Patterico's Pontifications

1/4/2006

A Response to Michael Hiltzik

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General,Hiltzik — Patterico @ 11:44 pm



You know you’ve arrived when an L.A. Times columnist compares you to a dishonest, totalitarian Stalinist apparatchik.

On his L.A. Times-sponsored blog, Times columnist Michael Hiltzik assails me in two posts that insult me personally, question my motives for criticizing his paper, and purport to expose errors in my recent Year in Review post.

Hiltzik sets the tone in the first post, in which he calls my entire post “propaganda,” compares me and other conservative critics of his paper to Stalinists (no, really! read on for the direct quotes), and says that I do not appear to be “genuinely interested in correcting factual errors” or otherwise improving the paper’s performance.

Hiltzik starts building up a head of steam with this passage:

Frey has several qualities in common with many other right-wing bloggers who have set themselves up as watchdogs of what they categorize, self-revealingly, as the “mainstream media.” . . . None of these critics appears to be genuinely interested in correcting factual errors or improving this newspaper’s, or any newspaper’s, performance as a journalistic institution, which are certainly legitimate goals. Their main purpose is to hunt down deviations from a political orthodoxy that they themselves define. Their techniques include a promiscuous use of labels as shorthand slurs (“leftist” and “liberal” being, of course, their most popular denigrations). They no doubt find this technique valuable because once they can hang a label on a newspaper or a journalist, they can dispense with anything so fundamental as discussion or argument.

Let’s stop right there. I am not interested in correcting the paper’s factual errors?

What utter tripe. What patent nonsense. What bilge.

Armed Liberal rightly takes Hiltzik to task for this blatantly ridiculous statement:

That – in the case of Patrick – is simply not true.

Patrick offered (and I’m talking off the top of my head, so I’m sure there are others) substantive corrections to factual errors by the times as regards – among other things – the three strikes law, “imminent threat”, the Sgrena shooting, and local stories such as the shooting of Devin Brown.Patrick wrote one of the first (and few) “Outside the Tent” pieces – and what was it about?

The Correct Way to Fix Mistakes
Has anyone ever said something about you that wasn’t true? Something that, if people believed it, would significantly damage your reputation? How would you feel if you saw that falsehood printed on the front page of the Los Angeles Times? Would it make things right if the paper later retracted the false statement — with a brief correction buried inside the paper?

In this published piece (disclosure: I looked it over when he was writing it), Patrick takes the Times to task for its reluctance to publicly correct what it acknowledges are errors, and for the manner in which it does so when it finally decides it has to.

So, Michael – how is Patrick not “interested in correcting factual errors or improving this newspaper’s, or any newspaper’s, performance as a journalistic institution”?

Looking over my latest Year in Review post, I spot at least six corrections I obtained from the paper this year, including two separate corrections to a story about the Three Strikes law, one to an editorial about Justice O’Connor, one to an editorial about SpongeBob and James Dobson, and one to a story about a slain sheriff’s deputy. I tried to obtain at least as many more, but failed — on topics such as the claim that Bush “never” met with Cindy Sheehan, a misanalysis of a Priscilla Owen opinion, a wretched misanalysis of the cost of the death penalty, and many others. In each of these cases, I was motivated by a desire to see readers fully informed on topic where the paper had misled them.

But this is not my favorite part of Hiltzik’s post. My favorite part is where Hiltzik goes off the deep end and compares critics of his newspaper, including me, to Stalinists:

To back up their assertions, they often quote articles selectively, take out of context what they do quote, and ascribe imaginary motivations to reporters and editors, which they then feel free to decry. As any student of history knows, these are tools and techniques that were used to great effect during the Stalinist show trials of the 40s and 50s.

(Students of history also know that the show trials resulted in people being executed in trials without meaningful evidence — in other words, they were state-sanctioned murders. Nice comparison.)

Having harshly criticized us critics for supposedly ascribing imaginary motivations to reporters and editors, what does Hiltzik do? You guessed it: He ascribes imaginary motivations to me and other conservative critics of the paper:

The functionaries who wielded them then had the same goals as the self-anointed press watchdogs on the right do today: To support the regime in power through intimidation and threat and to impose ideological conformity, while avoiding at all costs debate on the merits.

Thus Hiltzik does exactly what he just accused conservative critics of the paper of doing: ascribing false motivations to others and decrying them — without seeming to note the apparent irony in the slightest.

Hiltzik’s cartoonish view of Patterico as a heel-clicking footsoldier, unswerving in his totalitarian-style defense of President Bush, will surprise regular readers of this blog — many of whom will recall my bitter denunciation of Bush over such issues as the Harriet Miers pick, his signing of campaign finance reform, and his refusal to seriously combat illegal immigration.

Also, if I am “avoiding at all costs debate on the merits,” why do I have comments on this blog? Why am I writing this post, for Heaven’s sake?

In his second post, Hiltzik purports to debunk a tiny, tiny fraction of the points made in my Year in Review post.

What primarily irritates me about Hiltzik’s post is that, McCarthy-style, he suggests that there is lots more bad stuff than he proves — he’s just not going to tell us what it is:

These are not the only assertions by Frey that I specifically double-checked; but every one I did proved upon inspection to be similarly gaseous. Any reader can undertake the same exercise; I would encourage everyone to try it, except that it’s so labor-intensive. Frey undoubtedly prefers that his readers don’t do so, because to make his case stick he requires an uncritical, credulous audience that will repeat his claims endlessly without bothering to examine them. But that’s always the case with partisan show trials.

Ah, the old Stalinist reference from the first post!

This is not how I do business. I don’t assure you that, for every error I tell you about in the paper, I have found many, many more — hey, just trust me; I can’t document them all! The difference between Hiltzik and me (one of them, anyway) is that I document all my criticisms, while he documents a few (I count four) of his, and assures us that he checked on many others and found all of them wanting — he just won’t bother to tell us specifically why. With this sleight of hand — if you fall for it — he manages to take a few minor quibbles and make them sound like a complete indictment of every aspect of my 11,000-word summary, with links to dozens of posts that document everything I say.

Don’t fall for it. It must be obvious to any rational reader: this is the best he’s got. I mean, think about it. Whatever else Hiltzik may be, he’s not a dumb guy. He would like you to believe that he has examples A through Z and just closed his eyes and picked examples F, J, and R at “random.” Give me a break. He’s going to lead with his best shot.

So let’s take a look at his specific criticisms. Again, I count four documented ones, most of which do little or nothing to undermine the points I made in my post.

For example, I noted that an article about Congressional nepotism named only one person on the front page: Republican Tom DeLay, whose nepotism was old news. Democrats whose nepotism was actually new news were saved for A18. Hiltzik can’t dispute this, but lamely explains that, well, something has to go on the back pages. He knows full well that many readers don’t follow front-page stories to the back pages, but he doesn’t admit it. Instead he tries to explain why makes sense to him that old news would go on the front page and new relevations on the back pages. Go ahead and read his lengthy explanation and see if it makes any sense to you. He also notes that the word “bipartisan” appeared on the front page. Great! I didn’t claim it didn’t. I just noted DeLay was the only person named on Page One, though his nepotism was old news. And I was right.

