Erin Aubry Kaplan, a contributing editor to the L.A. Times Opinion section, writes a column about the anticipated use of the term “Negro” in the upcoming Census. The title of her column is The term ‘Negro’? Color it obsolete:
Though it was the accepted term until the late ’60s, for those born after that, “Negro” is something they never answered to, a word that sounds only slightly less incendiary than “nigger.” Even older blacks tend to use it ironically or sarcastically when they use it at all, as in: “Those Negroes just can’t get it together.” Its taint goes back to slavery, when Southerners paternalistically referred to even free blacks as “our Negroes.” Contrast this unpleasantness with Barack Obama, who has established a 21st century standard of racial consideration that’s figuring into just about every discussion of color these days. To blacks of all ages, “Negro” and President Obama sharing the same era just feels wrong — maybe he isn’t post-racial, but isn’t he at least post-Negro?
This controversy may be new, but the angst about what to call ourselves is ancient. Over the last 40 years, we have self-identified as “black,” “Afro-American” and “African American” in an attempt get out from under the subjugation represented by “Negro” and, before that, “colored.”
. . . . In his civil rights rhetoric, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. repeatedly infused “the Negro” with urgency and even poetry, turning the isolation and alienation of the phrase into a powerful part of his argument for racial inclusion. Black leaders before him did the same thing with the often pejorative “the colored man.” But that was then, and this is now: “Negro” is officially the last of the oppressor appellations, and for many people it’s past time to retire it for good.
Above: Erin Aubry Kaplan
Strong stuff. Only slightly less incendiary than “nigger”? A word with a taint, which represents subjugation? An oppressor appellation?
Which leads me to wonder:
Where was Erin Aubry Kaplan one month ago, when it was revealed that U.S. Democrat Senator Harry Reid had in 2008 discussed Obama’s “Negro dialect”?
At the time, editors were either not soliciting or not greenlighting Kaplan’s views on the topic of the word “Negro.” Instead, they were unleashing opinion columnist Sandy Banks, who ran interference for Reid with her column titled It’s not Harry Reid who should be apologizing, in which Banks declared:
I think the next apology ought to come from Michael Steele — the light-skinned, dialectically flexible African American head of the Republican National Committee.
Above: Sandy Banks
Meanwhile, the news side of the paper carefully portrayed the Reid controversy as nothing more than a series of “attacks” by “Republicans.”
And all along, Erin Aubry Kaplan said nothing.
One suspects that Erin Aubry Kaplan had the same opinion about the term “Negro” last month that she has this month. She thought Harry Reid had uttered a tainted word — an appellation used by oppressors — representing subjugation. A word only slightly less incendiary than “nigger.” Yet, somehow, we didn’t hear from Kaplan — a woman with over 100 published pieces in the paper.
No, we didn’t hear from her . . . at least, not at a time when it would have hurt Harry Reid.
Now that Reid is safe — as safe as he’s gonna get, anyway — it’s now OK for Kaplan to reveal her opinions about the word “Negro.”
She and her editors are, after all, merely following Journalism’s Hypocritical Oath: above all else, do no harm to Democrats.
It’s good to know that even in times of natural disaster, those vaunted, ever-alert editors we’re always being lectured about are on duty at the Times. See headline in below screen shot.
On Thursday, Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez asked readers to submit candidates for a list of “L.A.’s worst people.” Among those who qualified for this list, either in Lopez’s or his editors’ opinion, are those whose pictures appear in the below screen shot. They are, from left to right, Frank Shaw, the famously corrupt mayor who was recalled in 1938; homicidal madman Charles Manson; disgraced former President Richard Nixon; former LAPD Chief William Parker; Manson family murderer Susan Atkins; serial killer Richard Ramirez, also remembered as the “Night Stalker”; and O.J. Simpson, the Butcher of Brentwood.
An interesting mix, to say the least, but I was puzzled by Parker’s presence among the murderers and corrupt politicians. Lopez explains thus: “Nobody beats former LAPD chief William Parker, said author and former Timesman Bill Boyarsky. ‘He was the most damaging Angeleno of all time’ because of his ‘us-against-them, all-white, anti-minority attitude. That has done more lasting harm to the city than anything.’”
