Patterico's Pontifications

5/18/2009

PowerLine: New York Times Killed ACORN Story to Protect Obama (Updated)

Filed under: Media Bias,Obama — DRJ @ 8:03 pm

[Guest post by DRJ]

Read all about it! here.

UPDATE 5/19/2009 – More from PowerLine:

“Yesterday we heard from Anita MonCrief, the source for the ACORN/Obama story spiked by the New York Times before the election. John Hinderaker explored the Times’s account of the story’s spiking in “Killing a story: How it’s done.” Ms. MonCrief first wrote to commend John for his analysis: “Great article. I am glad to see that you guys are on top of this.” When I asked if she wanted to add anything for posting here, Ms. MonCrief responded:

I would like to state that [Times reporter Stephanie] Strom was set to come to Washington where I planned to hand over emails that showed contact between ACORN and staff of the Obama campaign. I had started not to trust her and would only give them to her in person. I have forwarded them to [attorney] Heather Heidalbaugh and they offer evidence that would have substantiated my story.

It is a story that somehow remains to be told.”

— DRJ

Comments (32)

32 Responses to “PowerLine: New York Times Killed ACORN Story to Protect Obama (Updated)”

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it….
Cara (b11809) — 5/18/2009 @ 8:06 pm
Which I always thought was a bogus saying, many animals have very acute hearing. But then only us conservative wildlife will hear this oak crash.
Cara (b11809) — 5/18/2009 @ 8:07 pm
The entire Obama candidacy was a killed story.
Apogee (e2dc9b) — 5/18/2009 @ 8:15 pm
The NYT is fair, impartial, and not the least bit biased.
JD (a67da8) — 5/18/2009 @ 8:28 pm
SHOCKA!
daleyrocks (5d22c0) — 5/18/2009 @ 8:28 pm
It is not really a surprise that the MSM engaged in benign neglect, but this appears to be more along the lines of active perfidy.
JD (a67da8) — 5/18/2009 @ 8:35 pm
SHOCKA!

We should be. That we aren’t speaks volumes about this sad state of affairs. It becomes even easier to see this administration eventually bailing out the newspaper industry and neatly making it theirs, thus ending the need for attempting to appear to be something we know they are not.
Dana (4a6e8c) — 5/18/2009 @ 9:13 pm
I’m sorry but there was a lot more media manipulation than that.
Alta Bob (9e4a72) — 5/18/2009 @ 9:15 pm
If anything, my faith in the objectivity and competency of the NY Times has been greatly strengthened over the past few years by their remarkable and breathless, yet fair-minded, coverage of rumors that one of John McCain’s campaign staff workers had been — as they say — diddling the boss, and, of course, their alert and very skillful handling of one of their former employees, that being the very honest Jayson Blair.

Moreover, I’m sure the NY Times didn’t give Blair any greater latitude, any more benefit of the doubt, due to his racial background than the way they have been and are dealing with Barack Obama.

Yep, uh-huh.
Mark (411533) — 5/18/2009 @ 9:17 pm
You mean none of you guys trust Public Editor Clark Hoyt — a man on the NYT payroll, who serves at the whims of the publisher, and who no doubt shares the prevailing newsroom ideology — to make a fair and impartial inquiry into the paper’s efforts to kill this story?
JVW (eabe68) — 5/18/2009 @ 9:18 pm
As I write this the great Barney Frank is screaming that this is all Bush’s doing, that it was Bush that funded ACORN. It’s Bush Bush Bush…..
howard432 (3f8901) — 5/18/2009 @ 9:35 pm
Strom said she does not know what was on her mind eight months ago, but that she is careful to keep her political views private.

HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!!
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 5/18/2009 @ 9:37 pm
The New York TIMES….
Printing all the news that doesn’t suck (for their side)!
AD - RtR/OS! (c02a3c) — 5/18/2009 @ 10:13 pm
Keller killed the Terrorist Surveillance Program story in 2004 because he thought it might hurt Kerry, so there is definitely election year precedent.
daleyrocks (5d22c0) — 5/18/2009 @ 10:36 pm
as a side bar, the LA Slimes had someone call the house today with a script that ran like we had already agreed to start the weekend subscription, at $0.75/week, and just needed to finalize it….

being a shit, i let him run, and then cut him off at the end, asking why I should buy the paper. we then went down that road, with him offering a magazine, and my saying I wanted at least $5/week cash, just to get the paper delivered.

when he ran out of words, and i said once again, that the Slimes would never be welcome, he admitted he didn’t read it either. i wished him well in his next call, and we laughed together.
redc1c4 (9c4f4a) — 5/18/2009 @ 10:50 pm
Mark, that was a campaign staffer? I though Mccain’s fake affair was with a lobbyist. I guess staffers become lobbyists.

It was hilarious how that made the front page of the NYT given all the democratic scandals that are actually verified and do not. But the NYT made the decision long ago to be a niche paper for democrats. They are supported basically as a charity that has good will from those who ‘hate’ the GOP.
Juan (4cdfb7) — 5/18/2009 @ 11:31 pm
I though Mccain’s fake affair was with a lobbyist.

You’re correct. I guess since the story was so flimsy and undoubtedly pursued with even greater fervor by employees of a newspaper whose partisan/ideological biases are far, far more well documented than any rumors about McCain and a lobbyist, that I shrugged (or flipped) it off.