Hiltzik similarly misses my main point with other of his criticisms. For example, my criticism of Barbara Demick’s puff piece on North Korea notes that, as she later admitted to Hugh Hewitt, her interview subject was a government official. Yet she described him as a “former” diplomat in the piece, not explaining to readers that, in North Korea, any businessman with “close ties to the government” who is allowed to talk to the American press is, in fact, still a government official. That’s how the North Korean government works. When the “businessman” told her he was simply reporting his own personal views, that was nonsense, and she should have said so explicitly. The North Korean government doesn’t allow that. Why she refused to tell readers that, I still don’t understand. She admitted it to Hewitt’s listeners; why not tell the paper’s readers?? All of this goes sailing over Hiltzik’s head.

Hiltzik lambasts me for telling you that, in a story about why Khadafy decided to disarm, the paper didn’t bother to report Khadafy’s explicit admission that he did so because of the Iraq war. Hiltzik explains that Khadafy’s statement was third-hand, reported by parties who might have had their own axe to grind. But that’s not a reason to suppress it. That’s a reason to tell us who reported the statement and how it came to their attention — something I did in my post on the topic. The Times reported an explanation from Khadafy’s son — don’t you think he had his own axe to grind?

Hiltzik breathlessly reports that, while I claimed that the paper “speculated that Bush’s war in Iraq had nothing to do with Moammar Khadafy’s decision to disarm,” the paper actually stated:

Officials still disagree about exactly why Kadafi gave up the programs. Some information supports President Bush’s contention that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the broader U.S. doctrine of pre-emptive strikes forced the Libyan leader to act.

But several British and U.S. officials said Kadafi had been trying for years to surrender the weapons to end the international sanctions crippling the Libyan economy and smooth the way for his eldest son’s eventual assumption of power.

Hiltzik presents these quotes as a kind of “gotcha!” — making it seem like this is something that I tried to hide from my readers, but that he has exposed despite my best efforts to suppress it. He doesn’t mention that this exact quote is set forth, in its entirety, in my post on the topic, linked in the Year in Review.

What Hiltzik, who is relatively new to blogging, doesn’t seem to get is the importance of the link. Without links, my Year in Review is little more than a set of naked assertions. With the links, there is depth to, and evidentiary support for, the things that I say. My post about Khadafy does indeed quote the language in the article saying that there is “[s]ome information” supporting President Bush’s contention. I wish Hiltzik hadn’t pretended that I had tried to hide that. I still believe that anyone who reads the article in its entirety will find the editors speculating that, in reality, the war had nothing to do with it, because it was going to happen anyway.

I will give credit to Hiltzik for catching one error in one of my posts, which I will correct.

Hiltzik notes that I wrote a post about an article in the L.A. Times which relentlessly portrayed public sentiment on the Iraq war as increasingly negative. I noted that there were two polls that had showed an increase in public confidence as to certain aspects of the war, and said that I had looked for any mention of these polls in the L.A. Times, but couldn’t find them. I said: “I have searched the L.A. Times in vain for any mention of either the Washington Post poll or the most recent Gallup poll. Perhaps they were reported and I am just missing them?”

Practically beating his chest in triumph, Hiltzik notes that the article did, in fact, mention one of those polls in passing, and I had indeed missed that fact. That is indeed true, and I will correct the post in question to note this. What Hiltzik doesn’t tell his readers is that, while the article mentioned the poll and one of the numbers I had cited, it didn’t tell readers that this number represented a five-point increase in the percentage of the public that believed that the war had contributed to the long-term security of the United States — a fact that directly contradicted the thesis of the article. Looking back, I am not entirely shocked that I missed the fact that the Washington Post poll had been mentioned, since it was so misleadingly portrayed in the article.

Hiltzik snidely says:

By the way, since Frey is so all-fired hot about the L.A. Times correcting its mistakes, let’s note that he’s had six months to correct this one. If I took his approach, I’d be calling him a biased liar and questioning his integrity. But I won’t sink to that level.

I see. You’ll just compare me to a Stalinist, and tell me I don’t care about the facts or the truth. When I complain that the paper takes a long time to correct mistakes, I am complaining after I put them on notice of the mistake. Here, the first time I ever learned of my mistake was today, and I am correcting it today. So don’t bust your buttons over your supposed refusal to sink to my level. With this cheap shot, you are doing something I would never do to the paper: implying that it deliberately sat on a correction when I had no reason to believe that the paper knew of the error to begin with. That’s low, Mr. Hiltzik. You should be ashamed.

If Hiltzik has more examples of actual inaccuracies, he should list all of them. Consider it a challenge, Michael. I suspect that the rest of your “fact-checking” is like much of what you have already published: apologetics, quibbling, and disagreements of the type you’d expect from a defender of the paper.

Hiltzik gets his nose out of joint over an article I linked to about Chuck Philips’s odd coverage of the Notorious B.I.G. civil trial, which included allegations about Philips’s being on Suge Knight’s payroll. Hiltzik behaves as though I made, or endorsed, those allegations. Not so; I simply pointed readers to an article that mentioned them. Hiltzik makes much of the fact that the witness recanted the allegations, while in fear for his life from gang members. But Philips’s leaping to credit a fear-induced recantation as credible is one of the things I found so odd about his coverage of the Notorious B.I.G. trial to begin with. Hiltzik says that Philips is a good guy, and (even considering the source) I’m inclined to believe him. But I have read LAbyrinth (has Hiltzik? he doesn’t say) and Philips’s coverage of this whole affair leaves the knowledgable reader puzzled. He sure didn’t prepare readers for the federal judge’s eventual decision that the LAPD had suppressed information vital to the plaintiffs’ case.

Okay, I just remembered that Hiltzik’s first post bitched about my Sgrena posts. He attributes to me a lack of curiosity about why these edits might have taken place, neglecting to tell readers that I pestered the Readers’ Representative in vain for an explanation. (If she ever gave me one, I do not recall it.) He leaves out the fact that editors changed the word “killing” to “slaying” — something that can’t be explained by space concerns. He complains that I never said that the footage apparently never emerged. Well, I never said it did. My focus was on the reporting at the time. I acknowledged in several posts that the paper might simply be refusing to give credence to an anonymous government source — but wondered why the situation was different when an anonymous government source told Newsweek that the Koran was being flushed down the toilet, an allegation repeated by the paper in numerous stories.

I think Hiltzik is still mad at me and Hewitt because we wanted to know who he voted for. And even though I specifically said that it didn’t tell me everything about him, he is still dishonestly pretending that’s what I think:

Certainly the world presented in the pages of that Los Angeles Times would comfort and succor the Patrick Freys and Hugh Hewitts of the world. That world would harbor no doubts, no uncertainties, no heterogeneity, no surprises, no shades of gray. Everything about every individual, including his or her socio-economic class and opinions on taxation, gun control, and racial diversity, could be deduced by knowing whom he or she voted for in the last Presidential election.