A year ago, responding to a similar smear against Parker from Times columnist Tim Rutten, Glynn Martin, a retired LAPD officer now serving as executive director of the Los Angeles Police Historical Society, wrote that Parker must be understood as a man of his time, and that examining him through the lens of modern sensibilities distorts the memory of a man who integrated the department and cleansed it of its endemic corruption.
Placing Parker in such loathsome company is emblematic of the pettiness one has come to expect from the Los Angeles Times. And yet they wonder why their circulation is declining.
In a stunning blow to Democrats, Republican Scott Brown ended the party’s half-century grip on the Senate seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy, coming from nowhere to give the GOP the crucial 41st vote that could thwart President Obama and his agenda, starting with healthcare.
Actually, we don’t need a 41st vote. Democrats need a 60th vote to invoke cloture. But anyway.
Also, Mr. L.A. Times reporter: it’s stunning to you — and no doubt to your readers, whom you have not prepared for this shock. But many of us have seen this coming for days. Because . . . well, let’s see what you think the reason is.
The candidate herself owns much of the responsibility. She was complacent to the point of arrogance — taking extensive time off after the primary and disdaining the notion of standing outside in the cold, shaking hands — and committed a series of gaffes, including an assertion during a debate last week that Afghanistan was free of terrorists.
What about health care?
[UPDATE: Rasmussen tells us: "Health care has been a huge issue in this election. Fifty-two percent (52%) of Brown voters say it was the most important issue in determining their vote. Sixty-three percent (63%) of Coakley voters say health care was the top issue. 78% of Brown voters Strongly Oppose the health care legislation before Congress." Thanks to JVW. Now look at Frank Luntz's focus group talking about how important heath care was to their vote:
. . . and now back to what the L.A. Times thought was important . . .]
But there were larger forces at work.
Right. Like health care.
Gov. Deval Patrick is extremely unpopular, and a series of corruption scandals have tainted Democrats on Beacon Hill, home to the Massachusetts statehouse. Brown repeatedly tied Coakley to the state’s Democratic rulers, effectively turning her into the incumbent in the Senate race.
Also, health care.
There was also a presumptuousness to Coakley’s campaign. Democrats habitually referred to “Ted Kennedy’s seat” — after all, except for a two-year period after John F. Kennedy won the White House, the U.S. Senate seat had been in the Kennedy family since 1953. Edward Kennedy died in August of brain cancer. After Democrats changed state law, Patrick appointed a longtime friend of the Kennedy family, Paul G. Kirk Jr., to fill the job while awaiting Tuesday’s vote.
Brown offered a resonant rejoinder: He called it “the people’s seat,” and that became one of the rallying cries of his campaign, slapping back at Democrats who seemed to take their power for granted.
Also, health care.
Obama remains personally popular in Massachusetts. But the state was no more immune than the rest of the country to frustrations over the economy and concerns about the exploding deficit and sweeping expansion of the federal government, embodied by the massive healthcare reform bill awaiting final passage on Capitol Hill.
There you go!
Brown, abetted by national Republican allies, turned the vote into a referendum on healthcare and the power of Democrats on Capitol Hill, promising to kill the legislation upon arrival in Washington. (Massachusetts offers far-reaching healthcare coverage, leading some voters to question why they should have to pay for other states to expand their benefits.)
So if he turned the vote into a referendum on healthcare, why did it take you so long to get around to discussing that?
I don’t know if the whole world is watching but much of America is, and I’m sure Washington is … and what they see are crowds like the ones in these Instapundit reader’s photos taken at a Scott Brown event in Worcester, Massachusetts. Here’s one person’s description of the event:
“It’s an absolute mob scene. The police have closed off the streets. It’s mind blowing. The hall is already full, and it holds 3,000 people. There may be another 1,000 people outside.”
Obama is traveling to Massachusetts today to rescue Coakley’s campaign. Maybe he can turn out his followers for Coakley but even if he can, will they be enough? After all, 51% of Massachusetts voters say they are independents and of the 37% who say they are Democrats, most of them voted for Hillary Clinton. Clinton beat Barack Obama 56-41, a margin of 15 points, in the Massachusetts’ Democratic primary in February 2008.
– DRJ
UPDATE BY PATTERICO: Via The Corner, it appears that the White House may think Coakley is going to lose:
As Henry admits, that may be hyperbole to get the base out.
Then again, it may not.
