Pat Caddell: NYT Engaging In Near-Complete Suppression of Libya Story To Shill For Loser President

Pat F'n Caddell.

[I]f you look at the front page of the New York Times on Monday morning, Libya is nowhere to be found. Yet, the Benghazi attack on 9/11 that killed our ambassador and three others was the topic of every Sunday talk show this weekend.

The New York Times still thinks of itself as "the paper of record"; it’s the one paper every network newscast consults on a daily basis. So why isn't Libya on the front page Monday morning?

Here’s why: The Times is so in the tank for the Obama administration it's scary. I've never seen anything like it. They are doing everything they can to protect the Obama White House over this disaster.

When are Republicans -- and all Americans -- going to call on the press to look into this outrage?

Will the NYT pay for this? I don't think they'll pay for it in terms of subscription, but they are quickly becoming a joke.

A playwright who has a smash-hit play doesn't have to pay for his drinks for 20 years after. So too a one-time boxing champion. They don't have to buy dinner for a long, long time. They can coast for a while on past laurels.

The New York Times is doing that. The problem for them is this: They've already been coasting on past glory for about 10-15 years.

When's the last time the New York Times really made a difference?

It's been a while, huh?

Partisans do not get punished for their partisanship by their partisan audience. As I've noted before, I spun McCain's chances of winning in 2008. I knew (or pretty much completely knew) he had no realistic chance, but I spun it that it was a close race.

Did any readers get mad at me for this? No, of course not. If I'm going to be wrong, be wrong in our team's favor. Everyone understands this. Everyone understands the concept of Game Faces.

Including the advocacy rag the New York Times.

Their partisans want to be fed a partisan line, and they'll gladly pay the New York Times for that dish.

The New York Times is no longer the "Paper of Record," if it ever really was, and hasn't been for at least coming on its second decade.

It's MSNBC in print form. As I wrote earlier, about the NYT's (and other major liberal rags') absolute refusal to note Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day, it's "news" as a "boutique" offering:

It's a phenomenon we now know well, and yet it is still worth pointing out how astonishing this all is. Simply because we have become inured to a perfectly bizarre situation does not mean we should not make frequent note of how truly bizarre this situation is.

The situation is this: The last place -- not the first place, not the second, not the sixth -- you'd want to go to find coverage of news is an American newspaper or an American news broadcast.

They're not in the business of news any longer. The analogue that strikes me is, if you pardon this weird neologism (and pardon it because what I'm trying to describe is itself weird), news fashion.

See, I wouldn't expect a boutique fashion store to be catholic in the clothing it displays and sells. I'd expect it to be highly selective, skewing to the proprietor's own sense of style, his own insistence on what Good Taste consists of. I'd expect that in that fashion shop, what isn't available is as large a statement of principle than what is available.

And that is perfectly understandable for a tony, boutique, specific-taste fashion shop.

But this same mentality is bizarre when applied to the business of informing the public of the events of the day. The news media seem to be employing the fashionista's sense of style and taste -- the fashionista's overwrought, half-kidding concealing of her eyes and exclamation of "I do not see that!" when confronted with a dress not to her liking -- to the news.

The fashionista is right to "edit" the reality of her fashion shop to accord with her specific, idiosyncratic sense of the aesthetic. In doing so, she creates not only a brand identity for herself, but puts forth a manifesto, and aspiration, a declaration that "This is what the world should look like."

But a newsman? Is a newsman equally right to edit the reality of the daily record of the world's events so that it, too confirms with their sense of style, their aspiration as to what the world should look like?

I know the people lining up for Chick-fil-A on Wednesday were not the quite the clientele (I'm pronouncing that in as French a manner as I can) the media considers worthy. And yet, unless my eyes deceive, they do in fact exist and furthermore act in the tangible, real world we inhabit.

Fashion editing is expected in a fashion shop, but is reality editing acceptable in a newspaper? What is the purpose? To create, like the fashionista did, a small, heavily stylized and artificial world where a select clientele may visit, by invitation only? So that they may glimpse your manifesto of What Makes The World Pretty?

It's not All the News anymore; it's a sampling of Maddow-like News Substitute for people who wish to be bathed & swathed in Liberal Happy-Talk.

It's for soft thinkers-- weak thinkers.

And its credibility is nearly gone. It is more and more understood not to be a newspaper at all, but a Democratic Party newsletter with a good crossword puzzle.

They'll still get free drinks. But people understand they are the champ no more, and they're simply no longer what they once were.

posted by Ace at 05:48 PM

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