Hiltzik knows full well that I have told him on his blog:

I just think it’s curious, and a little amusing, that you won’t say who you voted for.

I haven’t said that knowing the answer to that question would tell us all we need to know about you. I’m not sure why you spent so much time refuting that argument when I never made it to begin with.

Why it’s important to Michael Hiltzik to have you believe that I hold that belief, when I have told him I don’t, I have no idea. But I know it’s a pet idea of his, and I guess it’s hard to let go of, even when I have explicitly denied that that is how I feel.

I’ve answered as much of Hiltzik’s case as I can stand to; I have been working on a laptop that I am unfamiliar with and have lost several paragraphs of this post multiple times. It’s been an hours-long process, and I’m done. But I want to leave with this challenge to Hiltzik. You’ve done some cherry-picking, Michael. Now it’s my turn. I want your specific reaction to two cherry-picked items from my Year in Review: the “imminent threat” post, and the post criticizing the incredibly sloppy analysis of the cost of the death penalty.

On the “imminent threat” post: did the editors say that Bush claimed Iraq was an imminent threat in a State of the Union address? Did he? Was it an error by the editors? If so, do you agree with the editors that it was “not correctable”?

On the death penalty post: do you agree with me that it overstates the cost of capital punishment to count the entire cost of capital appeals as a cost of the death penalty? I have written the reporter and his editors about this and have not gotten a single individual at the paper to acknowledge this simple and indisputable fact. How about you?

That’s it. Good night from your favorite Stalinist apparatchik. I’m off to bed, to dream about crushing dissent against the beloved President Bush with my lies and show trials. It should be a peaceful slumber.

UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds for linking my post, and for daring to be associated with such a notorious Stalinist such as myself. I have a couple of follow-up thoughts here.

85 Responses to “A Response to Michael Hiltzik”

  1. Like Flap said before Michael Hiltzik is a MORON.

    Flap wonders how many more readers are unsubscribing from the Chicago-based Tribune RAG, called the Los Angeles Times?

    More later……

    Flap (cc77c4)

  2. One thing jumped out at me, reading this article:

    What Hiltzik, who is relatively new to blogging, doesn’t seem to get is the importance of the link. Without links, my Year in Review is little more than a set of naked assertions. With the links, there is depth to, and evidentiary support for, the things that I say.

    Doesn’t that sound suspiciously like “something has to go in the back pages”? – more directly, what percentage of your readers (of which I am one) regularly follow the links that point to the supporting evidence, and what percentage simply assume the links provide what you say they do – but don’t check?

    Michael Heinz (de4335)

  3. Consider it more like the footnotes of an academic article.

    Angry Clam (a7c6b1)

  4. Source citations are the evidence which backs up an article; Mr Heinz complains that many don’t follow the links, but simply take the author at his word. That’s probably true, but it only takes one person to follow the link, and if it’s bogus or doesn’t support the claim, note it. Mr Frey has set up this website for instant comments, so if he posts anything with Mapesbelieve proof, it’ll get spotted by someone.

    Further, copyright laws do not allow people to reproduce whole articles indiscriminately; Mr Frey has to pay attention to that.

    Dana (3e4784)

  5. “which whom” ???????????

    ay caramba.

    Laura (ccc46c)

  6. I find the reasoning offered by Dana compelling. In fact, it demonstrates the precise differences between paper and electronic media.

    jim (a9ab88)

  7. Dana,

    You have a point (that it only takes one person to check) – but that same point applies to the argument that “no one follows the jump and reads the whole article”.

    I’m not really making a substantive criticism here; it was merely something that jumped out at me – the two arguments seem to run in parallel; it seems to me that really comes down to the writing and reasoning skills of the author rather than the techniques they use to present their writing.

    Michael Heinz (3a21a9)

  8. Mr Heinz:

    I don’t really see the two as comparable. Failing to check a source citation doesn’t take away from the entire breadth of the article; it simply assumes the cited source supports the claim being made. Failing to follow the “jump” means that the entirety of the information being presented, including any qualifiers, has not been followed.

    The first simply assumes the proof given is real; the second means an incomplete story.

    Dana (3e4784)

  9. Michael Heinz,
    There is a similarity there. In both cases, should one choose not to flip to the back page or not to click the link, one is relying on the honesty of the writer to have summarized accurately.

    The LAT has richly earned its readers’ distrust in this regard.

    Patterico, on the other hand, has earned his readers’ trust. Moreover, if someone thinks he has not been honest or accurate, that person can immediately object, and all readers will see it. So he takes considerably more risk if he tries to do what the LAT does.

    Bostonian (115293)

  10. Mr. Heinz,

    But blogs have an exactly analogous to the papers “jump” to a later page. In fact, this post uses it. It’s the little link at the bottom that moves from the lead to “the rest of the story.” This is exactly the same function employed by papers with their front page, the idea being to post enough of the story to garner interest, then send the reader along to the completion.

    …except that it’s often perverted nowadays since everyone is fully aware that readers rarely make the jump and just “listen to the soundbite” (read the headline and maybe scan the opening para or two). Blogs (there is a recent example on one of the lefty blogs to which I have no link, sorry, involving the coal miners’ deaths) are not guiltless in this either, but due to the instant feedback mechanism that can point the finger both immediately and visibly this is much more risky for blogs.

    I think links to sources have no analogue in papers. Papers source with quotes, typically, or with a reference to a wirestory or the like, but give no means for actually refering directly to that source. In both cases they completely control the medium. We, the readers, can see only what they choose to show us, unless we do a considerable amount of legwork on our own. This is slightly less true with their online versions, since we have better tools, but it should be noted those tools are NOT provided by the organizations behind the papers. Papers COULD use links in their online editions; they do not.

    Links are, as someone has mentioned, more analagous to footnotes. But they go beyond footnote functionality since they make the source available directly. Footnotes aim you in the direction with a note as to what your looking for; links send you directly to the referenced source. Academic papers are moving towards employing links where possible in their electronic versions, retaining the footnote as the text and for cases where no online link is available.

    Papers remain mired in their historical mud in more than just their biases; they are doing a poor job adapting to changing technology also, and not just the internet. Radio, TV, and cable have long since ransacked the papers kingdoms.

    Blogs are just the latest barbarians at the gates of the newspapers’ crumbling empires. And Mr. Hiltzik and his pals are fiddling, not aggressively planning and WORKING to fortify and expand their once vigorous and significant domains.

    Dan S (4d968f)

  11. Mr. Heinz:

    It would also seem that corrective measures are much harder to undertake in the case of newspapers, whether one or a hundred readers follow the link.

    For example, if Patterico linked to, say, a Washington Post article or poll and grossly misrepresented it, there’d be a slew of comments from various readers noting that he was either mistaken or lying.

    Now, if you don’t read the comments, you might not be aware of that, either, but since many folks read the comments, it would soon be apparent that something was going on.