UPDATE x2 BY PATTERICO: Decent L.A. Times story on the reasons for Brown’s surge here. To be sure, there’s no mention of Coakley’s numerous gaffes, or the numerous recent polls showing Brown ahead. That would be asking too much of this paper. But the newspaper is waking up to the larger significance of Brown’s recent success with voters:
[I]nterviews with potential voters also revealed a persistent feeling that Obama and his allies in Congress have misread the public mood and have failed to concentrate on priorities such as the economy.
Ha, ha! Of course, the article does not say one word about any of that! I just made all of that up.
You didn’t believe me, did you??
So how does the L.A. Times cover the story of Scott Brown’s surge against this clownish candidate?
Would it help you to know what Obama’s take is? OK. It is that Scott Brown would endanger his health care plan. This is the concern he expresses in a robocall:
In Washington, I’m fighting to curb the abuses of a health insurance industry that routinely denies care. . . . [I]t’s clear now that the outcome of these and other fights will probably rest on one vote in the United States Senate.
Now do you have a guess as to the L.A. Times spin?
Healthcare overhaul may depend on Massachusetts Senate race
President Obama and other Democrats are in a fight for Ted Kennedy’s seat and his cause, campaigning for Martha Coakley over Republican Scott Brown, who could vote down the bill if seated in time.
President Obama on Friday threw himself into the Massachusetts Senate race where a surging Republican candidacy imperils his signature healthcare plan.
A Republican win Tuesday in the race to replace the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) would strip Democrats of their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate and allow the GOP to block legislation with filibusters. Healthcare legislation has passed both chambers on party-line votes, but a reconciled final version must still be written and approved by both houses.
Yup, that lines up pretty well with the White House talking points. Thursday’s shocker of a poll showing Brown up by 4 points is mentioned . . . in the 10th paragraph. (Will it be past the jump in the print edition?) The poll is not mentioned in the headline. Or the opening paragraphs. Because the thrust of the story is not Brown’s momentum.
Left entirely unmentioned: Brown’s internal poll showing him up by 11 points — or Coakley’s internal poll showing Brown up by 3.
See, I don’t think Obama said it was OK to mention those. Hopefully that explains the omission to your satisfaction.
L.A. Times print readers have been kept in the dark about the Brown surge until now. Before today’s article, the previous newsprint assessment of Brown’s chances came Thursday, when the paper’s readers learned that Brown “appears to be within striking distance” of Coakley, with “some polls” showing the race is “as close as a few points.”
Now Democrats are reduced to claiming that Coakley is “within striking distance” of Brown. What a difference a day makes.
One wonders: if Brown actually wins, will this paper’s print readers be caught by surprise?
Unbelievable. The Obama administration is making even more ridiculous claims about the effect of the stimulus, and the stenographers at the L.A. Times are swallowing it whole:
Stimulus saved or created up to 2 million jobs in 2009, White House says
The Obama administration, offering evidence that its much-maligned efforts to spur economic recovery have begun to take hold, said Tuesday that the $787-billion stimulus program saved or created 1.5 million to 2 million jobs last year.
These latest figures from the White House Council of Economic Advisors are certain to be challenged by Republicans, but the employment and economic effects of the stimulus cited in the report are generally in line with estimates from some leading private economists as well as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Note the pre-emptive language: those damn Republicans will certainly criticize the numbers. But don’t listen to them, because the figure is backed up by leading private economists and the CBO.
Except that not one single “leading private economist” is quoted in the article.
Nor does the article tell readers that the CBO doesn’t have a clue how many jobs were “created or saved.” The CBO has given a huge range of 600,000 to 1.6 million extra jobs. (Is 600,000 in line with 1.5 million to 2 million?) But in reality, the CBO itself admits that it has no idea how much of this alleged increase was caused by the stimulus:
[I]t is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.
That’s a quote from the CBO report. They don’t have a clue.
Back to the L.A. Times article, which tells us:
In its first quarterly report on the stimulus, issued in September, the White House estimated that the Recovery Act had raised employment levels by more than 1 million jobs as of the third quarter. The new report incorporates data from stimulus recipients who said they saved or created 640,000 full-time-equivalent jobs as of the third quarter.
