AG “Paunch” Sulzberger Fellates Dick
Over at County Fair, Jamison Foser takes the NYT to task for regurgitating Cheney’s appearance on CNN yesterday, almost verbatim:
Dick Cheney isn’t Vice President any more, but the New York Times is still treating his comments as so newsworthy they must be presented without rebuttal. The Times devotes 558 words to Cheney’s appearance on CNN yesterday – 501 of which are devoted to simply quoting or paraphrasing Cheney. The 57 words that weren’t devoted to amplifying Cheney’s arguments didn’t include even a word of rebuttal:
[snip]
That’s it — those are the only words in the article that were spent on anything other than simply telling readers what Cheney said. There was no effort to present the other side, or give readers any indication of whether what Cheney said was true, or misleading, or incomplete.
But Jamison ignores one critical detail (though NY Magazine does not)–the byline:
By A. G. SULZBERGER
The son of Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr, AG Sulzberger, is the author of this masterpiece of hard-hitting journalism.
So the son of the NYT’s publisher was tasked to write a ridiculously solicitous article regurgitating the former Vice President’s propaganda for daddy’s paper.
That’s troubling for a number of reasons. Paunch’s daddy (I’m taking liberties with the family’s naming conventions), after all, was the guy who delayed a story reporting Cheney’s illegal wiretap program for over a year–up until the time James Risen threatened to scoop the NYT with his book. And, at precisely the same time Pinch Sulzberger was bowing to Cheney’s request not to expose the illegal wiretap program, Sulzberger was actively shielding Scooter Libby’s perjury in the name of reporter privilege. From October 2004–just before the Presidential election–until late 2005, Daddy Sulzberger was helping Cheney hide two incidences of egregious law-breaking.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see Paunch taking up the family trade, then, protecting Dick Cheney?
And consider, too, what a departure this is from Paunch’s work on Daddy’s paper thus far. The NY Observer has catalogued Paunch’s extensive work in the (now) four weeks he has worked at the paper–articles on snow and a purim party thrown by one of John Stewart’s writers. And from that, he has graduated so quickly to covering the former Vice President?
It’s hard to imagine this assignment was anything other than an attempt, on Daddy’s part, to make sure Cheney’s appearance yesterday got favorable coverage. Like I said, the Sulzberger trade, protecting Dick.
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