or its most glaring example of hermetically sealed ignorance. Either way, the fact that it hasn't made its way into the establishment press virtually proves that their mission is to protect Richards and her organization, not to tell its readers, listeners and viewers what is really happening.
By Clay Waters | September 30, 2015 | 10:15 AM EDT
New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak filed a liberal pleasing analysis Tuesday, fervently insisting Chief Justice John Roberts is a staunch conservative, despite what ridiculous right-wingers may think. His reported opinion piece, based on voting analysis by law professors, strained to show Roberts as a loyal conservative Justice, but the evidence is hardly as cut and dried as Liptak's charged tone would suggest. Liptak has always trended left, as when he faulted the "terse" old U.S. Constitution as outdated for failing to guarantee entitlements like health care.