The White House’s estimate of stimulus-induced jobs for 2009 is based on economic modeling and projections and as such is likely to be met with considerable skepticism from Republicans and other critics who have not only questioned the methodology but also documented cases in which stimulus money went to dubious projects.
And it’s not merely a case of dubious projects. It’s a matter of out-and-out deception on the part of the administration in describing how many jobs were “created or saved” — to the point where the administration has actually decided to abandon that measurement (something I guess they forget to tell their own Council of Economic Advisors). Raises and pay for people who were never going to lose their jobs were counted as jobs “created or saved” before. Now they are explicitly counted as jobs “funded” by the stimulus.
Time for another classic example of liberal bias in newspapers — this one involving Harry Reid.
I decided to compare the L.A. Times’s coverage of Harry Reid’s racially insensitive remarks to the paper’s 2002 coverage of Trent Lott’s racially insensitive remarks.
The contrast is striking.
But first let me explain how this paper handles criticism it likes, and criticism it doesn’t like.
When the paper disagrees with criticism of a [politician], it is portrayed as an attack by political opponents. When the paper agrees with the criticism, the criticism becomes a mysterious and disembodied (but ever-growing) entity. Doubts grow. Criticism emerges.
Sure enough, the L.A. Times spin on the Harry Reid story portrays the controversy as the GOP opening fire on Reid:
The story repeatedly discusses the controversy as an attack by the Republicans:
The Nevada Democrat — who, over the years, has called Alan Greenspan a hack, Washington tourists smelly and President George W. Bush a liar — was pummeled by Republicans on Sunday for impolitic comments about President Obama’s potential for winning the White House.
. . . .
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who is black, led the charge.
. . . .
With Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) choosing not to run again, Reid is the largest target in [Republicans'] cross hairs.
(The paper has sent the original version of the story down the memory hole, along with that last quote — replacing the story with a new version at the same Web address. But the first two quotes remain in the current version. I figured they would do this, so I saved the original version of the story here.)
By portraying Republicans as attackers, the editors take the focus off Reid’s remarks, and allow him to play the victim. What’s more, the paper emphasizes that Obama has accepted Reid’s apology:
Although Reid apologized to Obama on Saturday for his “poor choice of words” — and the president accepted because “I know what’s in his heart” — his remarks dominated the Sunday talk shows, where Republicans called for the senator’s head.
Note again the stark image of Republicans as violent attackers.
Well, in 2002, after Trent Lott praised former segregationist Strom Thurmond, he too apologized. But that didn’t keep the editors of the L.A. Times from spinning that story in a very different way.
Lott was never portrayed as the victim of Democrat attacks. Editors didn’t describe Democrats as “opening fire” or “pummeling” Lott. They didn’t describe Tom Daschle as “leading the charge.” Nobody said Democrats were “calling for Lott’s head” or that they had Lott “in their cross hairs.”
Instead, the editors emphasized the bipartisan nature of the criticism of Lott. (To be fair, the criticism of Lott was more bipartisan, because Democrats circle the wagons in these situations and Republicans don’t.) In an effort to portray Lott’s remarks as a major gaffe, editors portrayed the controversy as a disembodied, ghostly entity that grew daily.
Scrambling to salvage his hold on power, besieged Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) on Friday offered his most extensive apology yet for comments that seemed to endorse segregation and spurred criticism from across the political spectrum, including from President Bush.
Despite Lott’s latest bid to defuse the controversy, Republicans say it remains uncertain that he will survive a growing clamor — from conservative GOP activists as well as from Democrats — for him to resign his leadership post.
Reporter Janet Hook wrote: “The spiraling controversy has caused trouble for Republicans in the aftermath of their triumph in the November elections, in which they seized control of the Senate and expanded their House majority.”
Phrases like “spiraling controversy” and “growing clamor” came straight from the playbook I described in my 2004 post, in which I said that criticism supported by the paper’s editors “becomes a mysterious and disembodied (but ever-growing) entity. Doubts grow. Criticism emerges.”
This pattern was repeated in story after story. Democrats were never portrayed as attackers. The controversy was always portrayed as ever-growing.
Keep an eye on this newspaper in coming days. See how many articles editors run about Reid’s remarks. And watch closely to see whether the controversy comes to be portrayed as a “growing” entity all on its own — or whether, as I expect, it will instead be portrayed as fueled by attacks from those damn Republicans.