And since boss-subordinate relationships are more commonly frowned upon, in more instances, involving more groups of people, I found myself thinking that if the “newspaper of record” was going to try to slam a politician standing in the way of their favored candidate, the hazily recalled controversy must have pertained to something as unseemly and relateable as that.

nationaljournal.com, Feb. 19, 2009

The New York Times and Washington lobbyist Vicki Iseman have settled her defamation lawsuit in which she claimed that the newspaper had falsely suggested she had engaged in a romantic and unethical relationship with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. On its Web site today, the Times issued a brief “Note to Readers” explaining that its story, published a year ago this month, did not “intend to conclude” that Iseman had engaged in an affair with McCain, or had acted unethically on behalf of her clients.

Iseman filed the $27 million lawsuit in Richmond, Va., federal court in late December. She dropped the litigation Thursday afternoon. No money changed hands. Iseman had previously told National Journal she wasn’t looking for money but wanted to see her reputation restored “as an honest broker in the political arena.”

The Times was accused of publishing a salacious and unfair story. Even its own ombudsman, Clark Hoyt, joined in the criticism. Hoyt wrote, “If a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair… it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.”

In her own statement, Iseman said she was “pleased” that the Times had issued “a retraction and clarification.” She said that the Times and its reporters and editors “should and must be held accountable” when they publish” stories “based on innuendos, rumors and the reckless attributions of ‘anonymous sources.”‘

The Times viewed the settlement differently. Dean Baquet, an assistant managing editor who runs the newspaper’s Washington bureau and helped oversee reporting on the story, told his staff in a note that the Times paid no money, did not apologize and “did not retract one word of the story.” He called the story a “compelling chapter” in McCain’s political rise, and said that the note to readers on Friday “repeats what we had already said in countless interviews.”

Mark (411533) — 5/19/2009 @ 12:38 am
Old news.
davod (bce08f) — 5/19/2009 @ 3:50 am
The NYT killed the story but not to protect Obama… for the simple reason that NYT readers were so committed to voting for Obama that nothing the NYT could have written would have changed that.
steve sturm (369bc6) — 5/19/2009 @ 4:48 am
True. Too true.

The NYT killed the story out of environmental considerations. If once they started printing stories about election fraud among the Democrats, they would have had to cut down millions more trees and suck up terrabytes more bandwidth to print it all.
Gesundheit (47b0b8) — 5/19/2009 @ 7:21 am
From the comments I sense that the NYT may be losing credibility. How could that be? It is the Old Grey Lady, the icon of American journalism, the printer of “all the news that is fit to print”, a stalwart in the search for truth. Now you try to tell me it is simply a whore for the left? I am devastated!
MikeD (c83900) — 5/19/2009 @ 11:57 am
Racists!
The Emperor (09c9e3) — 5/19/2009 @ 12:30 pm
for the simple reason that NYT readers were so committed to voting for Obama that nothing the NYT could have written would have changed that.

Obama could have had sex with a sheep in the Macy’s window on 34th Street in broad daylight, and all his supporters would ask is whether or not the sheep gave him consent.
Horatio (55069c) — 5/19/2009 @ 12:32 pm
Horatio: you’re wrong, his supporters would claim that it was a private matter, a lot of nothing being foisted on us by the right wing and we should move on to deal with the important issues facing our country.
steve sturm (369bc6) — 5/19/2009 @ 12:37 pm
Horatio,
The Onion has already gone you one better

Media Having Trouble Finding Right
Angle On Obama’s Double-Homicide
WASHINGTON—More than a week after President Barack Obama’s cold-blooded killing of a local couple, members of the American news media admitted Tuesday that they were still trying to find the best angle for covering the gruesome crime.

“I know there’s a story in there somewhere,” said Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, referring to Obama’s home invasion and execution-style slaying of Jeff and Sue Finowicz on Apr. 8. “Right now though, it’s probably best to just sit back and wait for more information to come in. After all, the only thing we know for sure is that our president senselessly murdered two unsuspecting Americans without emotion or hesitation.”

Added Meacham, “It’s not so cut and dried.”
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (4e30b6) — 5/19/2009 @ 12:39 pm
#23
No sheep was abused in the making of that last comment.
The Emperor (09c9e3) — 5/19/2009 @ 12:42 pm
I’ve updated the post with Anita MonCrief’s response to PowerLine.
DRJ (f55947) — 5/19/2009 @ 3:01 pm
It is prolly racist and/or homophobic to even discuss this.
JD (2c7553) — 5/19/2009 @ 3:16 pm
Let’s just admit that no matter what the activity, when it is done by a Progressive, it is to advance civilization;
but, when done by a Republican, it is harmful to women, minorities, children,
and endangers the continued viability of the ecosystem world-wide.
AD - RtR/OS! (681803) — 5/19/2009 @ 3:26 pm
Horatio: you’re wrong, his supporters would claim that it was a private matter, a lot of nothing being foisted on us by the right wing and we should move on to deal with the important issues facing our country.

I stand corrected. You’re right – public sex with a sheep is a private matter in the Obama world. Oh, did I mention the sheep was a ram?
Horatio (55069c) — 5/19/2009 @ 3:46 pm
Just who was “ramming” who?
AD - RtR/OS! (681803) — 5/19/2009 @ 3:51 pm
Fox has had discontented Acorn staff on all week, and Anita Moncrief is quite crediblem as are all of them.

Apparently over 270 organizations list one old funeral home as their HQ where all the checks come and then are distributed to all the shells in the shell game. Hot! This story is only going to get bigger.
Patricia (2183bb) — 5/19/2009 @ 11:25 pm

5/18/2009

PowerLine: New York Times Killed ACORN Story to Protect Obama (Updated)

32 Responses to “PowerLine: New York Times Killed ACORN Story to Protect Obama (Updated)”

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