On Sources and Opinions at the Times

THE ability of The New York Times to maintain its ethical standards among its far-flung outside contributors continues to be a major concern of mine.

A couple of points here.

Byron Calame, the NYT public editor, points out a bunch of outside reporters for not clarifying their links to the stories on which they wrote. That's actually a good thing. Liken those outside reporters to stringers with their own biases and predisposed viewpoints. We don't like it when they're of the Jamil Hussein/biased by insurgent variety, and we shouldn't like it when they're talking about green houses or other stories domestically. If his entire posting was on this subject, he should have been applauded.

However, he had to go and talk about the opinion of the NYT correspondent for military affairs who thinks that the US can win the war in Iraq. Shame on him - the reporter that is.

He's faulting the chief military affairs correspondent, Michael Gordon, for giving his own considered opinion because NYT readers have gotten upset that the delicately balanced worldview (balanced by meds?) is not quite what they've been led by the NYT editorial board to believe. They believe that the US has already lost; anyone telling them otherwise is violating the worldview standards and must be condemned. Calame gets an earful from those readers and calls for the reporter to be rebuked.

So it was said. So shall it be done.

Calame really ought to save the bulk of his ire for the nonstop editorializing by in-house reporters and the mindbending fact challenged op-ed pages. Are they not more of a concern?

Indeed, it is the nonstop editorializing by the in house reporters that is the larger cause of concern. Their position is also not-so-strangely all in line with an anti-war bias that extends to every facet of the paper (heck, even the arts and leisure section has anti-war screeds). The Times reporters consistently run stories accentuating the negative on every aspect of the current conflict (bleeds it leads isn't sufficient to cover the conflict; if the US can be criticized, it is).

UPDATE:
Speaking of media gaffes and strange sightings, Michelle Malkin has a curious report via Lara Logan of CBS that appears to use video that is apparently ripped straight from an al Qaeda source but no mention of the original source, or the links between the so-called eyewitness and those involved in the violence.

Is CBS getting taken for a ride, or are they willing participants? Questions that need answering...