If a conservative wants attention and kudos from Big Media, there’s one sure-fire way to do it: make solid arguments that are rigidly supported by the facts. Ha, ha! I’m joking of course. The actual way to the media’s heart is to harshly criticize conservatives. Meghan McCain and Kathleen Parker discovered months ago that vapid arguments and soft-headed thinking are no obstacle to gaining the Strange New Respect of a liberal media, as long as you’re willing to throw a conservative or two under the bus.
Charles Johnson is the latest darling of Big Media. Later this month he will be the subject of a New York Times Magazine article, and today he is lionized by none other than our old friend James Rainey, in a piece called A blogger’s parting with the right:
Back when he built his Little Green Footballs website into a favorite of the conservative right, Charles Johnson liked to write about the “Loony Left” and “Bush Derangement Syndrome.”
. . . .
Imagine the surprise among conservatives to learn — in a series of postings over nearly the last two years, and then in an official declaration of estrangement a little more than a month ago — that their darling did not love them anymore. Maybe he never did.
Rainey, of course, is the dupe of ACORN who had to eat crow after a video entertainingly destroyed his one-sided account of Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe’s visit to ACORN L.A. offices. Rainey later doubled down, manufacturing a quote by O’Keefe to portray him as a self-admitted truth-bender in the “mold” of Michael Moore.
Who better to lionize Charles Johnson, who increasingly seems to ignore inconvenient truths that get in the way of his own very one-sided world view?
Johnson’s knack for ferreting out fakes and hypocrisy has been impressive. But hyperbole sometimes overshadows his analytic approach. He’s not immune to the throes of passion he has disparaged on both the left and right.
Do you think Rainey is about to tell a story about how Johnson has exaggerated claims against conservatives? For example, how he claimed without proof that conservatives had created a racist Photoshop? Or how he bans conservatives for disagreeing with them? Or how he ignores e-mails from conservatives who correct his factual misstatements?
Uh, no.
He jumped on a lame and misbegotten attempt by conservatives last year to force the Los Angeles Times to release a videotape of Palestinian Americans meeting with then-candidate Barack Obama, even though the paper had promised a confidential source not to do so.
I love this:
I won’t pretend to have read enough of the husky, pony-tailed blogger’s work to give a full report card on his tactics, or politics.
Translation: I don’t know a damned thing about Charles Johnson. But who can resist a story about “A blogger’s parting with the right”?
Is Charles Johnson the new Meghan McCain? Or the new Kathleen Parker?
2010. One day down, one correction from the L.A. Times obtained:
ACORN: An article in Section A on Sept. 19 about the individuals whose video sting prompted the ACORN scandal incorrectly said one of them had targeted the community activist group because its voter registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although the organization registers people mostly from those groups, James E. O’Keefe did not specifically mention them. The article was first published in the Washington Post, which published a correction on Sept. 22. The Times had overlooked the correction.
The time has come to document another year’s worth of bias, omissions, and distortions at the L.A. Times — all gathered together in one handy post. As always, there’s something about seeing all this stuff in one place that really opens your eyes.
This year, L.A. Times editors whitewashed (and botched basic facts about) the ACORN scandal; protected their hero Barack Obama; sneered at tea parties; openly pushed health care reform; gave space to someone lauding killer Ted Kennedy’s “moral largeness”; hid evidence of the Fort Hood shooter’s Muslim ties and then flushed the evidence; made up a quote from John Cornyn and then flushed the evidence; hid conflicts of interest from multiple op-ed contributors; plagiarized Wikipedia; eliminated its local news section; had four rounds of layoffs; suffered from plummeting circulation; and committed numerous high-profile editing errors.
To name just some of their problems.
Oh: and they wrote numerous detailed corrections in response to my complaints. As they do every year.
Liberal bias? Check. Rank incompetence? Check.
Without further ado, here is my seventh annual review of the Los Angeles Times, otherwise known as the Los Angeles Dog Trainer.
WHITEWASHING THE ACORN SCANDAL
Above: James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles
In September, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles released eye-opening undercover videos showing ACORN workers at numerous offices helping the couple with a purported prostitution ring. This newspaper whitewashed the ACORN scandal right from the beginning, portraying it as a “conservative” complaint, utterly failing to mention the fact that Giles and O’Keefe told ACORN employees that they were pimping out young girls aged 13-15 smuggled in from El Salvador.
