AND THE TITANIC SHIP OF STATE SALES ON Many icebergs lurk just outide the BAY OF CONFUSION. . . . WHAT will we run into today? . . . noted as MISQUOTED . . . Investigator INVESTIGATED for not

The fact that even their world is not skewed enough for the NYT who has to further skew it, though, is a bit disturbing. I don’t know why anyone reads the NYT for news anymore.

Extracting “facts” from asses is a full-time profession for a lot of people in power, our pResident included.

This particular article offended me first because it carries forward the same old, same old assumption that the women who matter most are those whose husbands will be wealthy and indulgent enough to let them carry out whatever career choice they want to pursue. And these women aren’t even married (let alone divorced) yet! But the assumption is there, explicitly, in the article.

There is a real dichotomy in the Times — on the one hand, it gives explicit attention to issues of race and class in a variety of articles, but when it comes to the “mainstream” articles that don’t explicitly address race and class, it’s as if everyone below affluent, bred to be a Yalie, is invisible.

One of the blackly funny things that came out of the whole Jayson Blair scandal was when the NYT contacted many of the people about whom he’d Made Shit Up–the NYT wanted to know why they’d never called in outrage. The people in question knew very well that Blair had fabricated his stories; they shrugged and said that a) they *expected* newspaper people to be liars and b) it’s not like the NYT would have done anything about it.

I would be extremely pissed if it were me. I *detest* having words put in my mouth. Quotes out of context, ditto.

I’m in the profession. And I’ve been correctly and incorrectly, quoted. Sometimes really misquoted or had my words skewed in a way that fits the reporter’s agenda. OTOH, some reporters do make an effort to portray what you said, fairly. I always make my best efforts. But each complaint is a way to learn.

News Print reporters are much better than television. Radio, it really depends on who you are dealing with and whether it’s live or not. Small indy radio stations are really cool, FTMP.

My worst example of skewed reporting was 20/20. The topic was women and breasts. If you liked your breasts, they weren’t interested or didn’t include you. If you were so miserable about them, you wanted to hack them up or stuff them yourself, then you were front and center. Message: Women are miserable about their breasts, bring on the plastic surgeons!

I was contacted by Self magazine and later 20/20 after responding to a survey on body image, but there was no followup. I was a bit perturbed b/c I really think it’s important to send a message to young girls and women that their bodies are fine the way they are. But I became relieved and infuriated at what happened in the end result. Even if women like myself had been included, we would have been portrayed as imbalanced or abnormal.

I, too, am shattered. Hold me, Robert.

(Althought you can remove “from the New York Times” from that sentence. The NYT hardly has a lock on “deadline, I better make shit up” journalism.)

Neither Ann Coulter nor Al Franken are “journalists.” They are “pundits.” There are damn few people out there any more who get airtime or front page stories who qualify as “journalists.”

For example, Barry is a big hippie lefty deeeegenerate. Everybody knows this. At the same time, Barry is a passably honest person. He won’t print deliberate lies; if someone finds a clear-cut mistake on something he’s written, he acknowledges and corrects it. So if Barry posts an article saying that Senator X’s plan for ensuring WalMart restroom equity has the following flaws and the following benefits, well, I’m going to believe him. I will let my awareness of his godawful politics into the equation when I analyze his framing and his content, but if he says the bill will fine Wal-Mart $72,000 per broken restroom, then that’s very likely what the bill says.

Other journalists - whether openly advocates or more “newsy” - are not so honest, and their words I discount further, or totally disregard. If Ann Coulter says someone committed treason, well, I kind of doubt it. Al Franken says its a war for ___, yeah, whatever.

Dishonest polemicists - people who will readily distort the truth for partisan reasons - very soon find themselves preaching only to a choir - which makes them politically useful tools, perhaps, but denies them any real agency in affecting change through their work.

So you can read the Times, and perhaps derive a lot of useful information from it - but you have to be a critical thinker about it in order to do anything other than marinate in friendly opinion. (Which is fun and worthwhile, but limited in its productivity.)

And in a story like this, where a reporter is presenting a complex issue and yet only one facet of many is getting any print time…well, you can draw a pretty safe conclusion about the article’s reliability just from that little observation.

I am a bit shocked at the blatant disregard for journalistic integrity, though, and it makes me wonder how many other articles they’ve messed up. I know that in the one reporting Hyde’s “genders similarity hypothesis” they misrepresented some of her evidence, which may seem like a minor thing but would have a big impact on anyone using the NYT article as the only reference for her work.

It’s getting to the point where it seems pointless to try to keep up with news; all media seems irrevocably tainted by agendas and the ability to willfully throw out any standards in order to achieve their goals. It’s just so frustrating.

My world is crumbling. Crumbling, I tell you!