    Should Patterico choose not to correct or explain said misrepresentation, that, too, would be readily observable.

    Now, take the example of the LA Times. Imagine that they misrepresent a story by burying relevant but contradictory elements to the back-pages. And you and a hundred other readers read Page A18’s continuation and observe the problem.

    What then?

    If the LA Times chooses not to issue a correction, then the “first draft of history” will record the misrepresentation (and that’s assuming that the rest of the story in the backpages are correct—in some cases, as Patterico has documented, the entire story is incorrect).

    Therefore, whether anyone reads the jumps, electronic or print, is in fact readily visible in the case of blogs, but not so for print media.

    Lurking Observer (ea88e8)

  12. Generally I try to avoid reading typical nit-picking blogposts; I even limit my reading of “fisking”-type posts to the very succinct.

    My one exception to this rule is Patterico’s LATimes coverage. I’ve followed his work in this area through the year and found his “year in review” piece to be comprehensive and admirable, representing many, many hours of solid analysis and hard work.

    So I broke my own rule this morning and read both of Hiltzik’s hit pieces, and then came back and read Pat’s response, and had come to Pat’s conclusion myself well before reading it here: Is that all you got, Mr. Hiltzig?

    Because if that’s the best you can come up with, you might as well as hang it up. I did get a few unintended laughs from Hiltzig’s over-blown style — I particularly liked this tactic: “I could say he’s a drooling Neanderthal, but I won’t,” of course I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea — brilliant! And so professional, too. And all of Hiltzig’s guff about “understanding” the “demands” of publishing a daily paper? — Oh, please.

    Obviously Hiltzig doesn’t understand that the accountability of blogs is vastly more strict than that of the print media, and doesn’t get that Pat has essentially a legion of fact-checking readers, many of them hostile, to keep him honest. Unfortunately I doubt that Hiltzig will ever admit it even if he does come to understand it.

    While this has been entertaining, my advice to you Pat is to let it go with this one reply post. I’ve seen too many of these discussions spiral down into tedious arguments regarding minutia that do nothing but annoy. You’ve done a great job here with your defense; let your commenters take it from here.

    Joan (1f3f15)

  13. Patrick–

    Someday, when you run for DA, I’m sure you can count on the LA Times’ support.

    Kevin Murphy (6a7945)

  14. Don’t listen to the yapping dogs of the MSM. They still haven’t connected the dots as to why their circulation is dropping precipitously. Further, they don’t understand that most people no longer rely on a single source for information.

    The L.A. Times only has a finite number of readers to impress with their arrogance. On a blogsite, the potential to reach the best and brightest (Sometimes the dullest) on the internet is a good motivation to keep your posts relevant and reasonably accurate.

    The word is “CREDIBILITY!”

    vet66 (a9eb8b)

  15. Doesn’t that sound suspiciously like “something has to go in the back pages”? – more directly, what percentage of your readers (of which I am one) regularly follow the links that point to the supporting evidence, and what percentage simply assume the links provide what you say they do – but don’t check?

    Close, but no cee-gar; a newspaper reader has no idea what is on the back page other than that it has something to do with the contents of the front page, and the average reader is not going to muddle through the stuff after the jump on the chance that it might specifically qualify something on the front page.

    Contrast that to a link which by its location within the post which (like a footnote as mentioned above) immediately lets you know of the presence of evidence and exactly what it supports. That’s how it’s done by reputable authors.

    Apples & oranges.

    Scott (57c0cc)

  16. When reporters like NT Times’James Risen quote unnamed sources in order to sell his book at the expense of national security how does the reader follow his link(s)?

    The credibility of journalists is no different in the blogosphere than newspapers.

    Flap knows or has known (professionally) ethical and unethical reporters. How does the reader discern who is telling the truth and who does not have an agenda – whether it be economic gain, to curry favor with his/her editors or climb the career ladder?

    The blogosphere is allowing the reader to decide and they have.

    Flap wonders how much the Times is paying Hiltzik extra to set up his blog and to attack Patterico and the blogs?

    Flap (cc77c4)

  17. Hey Biff,

    You recently asked Patterico why people care what he thinks. Could be, it’s because he speaks truth to power. Could be, because he doesn’t resort to the sort of underhanded tactics Michael Hiltzik employs. Could be, Patterico has earned a reputation for restraint and accuracy. Could be, MSM wants Patterico’s qualities and reputation for themselves, but refuses to earn it. Could be, that’s your answer, but heck, it’s your call.

    Black Jack (ee9fe2)

  18. I read Hiltzek’s pieces, and I don’t see them quite as harshly as Patterico does. I also disagree with some of Patterico’s criticisms as to motives. (Never ascribe to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.)

    But here’s what I see as Hiltzek’s points:

    1. Patterico is trying to move the Times to the right.

    – Stop the presses! I never would’ve guessed.

    2. The newspaper has finite space, and has to make cuts somewhere.

    – True for 12 paragraphs, but two sentences? You’re telling me that if I send 26.4 column inches, it’s going to *have* to go down to 25? It’s not that rigid; at least it wasn’t 15 years ago when I worked for LA’s other big daily, which prints way shorter stories.

    3. Patterico is a baaaad man, part of a giant conspiracy of evil designed to put the noble LAT out of business, only to replace it with party-line hard-right news, which *will* *be* *read* and agreed to, using A Clockwork Orange-type devices.

    – Really. OK, I’m a little over the top here, but not by much. The real hate for Patrick – and the differentiation between the sweet liberal bloggers and the mean old conservatives is really telling.

    Hiltzek takes a quite whiny, almost desperate tone, then criticizes Patterico for being childish, among other things. He didn’t help himself or his paper – and he could have, at least a little. By going into a full conservatives-are-bad-and-bloggers-are-worse screeching, he left Patterico far ahead of the game.

    –JRM

    JRM (de6363)

  19. D’oh! Where are my four layers of editors? That’s “Hiltzik,” of course.

    –JRM

    JRM (de6363)

  20. Why doesn’t the LA Times report that Swarzenegger’s new conceded education budget is still a “cut”? It’s still not as much money as “the educators” were once asking for, and that’s the definition the paper uses for cut. The reason is because the Los Angeles Times hates Republicans and hates the Governor, and reporting that won’t hurt them.

    Mike W (c20d28)

  21. Hmm. I’ve always seen your writing as betraying more a Trotsyite than Stalinist outlook.

    Keep up the revolution, Comrade.

    Pigilito (a86ac0)

  22. Mirror, mirror. Bukharin edited Prvada, didn’t he? Vyshinsky’s big trials were all in the Thirties, nyet? Vickers-Metro. Shakhty. Wreckers, all! You threaten Party unity, comrade!

    Alex (34f929)

  23. Around the blogosphere

    Taking a stroll around the blogosphere I offer up the following posts from some of my favorite bloggers for your perusal:

    Patterico takes on a LA Times columnist who compared him to Stalin. Moral of the story: Don’t mess with Patterico
    Mari…

    Sister Toldjah (3e6668)

  24. You know you’ve arrived when an L.A. Times columnist compares you to a dishonest, totalitarian Stalinist apparatchik.

