Buried on page 6 of the New York Times Business section, Noam Cohen reported a juicy media-bias story: "At Reuters, a New Book and a Lost Job," which suggests that Reuters, the supposedly unbiased wire service, is dismissing a financial editor for authoring a book attacking Ann Coulter. After all, the company principles state Reuter highly values the principles of “integrity, independence and freedom from bias.” As they did with Adnan Hajj's fauxtography? And their failure to use the word terrorist as "two planes" attacked New York on 9/11?
"On Tuesday, Joe Maguire, one of two editors in charge of markets coverage at Reuters, handed his bosses the galleys of his new book, 'Brainless: The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter.' On Wednesday, Mr. Maguire discovered he would have plenty of free time to promote his book, which comes out this week. Neither side in this dispute would say that he was fired.
"'There was a difference of opinion about the approval I received to write this book,' Mr. Maguire said. 'I thought I had met the conditions, and proceeded accordingly. As a result, I no longer work there.'
"Mr. Maguire, who joined Reuters in April, said the book 'looks at Ann Coulter’s arguments, and deconstructs them to show how misguided they can be.'
Here's Maguire's website for his book, which attacks Coulter's "unspoken homophobia" for her use of the word "bugger" to describe Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds affair with a male page. Maguire defends his title with left-wing fervor:
Armed with a decade of journalism experience and a B+ in freshman-year Logic (don’t ask about the Latin course), I’ve used what I have at my disposal to deconstruct and expose Ann’s lies and lunacy, as the book’s subtitle would have it. I’ve separated fact, such as it is, from fiction and held Ann’s rhetorical feet to the fire as best I can.
Lastly, this book is an entreaty to those of us who care enough about the future of this country’s politics to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes. It’s time to question the so-called conventional wisdom being spouted by advocates of the current administration. It’s time to make sure that truth overrides wit, that sound bytes bow before information and that those with something important to say aren’t drowned out by the shrieking heads that these days pass for political pundits.
