Patterico's Pontifications

9/7/2009

L.A. Times Did Not Report Van Jones’s Trutherism Until He Resigned

Filed under: Dog Trainer,Obama — Patterico @ 12:56 pm



Mickey Kaus notes that the New York Times reported the Van Jones controversy for the first time in an article about Van Jones’s resignation — leaving readers wondering: where did that come from?

The L.A. Times did the same thing.

Jones had all kinds of issues, but what ultimately did him in was his signature on a Truther petition. As Mickey says:

He signed a Truther petition. Bye.

Like readers of the New York Times, readers of the Los Angeles Times were blindsided by the revelations about Jones, including his signing a Truther petititon, which they learned about for the first time in the story reporting his resignation.

A search of the paper’s archives since August 1 reveals exactly one story mentioning Van Jones before his resignation: an August 25 story titled Glenn Beck blasts boycott group’s co-founder. The article focuses on Beck and the boycott and portrays Beck’s criticism as defensive lashing out; the only facts reported about Jones are these:

Beck said Jones was twice arrested for political protests and has described himself as a “rowdy black nationalist.”

That’s it. Readers were told nothing else. As the paper told us in reporting the resignation, until Jones resigned, the firestorm had “raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and websites.” The revelation about Jones’s Truther leanings came out in the L.A. Times only when he resigned.

Many legitimate news stories are relegated exclusively to conservative media. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t legitimate stories. It just means that you can’t learn everything you need to know by reading traditional Big Media. You have to read conservative media too. You have to read conservative blogs, or you won’t have any idea what’s going on.

You guys know this, but it’s still worth a reminder.

UPDATE: Foo Bar notes that the L.A. Times noted Jones’s problems online, in a Top of the Ticket post here.

Print readers? They were out of luck.

23 Responses to “L.A. Times Did Not Report Van Jones’s Trutherism Until He Resigned”

  1. Once again, it is samizdat vs Pravda.

    Mike K (d016a9)

  2. Do you lend any credence to the idea that perhaps the petition was altered in between the time that Jones initially signed it and it was released? I note that some supporters of Jones are floating the idea that the petition may only have called for a more thorough investigation into the circumstances of the September 11 attacks, and did not include the claim that the Bush Administration was behind the attacks.

    Not that I think Jones was deserving of the legitimacy that a Presidential appointment confers in the first place, but it is worth noting that perhaps he was, ironically enough, done in by the treachery of his far left allies.

    Meantime, if you want a Labor Day gag, check out mikekoshi’s latest Dog Trainer column (I won’t even dignify it by providing a link) in which it is shown that those horrible, nasty right-wingers are distorting the health care debate and the poor Democrats, even though they have huge majorities in Congress, are paralyzed from taking any action to help the poor, women, minorities (you get the drift).

    JVW (d1215a)

  3. JVW,
    Nofanofcablecos also includes the phony stat about 45 million people without health insurance, and blames the whole fiasco on ideology trumping ideas by people “shrieking with fury.”

    Copy-and-paste is so much easier than doing original reporting.

    Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407)

  4. Dirty socialists do lurv their petitions. I don’t know I’ve ever signed one for serious like using my own name and stuff.

    happyfeet (6b707a)

  5. Rather than the petition being altered, maybe the reality was more like this.

    Whether he knew about it or not, the excuse of either stupid or crazy does not fit someone who advises a President.

    Apogee (e2dc9b)

  6. “Dirty socialists do lurv their petitions.”
    Death to Sweden! Stalin, Dictator of Denmark!

    Please do the rest of us a favor: take your Medicare and Social Security “go Galt”

    To you Jones is an extremist, but Glen Beck is not, G. Gordon Liddy is not, Pat “Did Hitler Want War?” Buchanan is not.

    As someone pointed out what Jones said in the video posted here wasn’t inflammatory at all. But you have to actually listen to the words to figure that out.

    jW Democrat (1e4a3b)

  7. The head of the DNC is going with stupid, Apogee,

    “All of us campaigning for office have had people throw clipboards in our face and ask us to sign,” Dean said. “He [Jones] learned the hard way he ought not to do that, but I don’t think he really thinks the government has anything to do with causing 911.”

    Dean added that “this guy is a Yale-educated lawyer, he’s a best-selling author. … I think he was brought down, I think Washington’s a tough place that way. I think it’s a loss for the country.”

    Dana (863a65)

  8. who are you talking to? I don’t even watch cable news cause of self respect. Pat Buchanan is a weirdo with some kooky Flowers In The Attic thing going on with his weirdo sister I think.

    Jones all on his own is a lispy marxist airhead. Green jobs. That’s so gay.

    happyfeet (6b707a)

  9. Dean added that “this guy is a Yale-educated lawyer

    What a bastard Dean is, kicking a guy when he’s down.

    Apogee (e2dc9b)

  10. By the way, that is the same Dean that believed the 911 conspiracy was “the most interesting theory that I’ve heard so far”?

    Washington is a tough place.

    It’s tough because it’s full of crazies.

    Apogee (e2dc9b)

  11. Washington is a crime-ridden illiterate dirty socialist sewer with some gaymo politicians, CIA nancy boys, eunuch pansy bureaucrats and dirty socialist journalists sprinkled on top.

    For reals it’s a dirty and foul place but if it were tough the CIA nancy boys especially would have bailed many many moons ago.

    happyfeet (6b707a)

  12. “Washington is a crime-ridden illiterate dirty socialist sewer with some gaymo politicians, CIA nancy boys, eunuch pansy bureaucrats and dirty socialist journalists sprinkled on top.”

