America's Newspaper? (or the FOX News of the print world)

[Mixxster]

America's Newspaper?
The Washington Times has a long record of hyped stories, shoddy reporting and failure to correct errors

http://www.splcenter.org/intelligenceproject/ip-index.html

The article includes misinformation about Gore, Dukakis and Anita Hill, among others.

<snip>

'Gong Show Journalism'

For most American newspapers, making so much noise with an inaccurate story would have been a huge embarrassment. Heads would roll. Penitent promises of stepped-up fact-checking and editorial trustworthiness would be made to readers. But The Washington Times is not most American newspapers. “It's the Fox News of the print world,” says Gene Grabowski, who in 1998 became one of a number of Times reporters to resign in protest of the paper's flouting of journalistic ethics.

<snip>

For 20 years, the most notoriously ideological editor at the Times has been Wesley Pruden, the right-wing Arkansan who rose from managing editor to editor in chief in 1992 (see “Defending Dixie,” also in this issue). In 1991, Pruden ordered major changes to a story the Times' Supreme Court reporter, Dawn Ceol, had written about Anita Hill, the law professor who accused Clarence Thomas of sexual improprieties during his confirmation hearings. In the paper's first edition on Oct. 14, Ceol's article was headlined, “Thomas accuser lauded, assailed.” In subsequent editions, with the story rewritten to play up accusations against Hill, the headline was changed to something far less balanced: “Miss Hill painted as 'fantasizer.' ”

<snip>

Pruden and the other men who call the shots at The Times say their news is no more ideologically driven than anybody else's. But many media critics disagree. Summing up a widely held view, Bob Somerby, who edits the online “Daily Howler,” calls the Times “gong-show journalism.” Putting a kinder spin on it, Howard Kurtz of CNN and the Washington Post has deemed the Times “a happy anachronism - a throwback to a simpler time, when Whigs and mugwumps strode the land and newspapers … were unapologetically partisan vehicles.”

When the Times' unapologetic partisanship has led it into error, the paper has not always issued the kinds of factual corrections that are de rigeur elsewhere. Even when Kurtz revealed last year that two hard-hitting Times stories about Palestinian atrocities against Christians in the West Bank had been written under a false byline - a practice unheard of in contemporary journalism, and largely verboten even in the days of mugwumps and Whigs - the paper defended its decision not to inform readers of the deception. The reporter “said his life would be in danger” if he used his real name, explained deputy foreign editor Willis Witter.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. I find that it's very difficult to read the WT, what with all the

bird droppings splattered over it.

[WoodrowFan]

2. You can Always Tell

When a neighbor gets the Moonie Times delivered, they use a bright orange bag. The Post uses either a clear one or a white one.

[Mixxster]

3. No direct link.

Sorry I just found out that the article doesn't have a direct link. So, click on the link above, then click on Intelligence Report. Then scroll down to America's Newspaper? and click on that.

I have no idea why there are no visible direct links to specific articles.