Then Peter Dreier wrote a fact-challenged op-ed claiming that Giles and O’Keefe had received assistance at only two ACORN offices. (The documented number was at least five at the time the op-ed appeared.) Dreier also incorrectly claimed that “not a single person who signed a phony name on a registration form ever actually voted” — although one person who did was later convicted only of false registration and not voter fraud.
[UPDATE: I don't consider Goldberg to be part of any deliberate "whitewash." I think he gave op-ed space to someone who is either dishonest or plain stupid -- and then lacked the single pair of conservative editorial eyes necessary to catch the blatant misstatements in Dreier's piece.]
But the funniest material came from hapless L.A. Times columnist James Rainey.
In September, Rainey wrote a column in which he uncritically quoted ACORN worker Lavelle Stewart suggesting that she had turned Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe out of her office. Rainey hadn’t bothered to contact Breitbart — or Giles or O’Keefe — to ask their side of the story. I predicted that Rainey would end up with egg on his face. When Breitbart started hinting that he had damning video, my prediction started looking better and better. And sure enough, the very person Rainey had uncritically quoted turned out to be the star of Giles and O’Keefe’s latest ACORN video:
But it didn’t end there. Rainey then wrote an ass-covering column that minimized his error — and which included a purported quote from O’Keefe. After I investigated the source of the quote, it turned out to be largely fabricated.
As if all this wasn’t enough, the paper let stand another fabricated quote from O’Keefe, which was originally reported by the Washington Post, and reprinted by the L.A. Times. The Post corrected the error back in September. The Times still hasn’t.
SYCOPHANTIC COVERAGE OF OUR HERO BARACK OBAMA
The paper uncritically reported that opposition to Obama’s health care plan was fueled by angry mobs of right-wing extremists. Typical of editors’ attitude was this strawman from a front-page “news analysis” which claimed Obama “has seen the healthcare debate sidetracked by false warnings that government ‘death panels’ would be employed to snuff out Grandma.” Naturally, genuine concerns about rationing of health care were not discussed in this polemic.
The paper gave op-ed space to someone who implied that government can cover our health care — and it won’t cost us a dime! Because government money appears magically, out of nowhere!
When Obama held a town hall meeting on health care, he declared: “I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter.” This was an easily provable lie, and editors failed to tell readers about it.
The paper dutifully ran a picture of doctors in white coats — an image designed to lend credibility to Obama’s health care plan — and didn’t tell readers that the White House had passed out the coats beforehand to any doctor not already wearing one.
Editors forgot to mention Obama’s little costume trick
When a controversy arose about Truther and Obama appointee Van Jones, the paper dismissed it as “a firestorm that raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and websites.” Well, sure: the print version of the paper did indeed ignore the controversy until Jones resigned — an indication that it was indeed a legitimate story that the paper had simply refused to cover. The same pattern held with NEA communications director Yosi Sergant: editors hid the controversy from their print readers right up until he resigned.
Official gusher Faye Fiore called the Obamas’ date night a “fascination and an inspiration.” She breathlessly declared the Obamas “impossibly elegant” — forgetting to mention that the evening was impossibly expensive.
Above: reporter Faye Fiore forgot to mention that you and I are footing the bill for the Obamas’ “impossible elegance”
Under Bush, unemployment was called “unemployment.” Under Obama, L.A. Times editors came up with a different name, which I am not making up: “funemployment.” iowahawk had a field day with that one.
When Obama violated his pledge to make bills available for review for five days, editors overlooked it. But hey, the bill wasn’t that important — it was just a stimulus bill costing almost a trillion dollars. The paper groused that Republicans had failed to participate in the drafting of the bill to give it a bipartisan sheen — all because Republicans failed to treat things like an increased government role in health care as the “consensus item” that the editors falsely claimed it was.
After Obama repeatedly described as “unprecedented” a business-as-usual plan to root out waste in government, L.A. Times stenographers described the plan as unprecedented!
The paper wrote a slobbering article about Obama solving a diplomatic crisis — with one word!
The editors’ mental picture of Obama
Barack Obama: is there anything he can’t do??
Before Obama took office, editors wanted to portray the job situation as bleak. So they told readers that job losses were at their highest level since 1945 — but failed to mention that this figure represented absolute numbers, and misleadingly failed to reflect the explosion in the country’s population since then.