    Not to mention the fact that’s it overrun with Democrats.

    Dave Surls (c9eba9)

  13. JW – Do you think the linked video made him resign, or are you just a dishonest douchenozzle?

    JD (329841)

  14. I am just so glad that Howard Dean is reasserting himself in the limelight. I doubt that he will motivate one person that isn’t already swooning over Obama, but he will give moderates and independents further suspicion of the direction of the Democrat party.

    JVW (d1215a)

  15. I’ve read at least one article by a lefty (linked via Hotair) who claimed the “truther” petition was circulated by a right wing group.

    lee (86706b)

  16. including his signing a Truther petititon, which they learned about for the first time in the story reporting his resignation.

    … except for the LAT readers who learned about it Friday morning in an LAT “Top of the Ticket” blog post.

    Foo Bar (f74432)

  17. JVW wrote:

    Do you lend any credence to the idea that perhaps the petition was altered in between the time that Jones initially signed it and it was released? I note that some supporters of Jones are floating the idea that the petition may only have called for a more thorough investigation into the circumstances of the September 11 attacks, and did not include the claim that the Bush Administration was behind the attacks.

    Well, that’s just as good as the claim that he didn’t know what he was signing, which would still qualify him to be a congressman, I suppose.

    But, even so, it seems to me that the media are still covering up: it’s maybe a little less damaging to let people know he was a 9/11 Truther than it is to inform them that he was an organizer of a Free Mumia march. To me, that’s a lot worse, but the point seems to be getting little play, even in conservative blogs.

    The snarky Dana (474dfc)

  18. Do you lend any credence to the idea that perhaps the petition was altered in between the time that Jones initially signed it and it was released? I note that some supporters of Jones are floating the idea that the petition may only have called for a more thorough investigation into the circumstances of the September 11 attacks, and did not include the claim that the Bush Administration was behind the attacks.

    No.

    For one simple reason; if the Truthers altered the petition, you would think Van Jones would be attacking them as liars and publicly excoriating them.

    But for some reason, the only thing Van Jones and the left have been doing is attacking the people who pointed out that Jones signed the petition.

    That shows quite clearly that Jones’s beef is not with the Truthers, but with the people who pointed out that Jones supports and endorses the Truthers.

    North Dallas Thirty (be22c1)

  19. … except for the [online] LAT readers who learned about it Friday morning in an LAT “Top of the Ticket” blog post.

    Foo Bar – Fixed that for you. Normally you are more accurate.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  20. “I don’t think he really thinks the government has anything to do with causing 911.”–Dopey Leftist Pol

    Of course, he does (or did). Two days after the 9/11/01 attacks Jones attended an anti-American rally, the theme of the rally being that the attacks (along with everything else in the world) were all the fault of the United States government.

    As Van Jones so colorfully put it…

    ‘”The bombs the government drops in Iraq are the bombs that blew up in New York City,” said Van Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights’

    http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2001/09/13/1040351.php

    This took place TWO DAYS after 9/11/01.

    Bye Van, we’re going to miss having a loyal American like you working for the New Messiah.

    Not.

    Dave Surls (c9eba9)

  21. Some troll said:

    “Dirty socialists do lurv their petitions.”
    Death to Sweden! Stalin, Dictator of Denmark!

    Please do the rest of us a favor: take your Medicare and Social Security “go Galt”

    To you Jones is an extremist, but Glen Beck is not, G. Gordon Liddy is not, Pat “Did Hitler Want War?” Buchanan is not.

    As someone pointed out what Jones said in the video posted here wasn’t inflammatory at all. But you have to actually listen to the words to figure that out.

    Wrong board dude. You took a left turn at Free Republic.

    But thanks for playing the game.

    Ag80 (01be36)

  22. The LAT & The NYT would have tripped over themselves trying to get this story out if it was a Republican appointee so yet again they display their allegiance to the left. There can’t be enough liberals to keep these papers afloat much longer are there? Wonder what else they know about Jones, Obama, the Apollo Alliance. Did the LAT ever release the videotape of Obama laughing at antisemitic jokes at that fundraiser during the campaign that public clamored for?

    mick (2075e9)

  23. I can beat that. I got that beat.

    Saturday morning the SacBee posted the story
    “Obama ‘green jobs’ advisor quits amid controversy”
    by AP writer Will Lester.
    Eighty four comments appeared before morning – none of them very flattering to the administration – three of them were mine.
    Then as the day shift took over at SacBee.com the story was yanked. Here’s what’s left.
    404 – Not Found.

    A few minutes later in the wire section a new version of the story appeared – comments deleted.
    Controversy over fiery remarks fells Obama advisor.
    To further erase any reference to the original story they took the title “Obama ‘green jobs’ advisor quits amid controversy” and used it as the label on a video of Jones’ midnight announcement, also linked from the wire version.

    Here’s the thing about the wire at SacBee. The stories there never get a link from another webpage, and never see print.
    It’s where the Bee sends inconvenient (for liberals) stories to die.
    In spite of that the comments kept pouring in.
    People had either seen the story in the original form or followed it to the wire section through search engines.

    I don’t know how many commented on the wire version because right now instead of a comment form at the bottom of the story I get a
    Page cannot be found
    The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

    Message.
    They sure don’t want to hear what us lowly subscribers have to say regarding Van Jones.

    It’s the most determined case of STFU I’ve ever received from a paper.

    papertiger (a38535)


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