    Wouldn’t that be a GOOD thing, seen through the eyes of a LAT columnist?

    eLarson (b672ea)

  25. The liberals are becoming so desperate I’m thinking it’s just a matter of time before they start a civil war. They’ll start it and we’ll finish it! Can you imagine the propaganda flowing from the left then? In print and television they’ll win all the battles and the conservatives will take all the casualties. Funny thing is… after the smoke clears, there’ll be no liberals left to celebrate!!! 🙂

    Griz (cf8a3e)

  26. Los Angeles Times Watch: Pulitzer Prize Winning Reporter – An UNHINGED Blogger

    Michelle Malkin: THE THIN-SKINNED LA TIMES
    Over the holidays, I linked to Patterico’s devastating year-end review of journalistic malpractice at the LA Times.
    One left-wing LA Times columnist, Michael Hiltzik, has responded by comparing Patt…

    FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog (baa0b4)

  27. I love Hiltzik’s argument “we didn’t make these mistakes due to our bias” what he leaves out is the only other plausible option “we made them due to incompetence damn it!”.

    Either way quite a few folks at the LA Times need to be fired.

    The Ugly American (2067d7)

  28. I can not wait for the day when I have to tell my children that one day little boys had to ride their bikes in the early morning to deliver “News” papers to the neighborhood. The days of the of the Newspapers are over. How did no one in the Elite media intelligencia ever see this coming? Answer: They are full of themselves and care less about the general mood of the people. Recently the blogsphere has exposed them for what they really are: hypocrites. They think they are above the law. IMO Risen and his, to use the dems talking point, “leaker/whistleblower/moraly above the law individual” should be tried for treason.

    Journalism as we know it is over. My view: 10 maybe 5 years from now when no one gets a newspaper anymore and the LAT, WaPo, USAToday, etc will only be found in the Smithsonian in a Defamers of the Constitution Exhibit. The last time I bought a newpaper was 9/12/01, it was for the pictures not the words.

    instantnemesis (1f18d2)

  29. In my eyes, someone loses credibility the minute they attach the term “regime” to the name of a current or former resident of the White House — regardless ofthe party affiliation of the President in question. Hiltzik’s argument fails for that reason alone.

    RHymes With Right (8ff4be)

  30. “As any student of history knows, these are tools and techniques that were used to great effect during the Stalinist show trials of the 40s and 50s.”

    The Show trials were between 1936-1938 i.e before WWII as any student of Google search knows.

    You just can’t make stuff like this up – too good!

    Peak2Peak (b2adf8)

  31. Why is it that the responses of late from representatives of the LA Times as well as the NY Times more resemble those of a 2-year-old complaining after being caught not only with their hand in the cookie jar but beside the broken cookie jar that they broke? After denying breaking the cookie jar the child loudly complains to the point of attacking those who discovered the misdeed. So as a two-year-old, so goes the Times and those representing them.

    Carl (979a99)

  32. A short personal history. I’ve been around 68 years worth. Very well educated, graduated Columbia (NYC) which was liberal then but not like today, started a very successful business which made my employees very wealthy (me too). I voted for two democrats..JFK (I’m not embarassed by this even though he had a failed presidency…I voted for Jimmy (I’ll never tell a lie to you” Carter. He was a failed President as well and even today he is a disgrace to the nation.
    In my opinion, the LAT, NYT, USA, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN etc etc are failures in their mission which is to inform the public of the news. While I read some of their articles I refuse to pay one RED cent in subscriptions. Hiltzik’s remarks are sophomoric and confirm my very pessimistic future for these very BIASED sources of news.

    rab (38764f)

  33. Students of history also know that there were no Stalinist show trials in the 40s and 50s.

    Steven Donohue (1bb801)

  34. Right on Comrade Frey!

    Neocon Don (4389ec)

  35. I’m proud Patterico has been called a Stalinist by somebody better than the trolls who call me one. 🙂 It’s how you know your argument is on target.

    sharon (fecb65)

  36. Stalin had more important things to do from 1939 – 1945 than conduct show trials, and after as well. Much easier just to have the NKVD arrest whoever he decided should die and give them one to the back of the head in Lefortovo than waste money on some silly “trial.”

    The Times’s passion for getting basic facts correct lives on!

    Chaos (27ce18)

  37. – Its almost as if the MSM gets all its talking points from Bhagdad-Bob. “American Tanks…..theres no tanks….even now our glorious Iraqui army is driving the infidels……. *r-r-r-r-ru-u-u-m-m-b-b-b-l-l-e-e*….. and you’ll see how we handle the American devils and …..*r-r-r-r-ru-u-u-m-m-b-b-b-l-l-e-e*…..Errmmm….perhaps we should move the press conference to a location with a nicer view…..”

    Big Bang Hunter (9562fb)

  38. Doesn’t that sound suspiciously like “something has to go in the back pages”? – more directly, what percentage of your readers (of which I am one) regularly follow the links that point to the supporting evidence

    The two aren’t even remotely comparable. Patterico’s year in review is just that… a year in review. Each of those linked posts was placed prominently at the top of the page when he originally posted it.

    If the LA times wants to write an 11,000 word article that reviews its work from the last year it will cite those stories properly… it will not reprint each of the referred stories in its entirety. The link on a blog is precisely equal to a footnote in the pre-hypertext days.

    Don’t confuse a link referring to a previously existing post with part of the current post itself. That displays a fundamental misunderstanding of blogs.

    Dave S (6c0b39)

  39. Show trials of the 1940s and 1950s? Can Mr. Hiltzik name any? The real show trials led the world media around by the nose by means of ‘confessions’ from formerly fearless Bolsheviks. But most were in the 1930s. Who fact-checks Mr. Hiltzik?

    Hank Bradley (b3132d)

  40. […] In a little different vein is the reaction of an LA Times columnist, Michael Hiltzik, to Patterico’s very long, detailed, year-end summary of the paper’s indifference to accuracy. Patterico quotes and answers the Hiltzik’s criticism of this year-end summary here. You could find no better example of how people see the world when they become thoroughly isolated from regular folks. […]

    The Warrior Class Blog » Blog Archive » Why Industies Die (9d12c3)

  41. Does this mean that the comparisons to Hitler are now passe?

    nofixedabode (61ada8)

  42. […] Enough about us. Let’s talk about the attention Hiltzik is paying to Patrick Frey (Patterico’s Pontifications). Here is what Patrick has to say about it: Hiltzik sets the tone in the first post, in which he calls my entire post “propaganda,” compares me and other conservative critics of his paper to Stalinists (no, really! read on for the direct quotes), and says that I do not appear to be “genuinely interested in correcting factual errors” or otherwise improving the paper’s performance. […]

    Independent Sources » Blog Archive » That’s gotta hurt: LAT’s Hiltzik gets pounded in his own blog (94fe31)

  43. Get some Pat!

    Rodney A Stanton (cda17a)

  44. Michael Heinz – I not only went to every link Pat put up but I went to the links put up by the folk he linked. One thing I have learned as an auditor is never assume that something is what it seems. Go to the source docs and check them out. Maybe I am an obsessive, anal retentive bean counter but I goet to the bottom of everything.
    I think most of the folk going to this blog at least checked out some of the links. That is why they are not satisfied with the LAT and are here. If the LAT provided their source docs (it has been my belief for 46 years that in many cases they do not exist)we would not need this blog. We could check their “facts” directly from their site.

