Okrent’s Freudian Slip

13 comments

1. Sorry Charlie … uh, Greg. Just as you expressed YOUR opinion, so columnists should be free to express their opinions.

   The concern should be conflating opinion with news, slanting, and just plain propagandizing (which employs not just ‘lies’ but using facts out of context, partial (selective) facts, e.t.c.)

   Newspapers can - and some/most/all (pick one)- are better able to alert the reader that “opinion follows” by printing opinions on the ed/op-ed pages.

   Comment by Dave Thompson — May 31, 2005 @ 1:52 pm

2. You’re entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts. If you have to resort to lying…”mislead” is a squishy term that means nothing…to support your argument; then your argument is unsupportable.

   When a columnist resorts to this it is the editor’s obligation to call “bullshit” and, if not pull the particular column, then have a column run directly opposite the offender’s that does call “bullshit”.

   Comment by Lee — May 31, 2005 @ 2:34 pm

3. The credibility of Paul Krugman is rarely, if ever, in question. But, Daniel Okrent, on the other hand, does not operate in the same league as Mr. Krugman. To provide evidence to the point, Mr. Okrent considers Adam Nagourney his peer. We’re dealing with a couple of overpaid amateurs with an agenda; unlike Mr. Krugman who has the rare resume that includes having written a college textbook on international economics. And, Mr. Krugman has helped translate economic-speak to the Democrats in the same way that George Lakoff helps translate Bush/Orwell/Luntz double-speak to the Democrats. His presence is crucial to what relevance and credibility remains at the New York Times. I mean, Judith Miller still has a job…for some unknown reason.

   Comment by Citizen Milenko — May 31, 2005 @ 2:54 pm

4. I also believe that columnists are entitled by their mandate …

   what mandate would that be? that people actually read the crap they print? And readership gives them the right to LIE?

   to engage in the unfair use of statistics, the misleading representation of opposing positions, and the conscious withholding of contrary data

   lie
   n.
   1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
   2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.

   Comment by sukabi — May 31, 2005 @ 3:34 pm

5. Yeah, that jumped out at me too. thinking about it too much makes my head hurt…

   Comment by Mr Furious — June 1, 2005 @ 8:54 am

6. Columnists can get sued, same as anybody else, for printing lies if there is an injured party. Just because it’s opinion doesn’t make it immediately protected.

   And I don’t mind if people have different opinions, but if they’re twisting statistics, they ought to be able to explain why the number they’re using is more important than the numbers that directly contradict it.

   It’s not just columnists that have become lazy, but the public too, when it should be actively pointing out the mistakes of liars.

   Comment by Dr. Pants — June 1, 2005 @ 9:22 am

7. I believe the new term is “disassembling”.

   Comment by melior — June 1, 2005 @ 10:22 am

8. i believe someone has oatmeal between the ears… consumers of any respectable news outlet have the right to expect that yes, even the opinions they read are based on facts - when the columnist cites them. how the columnist wishes to interpret that data is his her own wish, but distortions of statistics, misleading characterization of opposing viewpoints, and witholding of contrary data constitutes what used to be called an “untruth” and that is what it continues to be. if the columnist wishes to dispense with facts altogether and just rant? fine. but the use of distorted data to “prove” a point renders that proof worthless, the “point” non-existent, and the resulting “opinion” about as valuable as that substance which makes the pages of a skin magazine stick together after repeated use…

   Comment by mc — June 1, 2005 @ 2:30 pm

9. Oakrent gets desparaging mail because of Judith Millers’ false stories. I know, I send a note monthly.

   Have you requested that Okrent actually apologize for Millers’ lies? Unless you have sent him a note, then shut the f*ck up. Don’t waste my time with a whine. Demand that Okrent explain why the NYT has not fired the lying b*tch.

   I don’t get responses any longer - he probably filters me out. So now, please go and demand that Okrent do his job and request that they fire Judith Miller.

   Did you know that she received a $42,000 bonus the same year she was revealed to be providing false info? Danny Boy was all for firing liars - until the lies were helpful to engage an invasion. The NYT is history.