Robert Gibbs told reporters that Obama did not teach constitutional law. Tell that to the editors of the L.A. Times, who had claimed otherwise numerous times.
On the positive side of the ledger, the paper reported it when the Obama administration warned a Democrat strategist to stay off Fox News.
Above: the results of Ted Kennedy’s “moral largeness”
ANTI-REPUBLICAN BIAS AND ANTI-TEA PARTY SENTIMENT
The paper used loaded language such as saying Republicans would “snipe” at Obama as he swam “against the partisan tide” — as layoffs “add[ed] urgency to the need to agree on a stimulus plan.”
Stimulus plan good . . . tea parties bad. And inconsequential. When KFI’s John and Ken hosted a taxpayer revolt that drew 8000-15,000 people, the paper refused to cover it, for transparently phony reasons. Editor David Lauter responded to hundreds of angry readers in one e-mail — and failed to use a “bcc” line, meaning he shared each angry reader’s e-mail address with all the others. If you’re thinking: “What a moron!” then you have plenty of company.
When they did cover tea parties, they portrayed them as a uniquely Republican phenomenon that carried risks for Republicans — ignoring the fact that tea-party attendees are also largely fed up with the Republican party.
The L.A. Times thinks these people are all Republicans
When the government produced a ridiculous report that appeared to declare conservative sentiments to be a worrisome phenomenon that should concern law enforcement, did the L.A. Times worry about the obvious chilling effect on political beliefs? No, it parroted the phantom concern about those damn violent right-wingers.
The paper resurrected its oft-repeated canard that George W. Bush came to power through the strength of a Supreme Court ruling — rather than the way he actually did: by winning the 2000 election.
When Major Nidal Malik Hasan perpetrated a terrorist act of mass murder at Fort Hood, the L.A. Times’s initial story had no mention of the shooter’s religion, his alleged rants against U.S. involvement in Iraq, his alleged approval of suicide bombings, or the allegations that he was shouting something in Arabic as he shot. But the paper did make sure to include irrelevant statistics concerning suicides at Army bases due to deployments to the war. After Instapundit linked my post and the story became an obvious embarrassment to the paper, editors did what they generally do with embarrassing stories: they flushed it down the memory hole.
Editors took on an ICE policy of deporting illegal aliens with whom they came into contact — distorting the policy to falsely suggest that ICE was targeting innocent illegals. Internal ICE memos discovered by a reader of mine proved that the paper had distorted ICE policy.
Just to make it clear which side of the immigration debate the L.A. Times is on, the paper told a sob story about a man being deported for the minor crime of trying to kill someone.
RACE/POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
In 2005, the editors sanctimoniously announced that there was no reason to segregate state prisoners by race. I like to remind them of this every time there is a major race riot at a prison, and this year was no exception.
One thing that has always frustrated me is the way that the paper portrays good police work as racism. A great example can be found here, where editors complained about numerous examples of black men being stopped by police because other black men had committed crimes. Whose fault is that?
Where the story with the fabricated quote went
(Credit: Freedom Now! blog)
When Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor got caught saying something very impolitic — that courts make policy — editors suggested that she was joking. But she wasn’t.
Just as the paper slammed Kozinski, it protected liberal federal judge Stephen Reinhardt, deciding not to tell readers when the Supreme Court declared that Reinhardt had dissembled in a death penalty appeal.
CRIME
The paper’s coverage of the Roman Polanski case was an object lesson in the heights — and depths — of which the paper is capable of reaching. Starting with the depths: Patrick Goldstein suggested that the pedophile and child rapist should not be held accountable because it would cost too much money to sentence him. After a considerable backlash, Goldstein implausibly asserted that Hollywood doesn’t really support Polanski — a claim easily refuted with video of the standing ovation he received for winning the Oscar for “The Pianist.”
A front-page headline claimed that Polanski had merely been “accused” of the sexual assault — when, in fact, he had pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor.
The paper told readers about a decree from federal judges that 43,000 prisoners be released from state prisons. But editors neglected to mention that the judges were all appointed by Democrats.
The paper reported on a 19-year-old rape/murder being solved by a hit from a DNA database — but neglected to mention that editors had crusaded against exactly these kinds of databases.