    Rod Stanton (cda17a)

  45. So, after all, who did you vote, Mr. Hiltzik?

    a. John Kerry (the savior of our nation, the Boston Brahmin, and the heir to Heinz fortune)
    b. George W. Bush (the fascist dictator, who should be impeached for the crimes committed against the holy coalition of the Islamofasicsts & the Socialist/Secular/Left)
    c. Bill Clinton (Will someone tell him to stop running again?)
    d. Cindy Sheehan (the latest clown of the media, kos’s secret girlfriend, and the darling of the Democrat party)

    After all, inquiring bloggers want to know. But, then, silence speaks volumes.

    David (b85997)

  46. One of the differences being ignored here is that our esteemed host doesn’t pretend to be unbiased; Patterico is a conservative, and doesn’t quibble about that fact. The Los Angeles Times and the other major dailies do claim to be objective, and in a lot of cases, they are not. If they’d just tell the truth about themselves, we’d never be reading this thread.

    Dana (3e4784)

  47. He also makes another gross historical mistake. Stalin’s show trials happened mostly between 1932 and 1939. Stalin died in 1953 while he was preparing a new show trial which never happened, that of the Jewish Doctors.

    Will we be getting a correction on this?

    ElcubanitoKC (2e94d3)

  48. Well, due to other demands, I had to freeze my blog watchdogging my local paper, but if I’d have illicited a column like Mr. Hiltzik’s, I have considered myself as having arrived. Congratulations Mr. Patterico.

    Salt Lick (1ce7a2)

  49. I like the fact that he starts out attacking you (and others) as a right wing blogger, then immediately the use of short hand slurs (liberal and leftist.)Typical progressive moron.

    William Teach (eb73c0)

  50. Karl Rove the Neocon Lord of the Bloggers. He will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the Rectification of the Voldrani, the Neocon came as a large and moving Torg! Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Mekantric Supplecents they chose a new form for him; that of a giant Slor! Many liberals and leftists knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Slor that day, I can tell you!

    KARL ROVE = SATAN (022fa6)

  51. Hang in there. It’s just LLL talk for “oh yeah”.

    plainslow (2ce00e)

  52. The issue with MSN organizations blatantly misrepresenting truths through multiple strategic and tactical word plays has existed from the first days of news. (Rent Citizen Kane to understand how far back the practice goes.) The practice of burying retractions and corrections as well as simply ignoring known mistakes is disgusting and measures the credibility of the news source. The pain evidenced by Mr. Hiltzik’s rantings and name calling is just the latest indication that the MSN invulnerability through airwave access and barrels of ink has been punctured by the FREEDOM offered by the internet to the common man.

    To those here that have posted that looking up LINKS is the same as placing truth on the back pages of a newspaper to sway meaning I can only say that you are ignorant. If those links were placed outside the article or a continuation of the article in a separate web page I might see your point, but this is not the case. The links provide direct access to topics of discussion and are more effective than simple work citations and anonymous sources.

    Finally, I find it sad that the MSN proponents such as Mr. Hiltzik scream Stalinist, Hitlerite, and the like when they are arguing against open forum discussion. This is what shows the true intentions of the MSN. The MSN had a monopoly on expressing viewpoints and shaping truths to vast numbers of people. There was no meaningful response from the people except through letters to an editorial staff and which the staff found acceptable to print and discuss. The MSN has lost this complete grip on expression. There are Blogs on the net that are simply tripe from all across the ideological palette. The people now have the ability to determine what is tripe and what is the truth by reading and listening to the facts/truths presented. These same people also have both the will and the means to hold the clarions of truths to account for the veracity of that truth. This is for the MSN and the New Media today. We all have our rights to our own opinions and views, but the truth and facts are simply the truth and facts. Far too long this free society had a small group of people controlling what and how truth and fact was presented if presented at all. Thank you Bloggers for ushering in a new era.

    Dave Willmore (778f3b)

  53. Keep up the good work!

    Fausta (3548fc)

  54. “To back up their assertions, they often quote articles selectively, take out of context what they do quote, and ascribe imaginary motivations to reporters and editors, which they then feel free to decry.” — This is the “straw-man technique” that the Trotskyites themselves — a sect that seems to be passed on from generation to generation and that has morphed into the current manifestation known as neo-cons — tirelessly apply. The use of the epithet “Stalinists” is a giveaway. The mistake in dating the show trials shows that this is a knee-jerk use of family folklore passed on through the generations.

    At one time Trotskyists presumably cared for the poor and oppressed, or at least pretended to. They have no other ideology or purpose now, other than the reflexive urge band together in little coteries to attempt to discredit through vicious attacks (in their Marxist-Leninist-inspired way) any genuine liberals and reformists. What they are doing on the LAT is beyond me.

    Harold (fcee66)

  55. This post is way FÞºæþ..nk too long

    Nest make it 6 or seven posts.

    Remember: In English on is short and concise.

    Your post seem to be written by a Mexican journalist or by Castro (Fidel, the long winded)

    LVA

    Luc V Autour (621740)

  56. You should see the post I was responding to.

    Keep in mind that I was banging it out on an unfamiliar laptop and kept losing paragraphs.

    The point-by-point rebuttals were necessary, but not particularly interesting, so I saved them for the end.

    Patterico (806687)

  57. […] That, my friends, is what we call a good old-fashioned whippin’. […]

    PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts » Smackdown! (8bc707)

  58. Hiltzik breathlessly

    Um, you are the one that appears to be breathless. And endless.

    And um, I wouldn’t consider it such an honor to be defended by Michelle Malkin.

    Anyway, here’s to your continuing and better smears in 2006, and may you be fired for misusing taxpayer funds!

    jerry (049afa)

  59. Jerry, you dishonor whatever cause it is you imagine yourself advancing.

    The problem here seems to be Hiltzik’s obliviousness to his own position of power. He’s not alone.

    Bezuhov (863b99)

  60. Jerry,
    When the truth is called a “smear” then we know the speaker is to be ignored.
    If you “feel” that Patterico is lying, then prove it.

    tyree (b2fade)

  61. Patterico, please keep up the great work. As one who lived in L.A. for 32 years (as a flaming lib) can attest, the LADT gets more wrong than right. You nailed them good in your year-end review (as you did in the previous 2) and their dementia is proof of your effectiveness.

