Saturday, July 28, 2007

some nyt disappointment

From fair.org this entry:


A Meet the Press appearance offers insight into the source of misinformation so frequent in New York Times columnist Brooks' writing. His citation of Times reporter John Burns when asserting that postponing withdrawal would "prevent 10,000 Iraqi deaths a month" prompts questioning from fellow guest Woodward, if not from their "bulldog" host:

Woodward: "10,000 dying"... where does that come from?

Brooks: Well, A, it comes from John Burns. Second, it comes from the national intelligence...

Woodward: Well, no, he doesn’t say 10,000.

Brooks: Well, no, no, but it talks about genocide.

Woodward: Yeah.

Brooks: So I just picked that 10,000 out of the air.

Meanwhile, epidemiologists who have applied the standard tools of their profession to Iraq and concluded that the death toll under U.S. occupation is approximately 15,000 a month do not have David Brooks' access to the mainstream media discussion.

Once upon a time we could depend on the New York Times to be the last word in unbiased, hard journalism. Those simpler times are gone. While there may be much that the NYT still does well, the difficult work of ferreting out the truth is back to our own hunting and gathering. That's serious work. Maybe it always was/should have been up to us to investigate, but christ, it would have been nice to depend on a few professionals out there.

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