   Comment by Ron — June 1, 2005 @ 3:57 pm

10. The NYT has no credibility. It publishes Bumiller’s mash notes to Bush; Jodi Wilgoren’s campaign coverage of Kerry was obscenely witless and biased; Maureen Dowd has never been reprimanded for faking the Kerry Nascar quote; Whitewater got reams of coverage but The Downing Street Memo has been all but ignored. And the paper’s higher-ups think they need to broaden their appeal and be perceived as less liberal? I grew up reading and respecting the NYT, but now it’s become what they used to jokingly say about the Sunday Magazine alone: “a vast landfill of newsprint.”

    Comment by Lev Raphael — June 1, 2005 @ 4:02 pm

11. I agree completely with Lee’s post.

    As an American citizen, I not only deserve the TRUTH…I demand the TRUTH.

    And I don’t care if it is a Republican or Democratic Party hack who’s doing the spinning, misleading, lying, or whatever.

    An editor is a gatekeeper. An editor is a fact-checker. Remember in “All the President’s Men” when Woodward and Bernstein got one of their “facts” wrong? Remember Ben Bradlee cussing them out for getting their “facts” wrong in one story?

    What has happened in the Mainstream Media is the fact-checkers, the gatekeepers, the editors, at one news organization after another have let their integrity go straight to hell.

    And we’ve ended up with an administration that is more devious, cunning and evil than the Nixon administration.

    God, I pray that our nation’s editors regain their lost honor. Our democracy needs editors with integrity. Our democracy demands editors with integrity.

    And boy, am I glad Okrent’s gone. What a poor excuse for an ombudsman.

    Comment by The Oracle — June 2, 2005 @ 4:45 am

12. I didn’t quit watching FoxNews in 2002 because it was slanted Republican. I quit because they were intentionally misleading me about Bush’s march to war. And I have pretty much quit CNN as well, not because it’s biased towards one party but because their reporting is so shallow that it’s virtually useless. As for the NYT, they’re trying very hard to destroy themselves. Columnists MUST be held to similar standards as reporters. Just because it’s an opinion doesn’t mean it can be a lie. It can be your opinion that global warming is a nothing to worry about, but it’s a lie to say worldwide temperatures aren’t rising.

    Comment by DanP — June 2, 2005 @ 5:16 am

13. After reading the rubbish Thomas L. Friedman wrote about his visit to India, when I read his piece “Outrage and Silence” I just had to send this email to the new NYT Public Editor.
    
    “Dear Mr. Byron E. Calame,
    May I humbly refer you to “Baghdad Burning” Girl Blog at
    http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
    
    which in the May 29th 2005 entry says:

    “Someone (thank you N.C.) emailed me Thomas L. Friedman’s article in the New York Times 10 days ago about Quran desecration titled “Outrage and Silence”.
    