    Peg C. (5fe94e)

  62. The bigotry of the MSM is so out of control that they refuse to see the truth and pretend the facts are not facts. Hilzik is a classic example of the bigots that have been “reporting” on news in America for the last 60 years. He is obviously blinded by his hate.This is how things like Rathergate have been presented as “news” for the last 60 years.Hostility permeates both of his posts. His self image has been shattered.But he is in complete denial.Refuses to see the facts or admit the truth.

    Jo macDougal (cda17a)

  63. Correcting America’s Worst Paper

    Michael Hiltzik, who works for the Los Angeles Times, has attempted to defend his paper here and

    Dean's World (fa8fba)

  64. Mr. Frey–great work! clearly Mr. Hiltzik brought a peashooter to the gunfight! One would think, as a presumbably educated business writer, Mr. H would understand it is the corporation’s responsibility to correct its errors and produce quality work in the first place–It is MOST assuredly not the work of the readers to protect a corporation that fails in its job. But that is a minor quibble–Mr. H, I suspect, will be following the egregious Robert Scheer into journalistic obscurity soon enough.

    RogerA (a93929)

  65. Michael Heinz beat his son…. continued on page A15

    Michael Heinz beat his son at double solitaire last night. >Link for supporting proof here

    m. watkins (3babc6)

  66. Patterico said:

    “Hiltzik sets the tone in the first post, in which he calls my entire post “propaganda,” compares me and other conservative critics of his paper to Stalinists…”

    Actually he didn’t call Patterico and other “conservative critics” Stalinists. The relevant sentences from Hiltzik:

    ‘To back up their assertions, they often quote articles selectively, take out of context what they do quote, and ascribe imaginary motivations to reporters and editors, which they then feel free to decry. As any student of history knows, these are tools and techniques that were used to great effect during the Stalinist show trials of the ‘40s and ‘50s… ‘

    Stalinist, in this context, actually referrs to those on trial and not to those who use the techniques enumerated by Hiltzik.

    Node of Evil (b11f31)

  67. Too much, too little

    Fire drill time yesterday involving a sick husband and an emergency CT scan (things better today). I was exhausted and went to bed early last night, missing scads of stuff. Governor Arnold gave a speech last night, which I missed,…

    Darleen's Place (1650a7)

  68. Let’s go easy on Hiltzik. After all his job requires him to turn out a couple of hundred words every couple of days. He can’t be expected to be evenhanded with that kind of incessant pressure. And as for fact-checking, like when the show trials took place under Stalin–heck, that’s what the LAT 4 layers of editors are for (with apologies to the late Mr. Shaw).
    Contrast Mr. Frey: he does Patterico on the side, for little or no remuneration, has a real job in addition to blogging, and includes fact checkable links in his posts. It’s simply unfair to expect Mr. Frey to achieve (let alone maintain) the high standards of an LAT columnist.
    PS–Mr. Frey can you turn your intellectual guns on Ron Brownstein and send him back to Binghamton?

    kyle (dca2a1)

  69. […] UPDATE 2: Whew — Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times’ Golden State Blog really didn’t like Patterico’s LAT Year in Review, and let loose what can only be described as an unhinged two- part response. Big mistake: Patterico fires back; it’s an unfair fight. Patterico in a knockout. […]

    BizzyBlog.com » Magnificent Obsession: Patterico Chronicles a Year of LA Times Bias (475ea5)

  70. I propose that we non-Leftists help out our opponents who might be interested in real dialog.

    I propose we start wearing Swastika bearing T-shirts and Shweatshirts. If worn en mass, this will serve to identify us to those unintersted in thinking. Those who are can then seek us out and engage in constructive dialog.

    Call it the Leftist BS “outing” campaign: we’re all Nazis now! OK – we concede the point. Next question?

    The Left has so corrupted any serious political dialog, it’s High Time we call them out on it!!!

    Orson (142a8b)

  71. […] P.P.S. It has come to my attention that some people don’t realize I already responded to Hiltzik at great length, in another post. You can read it here. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » More on Hiltzik from Comrade Patterico (421107)

  72. Just a minor note: the “As any student of history knows, these are tools and techniques that were used to great effect during the Stalinist show trials of the 40s and 50s” took place in the 1930’s, starting with the trial of the “wreckers” of the Coal Fields in the Donits basin, then moving on to the “saboteurs” of the Railroads, then on to various political parties and nationality groups. I guess Hiltzik is by his own definition a reporter not a “…student of history…” (by guess is that he is not a student of anything….)(Not to mention of course, that Stalin was dead by 1952, and that the 1940’s were mostly consumed with fighing the Second World War. You would think even Hiltzik could calculate that most of the “show trials” happened earler than 1950…..sigh….

    Ralph Volpi (7172d6)

  73. Just a minor note: the “As any student of history knows,…the Stalinist show trials of the 40s and 50s” took place in the 1930’s, starting with the trial of the “wreckers” of the Coal Fields in the Donits basin, then moving on to the “saboteurs” of the Railroads, then on to various political parties and nationality groups. I guess Hiltzik is by his own definition a reporter not a “…student of history…” (my guess is that he is not a student of anything….)(Not to mention of course, that Stalin was dead by 1952, and that the 1940’s were mostly consumed with fighing the Second World War. You would think even Hiltzik could calculate that most of the “show trials” happened earler than 1950…..sigh….

    Comment by Ralph Volpi — 1/6/2006 @ 6:06 pm

    Ralph Volpi (7172d6)

  74. I just read the North Korea article/interview. I think your critique of the attribution is awfully picky. The article says that the North Korean man “has been assigned to help his communist country attract foreign investment.” I don’t interpret that to mean he is completely independent of the North Korean government, yet that’s the implication you’re ascribing to the writer (and which you then go on to decry).

    Further, above, you write (quoting, here): “she described him as a ‘former’ diplomat in the piece.” Please check again. The word “former” (your quote marks, there) does not appear in the piece at all. Look for yourself. Then, please, issue a correction.

    In fact, here’s how the piece *does* describe him: “This North Korean, an affable man in his late 50’s who spent much of his career as a diplomat in Europe, has been assigned to help his communist country attract foreign investment.” If anything, that (to me) implies past AND continued official service to the government.

    Finally, you are outraged that the piece prints, at face value, the man’s statements and allows them to be presented as his own opinions (albiet “the North Korean view of the world”) rather than declaring them to be, clearly, official pre-approved positions of the North Korean government. But does that not happen, every single day, in our own nation? Whenever a Bush administration source is quoted in print “on condition of anonymity,” 99% of the time that Bush administration source is relaying (or “leaking”) the official pre-approved position of the Bush administration. Yet I’ve never seen an article that explicity declares as much… something you criticise this interviewer for also failing to do. So what’s the deal? Is this press credulity (as regards attribution) wrong in all cases? Or is it wrong only when it’s a North Korean flack being quoted?

    Patrick Meighan (b5c352)

  75. I gotta agree with Patrick, and his comment points to a larger problem with the Grand Patterico Critique, which is this: inaccuracy does not necessarily prove bias.

