‘NYT’ refused to run Bill Moyers’s letter intact

by on February 3, 2009 3
0sharesFacebook
0tweetsTwitter
0stumbledStumbleUpon
0sharesReddit
0recommendGoogle

A fine column by Eric Alterman in the Nation, echoing David Grossman's outrage over Gaza (see bottom of excerpt) and saying that the New York Times refused to run intact Bill Moyers's letter defending himself on Gaza after he was slagged by Bill Kristol. I don't think this would happen on the internet, by the way. Alterman:

Yet despite the fact that Bill Moyers is, well, Bill Moyers, the Times editors not only allowed [Bill] Kristol to deliberately distort and decontextualize his remarks; they would not allow Moyers to defend himself in his own words in response. After the PBS journalist submitted a letter to the editor, he was told, "We will not print that 'William Kristol distorts or misrepresents,' and the editors will not budge." They insisted that the letter be changed for publication to read, "I take strong exception to William Kristol's characterization," and they truncated much else.

This is pathetic and ridiculous. If one were to survey, say, 1,000 journalists or even 1,000 New York Times readers and ask them whether they were more likely to trust the judgment, honesty or bravery of Bill Moyers or of William Kristol, my guess is that the result would be a landslide victory in Moyers's favor that would dwarf that of Barack Obama's over John McCain. I'd even bet the same would be true in a private survey of Times editors. Yet publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal--rather than admit their colossal mistake in giving so prestigious and influential a perch to Kristol, who was at long last ushered off the page with his next column just one week later--instead chose to empower his McCarthyite slanders against one of America's most distinguished patriots and practitioners of their profession.

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, the celebrated author and patriot David Grossman termed the Gaza operation "just one more way-station on a road paved with fire, violence and hatred," and added, "our conduct here in this region has, for a long time, been flawed, immoral and unwise."

(Phil Weiss, thanks to Susie Kneedler)

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, Gaza, Israel/Palestine, Neocons, US Policy in the Middle East

{ 3 comments... read them below or add one }

  2. George in Toronto says:
    February 3, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    Just imagine if the chinese decided to buy out all the news media in USA and if the editors were all chicoms.Now, do you think that we americans would stand for it? Hell No! All Canada's USA's media are Jewish Zionist controlled.I read recently from a article that if Israel nuked Chicago,the zionist media wouldn't touch it.
    We all know that publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal are Israel firsters and rabid zionists. Has anyone got the guts to to flush them out :^(

  3. Citizen says:
    February 3, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    Pretty simple. Bill Moyers tries to be objective. The reason for this
    is that Bill Moyers subscribes to truth, the antiquated pre-Zionist
    way. He's a classical Romantic poet in spirit. Plus, he subscribes to the Founding ( white Goy) Fathers' sense of justice. Neither Hitler's state or
    Israel's state have anything in common with the founding principles of the USA.

    Chewing carpets, painting walls. Those activities do describe the NAZI state and the Israeli state.

    USA, wake up!

Leave a Reply