    In the article he talks about how people ithe Muslim world went out and demonstrated against Quran desecration but are silent about the deaths of hundreds of Iraqis in the last few weeks due to bombings and suicide attacks.
    In one paragraph he says,
    “Yet these mass murders - this desecration and dismemberment of real Muslims by other Muslims - have not prompted a single protest march anywhere in the Muslim world. And I have not read of a single fatwa issued by any Muslim cleric outside Iraq condemning these indiscriminate mass murders of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by these jihadist suicide bombers, many of whom, according to a Washington Post report, are coming from Saudi Arabia.”
    First of all- it’s not only Kurds or Shia who are dying due to car bombs. When a car detonates in the middle of a soug or near a mosque, it does not seek out only Shia or Kurdish people amongst the multitude. Bombs do not discriminate between the young and the old, male and female or ethnicities and religious sects- no matter what your government tells you about how smart they are. Furthermore, they are going off everywhere-? not just in Shia or Kurdish provinces. They seem to be everywhere lately.
    One thing I found particularly amusing about the article- and outrageous all at once-was in the following paragraph:
    “Religiously, if you want to know how the Sunni Arab world views a Shiite’s being elected leader of Iraq, for the first time ever, think about how whites in Alabama would have felt about a black governor’s being installed there in 1920. Some Sunnis do not think Shiites are authentic Muslims, and they are indifferent to their brutalization.”
    Now, it is always amusing to see a Jewish American journalist speak in the name of Sunni Arabs. When Sunni Arabs, at this point, hesitate to speak in a representative way about other Sunni Arabs, it is nice to know Thomas L. Friedman feels he can sum up the feelings of the “Sunni Arab world” in so many words. His arrogance is exceptional.
    It is outrageous because for many people, this isn’t about Sunnis and Shia or Arabs and Kurds. It’s about an occupation and about people feeling that they do not have real representation. We have a government that needs to hide behind kilometers of barbed wire and meters and meters of concrete- and it’s not because they are Shia or Kurdish or Sunni Arab- it’s because they blatantly supported, and continue to support, an occupation that has led to death and chaos.
    The paragraph is contemptible because the idea of a “Shia leader” is not an utterly foreign one to Iraqis or other Arabs, no matter how novel Friedman tries to make it seem. How dare he compare it to having a black governor in Alabama in the 1920s? In 1958, after the July 14 Revolution which ended the Iraqi monarchy, the head of the Iraqi Sovereignty Council (which was equivalent to the position of president) was Mohammed Najib Al-Rubayi- a Shia from Kut. From 1958 - 1963, Abdul Karim Qassim, a Shia also from Kut in the south, was the Prime Minister of Iraq (i.e. the same position Jaffari is filling now). After Abdul Karim Qassim, in 1963, came yet another Shia by the name of Naji Talib as prime minster. Even during the last regime, there were two Shia prime ministers filling the position for several years- Sadoun Humadi and Mohammed Al-Zubaidi.
    In other words, Sunni Arabs are not horrified at having a Shia leader (though we are very worried about the current Puppets’ pro-Iran tendencies). Friedman seems to conveniently forget that while the New Iraq’s president was a polygamous Arab Sunni- Ghazi Al-Yawir- the attacks were just as violent. Were it simply a matter of Sunnis vs. Shia or Arabs vs. Kurds, then Sunni Arabs would have turned out in droves to elect “Al Baqara al dhahika” (”the cow that laughs” or La Vache Qui Rit- it’s an Iraqi joke) as Al-Yawir is known amongst Iraqis.
    This sentence,
    “Some Sunnis do not think Shiites are authentic Muslims, and they are indifferent to their brutalization.“
    …Is just stupid. Friedman is referring to Sunni extremists without actually saying that. But he doesn’t add that some Shia extremists also feel the same way about Sunnis. I’m sure in the “Christian World” there are certain Catholics who feel that way about Protestants, etc. Iraqis have intermarried and mixed as Sunnis and Shia for centuries. Many of the larger Iraqi tribes are a complex and intricate weave of Sunnis and Shia. We don?’t sit around pointing fingers at each other and trying to prove who is a Muslim and who isn’t and who deserves compassion and who deserves brutalization.
    Friedman says,
    “If the Arab world, its media and its spiritual leaders, came out and forcefully and repeatedly condemned those who mount these suicide attacks, and if credible Sunnis are given their fair share in the Iraqi government, I am certain a lot of this suicide bombing would stop”
    The Arab world’s spiritual and media leaders have their hands tied right now. Friedman better hope Islamic spiritual leaders don’t get involved in this mess because the first thing they’d have to do is remind the Islamic world that according to the Quran, the Islamic world may not be under the guardianship or command of non-Muslims- and that wouldn’t reflect nicely on an American occupation of Iraq.
    Friedman wonders why thousands upon thousands protested against the desecration of the Quran and why they do not demonstrate against terrorism in Iraq. The civilian bombings in Iraq are being done by certain extremists, fanatics or militias. What happened in Guantanamo with the Quran and what happens in places like Abu Ghraib is being done systematically by an army- an army that is fighting a war- a war being funded by the American people. That is what makes it outrageous to the Muslim world.
    In other words, what happens in Iraq is terrorism, while what happens to Iraqis and Afghanis and people of other nationalities under American or British custody is simply “counter-insurgency” and “policy”. It makes me naseous to think of how outraged the whole world was when those American POW were shown on Iraqi television at the beginning of the war- clean, safe and respectfully spoken to. Even we were upset with the incident and wondered why they had to be paraded in front of the world like that. We actually had the decency to feel sorry for them.
    Friedman focuses on the Sunni Arab world in his article but he fails to mention that the biggest demonstrations were not in the Arab world- they happened in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan. He also fails to mention that in Iraq, the largest demonstration against the desecration of the Quran was actually organized, and attended by, Shia.
    Luckily for Iraqis, and in spite of Thomas Friedman, the majority of Sunnis and Shia just want to live in peace as Muslims- not as Sunnis and Shia.

    Can the New York Times have such “stupid” non-journalists writing their Opinion Columns? Is this another case of Judith Miller revisited?

    Comment by Jacob Matthan — June 2, 2005 @ 5:24 am

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