The paper trumpeted the ACLU’s crusade to empty Los Angeles area jails — but failed to remind readers that this would undoubtedly result in more innocent people dying.
The paper swallowed whole a ridiculous liberal claim about the cost of the death penalty. (Editors have a history of making similar claims themselves.)
As is its habit, the paper trumpeted the bona fides of an alleged anti-gang worker who is really a criminal. This time, it was Alex Sanchez.
The paper consistently reports on the number of officer-involved shootings, implying that they are the fault of law enforcement — even when they clearly aren’t.
On a positive note, the paper gave a nice write-up to our friend, DDA Debbie Knaan.
Editors have this habit of soliciting comments from my guest poster Jack Dunphy and then refusing to publish them because he uses a pseudonym. They did it again this year, and I think it’s pretty rude.
In a typically fatuous column about the state budget, our friend Nofanofcablecos became Nofanofaccuratestatistics — claiming that the California population had increased by 30% over 10 years. He only overstated it by 100%. Close enough for L.A. Times work? Surprisingly, no. I complained, and the paper issued a correction. The correction was incorrect and misleading — i.e. par for the course.
Hiltzik is such a crazy leftist, he actually suggests that the government should prevent banks from repaying TARP money, so that the government can retain control over the banks.
Hiltzik also claimed to be in favor of competition for health care — yet at the same time, he favors a single-payer system. Huh?
JAMES RAINEY
Above: the hapless James Rainey
We already roundly mocked James Rainey above for his dishonest and ridiculous coverage of the ACORN scandal. But I’m not done with him yet.
Rainey railed against Fox News — yet was mostly silent about MSNBC and totally gave a pass to CNN.
Rainey sanctimoniously proclaimed that there had been too much coverage of Miss California — in a column about Miss California. Complete with a picture of Miss California.
Jack Dunphy recalled Tim Rutten’s complaint that officer concern over release of private information was “preposterous.” It seemed less preposterous after it actually happened. He’s such a shill, he even uncritically accepted the Obama administration’s “created or saved” nonsense.
Tim Rutten argued that the criticism of the president was violent and hysterical — but somehow forgot to note that there had been violent and hysterical criticism of Bush. I reminded him.
Yes, Mr. Rutten, President Bush got violent and hysterical protests too
In a single day, the paper managed to confuse LAPD officers and LAPD Explorers (members of a youth program); confuse the concept of a “radius” with that of a circle’s area; and misstate the weight of water by over 50%. They soon corrected the error about Explorers and officers.
The paper told readers that Obama had “dawned” a pair of jeans (later identified as “mom jeans”) to incompetently toss out the first pitch at a baseball game.
I hope you enjoyed the post. If you’re interested, I have done six previous annual reviews of the newspaper. The previous annual reviews can be found at these links:
UPDATE: Thanks to John Hinderaker at Power Line for the link and the kind words.
UPDATE x2 1-1-10: The paper today corrected the fabricated O’Keefe quote that had been published in the Washington Post. They have yet to correct the fabricated O’Keefe quote appearing in James Rainey’s column. Details here.
Old Coot on Eric Boehlert Owes Jim Treacher a Correction
Good Lt. on Eric Boehlert Owes Jim Treacher a Correction
redc1c4 on Erin Aubry Kaplan, Contributing Editor to the L.A. Times: Now That Reid Is Past the "Negro Dialect" Controversy, Let Me Tell You What I Think of the Word "Negro"
Corwin on Eric Boehlert Owes Jim Treacher a Correction
Another Chris on Obama: Let's Talk About Health Care!
Longwalker on Eric Boehlert Owes Jim Treacher a Correction
Subotai on Eric Boehlert Owes Jim Treacher a Correction
nk on Erin Aubry Kaplan, Contributing Editor to the L.A. Times: Now That Reid Is Past the "Negro Dialect" Controversy, Let Me Tell You What I Think of the Word "Negro"
August J. Pollak on Eric Boehlert Owes Jim Treacher a Correction
Good Lt. on Eric Boehlert Owes Jim Treacher a Correction
About Patterico
Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh"
E-mail: Just use my moniker Patterico, followed by the @ symbol, followed by gmail.com
The statements made on this web site reflect the personal opinions of the author. They are not made in any official capacity, and do not represent the opinions of the author's employer.
