MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY. Given the ongoing trantrum over my remark that charges of Dan Rather's liberal bias are "ridiculous," let me refer you to Mr. Alterman today, whose thoughts on Rather parallel my own. Alterman's got as much sympathy for Rather as I do, which is to say none. And here is Bryan Curtis's must-read from Slate, published in September. Curtis's diagnosis: it's not that Rather is a liberal, it's that he's barking mad.
DEPT. OF CLARIFICATION. I ran into a very smart person earlier today who told me she thought I'd written that the Boston Globe should have published Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff's op-ed on how wonderful everything is with the Big Dig. Here's what I wrote. And to clarify: no, no, no, no, no.
If Bechtel/Parsons had submitted a letter, I'm sure the Globe would have run it. That's all the company is entitled to. If newspapers opened up their op-ed pages to every person or institution that feels aggrieved by negative reporting, there wouldn't be room for anything else.
Hey, Bechtel: things don't look so hot in this photo, do they?
NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. Seth Mnookin's book on the New York Times shows how an editor's narcissism nearly destroyed the world's greatest newspaper.
4 comments:
Throw us rubes a bone Dan. Mary Mapes is liberally biased. Isn't she.
With the Blue States in hand, the Democrats have firm control of 80% of the world's fresh water, over 90% of our pineapple and lettuce, 93% of the artichoke production, 95% of America's export quality wines, 90% of all cheese production, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT, not to mention many of the world's great centers of business and finance.
The Red States, on the other hand, now have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected
health care cost spike), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, 100% of all Tel-evangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.
Anon. #2, that's like saying that Polaroid and Worldcom have unlimited upside. You lost. Deal with it.
(On the other hand, the last Japanese soldiers in the Phillipines WERE entertaining....)
It might sound like a tantrum, but can you blame them (us)?
Your article laid out the following: Rather will lie and cheat to get his story to turn out "his way."
We also know from years of observation that "his way" is liberal.
This does not require a lot of high powered math to figure out. Hence when joe-bags-a-donuts see a big time media analyst unable to draw the obivous conclusion from his own story it can make us . . . testy.
Thanks for the story by the way. I think it is a valuable contribution to rather-nuttiness tales (and included in that nuttiness is a healthy does of leftiness, and I think in your private moments, you must admit that is true).
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