    Many of the inaccuracies P documents are, in fact, inaccurate.

    But do they collectively prove that the paper is deliberately promoting a “liberal” agenda? Or any agenda at all? What if they’re innocent mistakes?

    The only way to prove that would be to test the LA Times for inaccuracies that skew conservative. If one were to look at the total sample of inaccuracies, and find that they overwhelmingly promote anti-administration points of view, and never help the administration or (to use a cruder measure) offend the left, one might be able to start to make the case that the inaccuracies represent a deliberate attempt to skew news coverage.

    The problem with Patterico – as I’ve said before – is that his own bias is so clear, that I know I cannot count on him to test the LAT for anti-liberal bias. I know — because he tells me — that he is deliberately picking evidence from the LAT that supports his thesis.

    And I know, being a reasonably informed American, that newspapers are full of mistakes and inaccuracies all the time. It’s an imperfect medium. And its logical that anyone looking for a particular kind of mistake is going to find it; the only question is whether those mistakes fit a pattern, and the only way to determine THAT is to take a full sample of mistakes, and I have no reason to believe that Patterico – whose bias is, once again, openly acknowledged – has given me a full sample.

    So we’re back to the bias problem. If I can’t trust a biased source, why should I trust Patterico? He’s proven that there are inaccuracies. He’s postulated that these inaccuracies are proof of bias. But in order to prove this postulation, he has to prove that pro-administration or pro-conservative mistakes have not happened in significant numbers. (for example, by analyzing the total body of published LAT corrections)

    In other words, Patterico has to operate in good faith in order to come up with an argument that would convince a skeptic. And I think that Patterico has long since reached his conclusion about what the LAT is and who works there and what their motivations are, which compromises his ability to judge it.

    beetroot (c80522)

  76. Beetroot wrote:

    But do they collectively prove that the paper is deliberately promoting a “liberal” agenda? Or any agenda at all? What if they’re innocent mistakes?

    The only way to prove that would be to test the LA Times for inaccuracies that skew conservative. If one were to look at the total sample of inaccuracies, and find that they overwhelmingly promote anti-administration points of view, and never help the administration or (to use a cruder measure) offend the left, one might be able to start to make the case that the inaccuracies represent a deliberate attempt to skew news coverage.

    The problem with Patterico – as I’ve said before – is that his own bias is so clear, that I know I cannot count on him to test the LAT for anti-liberal bias. I know — because he tells me — that he is deliberately picking evidence from the LAT that supports his thesis.

    OK, that’s a reasonable critique. Our esteemed host is a conservative, and is thus more attuned to a liberal bias. But what you have written suggests that someone, and it seems to me that you have almost volunteered, ought to do just as you have suggested, and monitor the Los Angeles Times for anti-liberal bias.

    Only seven days have passed thus far this year, so, if you make it a project, you won’t miss all that much out of 365 days.

    Of course, if Patterico has documented an anti-conservative bias that has led to a lot or factual errors, and you succeed in documenting an anti-liberal bias that also results in a lot of errors, wouldn’t that mean we couldn’t trust the Times to report anything right? 🙂

    Dana (8d0335)

  77. Since when does anyone else have an obligation to help newspapers improve their product?

    Andy Freeman (3c348b)

  78. Mr Freeman asks, reasonably:

    Since when does anyone else have an obligation to help newspapers improve their product?

    No one has such an obligation, but it can be in one’s interest to try.

    Dana (3e4784)

  79. Actually, Dana, what I believe we’d find is a total number of errors that would suggest that a reasonable reader should not trust the LAT (or any paper) to get everything right all the time.

    That’s very different from saying that a small number of errors proves that you can never trust the LAT, any more than your mom’s bad advice about some particular proves you should never trust your mom.

    If you’re like me, you trust your mom, but you don’t automatically assume that everything she says is right. Newspaper readers have to be the same way: you can never assume that it’s all correct, whether it’s the LAT or Fox News or the Weekly Standard or the Daily Kos. That’s automatic, a given, unchanging, a constant. To believe otherwise is to ignore the reader’s responsibility.

    But again, the presence of errors is not de facto evidence of bias. And the admission of bias (e.g. “we’re a conservative/liberal publication”) is not de facto evidence of inaccuracy (e.g. you can be biased and still be correct).

    The latter case forces me to take someone like Patterico seriously – – even though he fits the profile of the aggreived, hypersensitive conservative who sees a plotting Soros-funded liberal behind every rhetorical tree, he may in fact be correct.

    On reviewing his evidence, I don’t think it fits his accusation. The LAT may skew liberal in some regards, but does that mean it is deliberately distorting its news in order to make the Bushies look bad? The evidence P produces doesn’t really prove that.

    beetroot (c80522)

  80. As any student of Soviet history will tell you, the “Stalinist show trials” were held in the mid-to-late 1930s, not in the 1940s and 1950s as Mr. Hiltzik wrote. Yeah, as far as Uncle Joe was concerned, any year from 1924 to 1953 was a good year for a show trial, but the main ones that condemned millions to death or Siberian exile and among other consequences destroyed the officer corps of the Red Army just in time for Hitler’s arrival were conducted in the late 1930s. Stalin reached new heights of paranoia in half-decade before his death in 1953 and there would have been some great Court TV fodder then, too, but the bulk of the trials occurred a decade earlier.

    BJMitchell (316197)

  81. Me doth think Pattycakes protests too much.

    The only thing this response accomplishes is to prove Hiltzik’s many points. Much of what is quoted is taken out of context, and of course Pattycakes simply refuses to address the real issues that were brought up, specifically his dishonesty. Like wingnuts every where he thinks if he yells the loudest than he must be right. Most of us learn otherwise before kindergarten.

    [Specifics? What did Hiltzik say, specifically, that I didn’t address? — Patterico]

    LA Reader (f1a099)

  82. […] I don’t think everybody at The Times is like Hiltzik, who once compared me to a Stalinist; or Masha, who says bloggers like me are “worse than Pravda” — or “Biff” (remember him?), the Tribune Company guy who, in January, said this: Patrick Frey? a deputy district attorney? commenting on the LA Times? and people care what you think because….???? […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » On Commenter Masha, Commenting from . . . You’ll Never Guess! (421107)

  83. […] Patterico is a blogger based in L.A. who specializes in exposing the Times’s factual errors and leftist bias. He’s tangled with Hiltzik off and on since the Golden State blog began. Read this and this for a taste of how a Pulitzerian responds to his critics. […]

    Hot Air » Blog Archive » Radio Alert: Patterico To Discuss Hiltzik on “Hoist The Black Flag” (3ca10e)

  84. […] I broke the news of the sock-puppetry antics of L.A. Times columnist Michael Hiltzik. (Hiltzik is a former business columnist who had previously compared me to a Stalinist apparatchik.) Hiltzik lost his blog and business column as a result. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Thanks to Power Line for Making Patterico Its “Blog of the Week” (421107)


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