Over the past few weeks I’ve found myself more and more frustrated with the political coverage presented in the NY Times. I can reluctantly tolerate Paul Krugman abandoning his great economic pieces to pursue less-than-apt political ones; I know that columnists will be columnists and the op/ed section of any newspaper is going to be a bit more impassioned come election time. But when research and the reporting of events and quotations loses its objectivity, there is no longer worth to a publication.
One of the problems with calling the NY Times out on its poor reporting is that they change their stories after they’re published, and so it is often difficult to find good examples in hindsight. I’m not referring to a dangling modifier or a mis-spelled last name; I’m referring to the subtraction of an incorrect fact or the addition of a relevant quote that puts things into a different perspective altogether.
Thanks to a few tips from e-cquaintances, I’ve caught them red-handed this time with two different versions of the same article. Here’s version 1. Here’s version 2. I’m putting them up for download below because I suspect that it’s only a matter of time before they take the first one down.
The most obvious distinction between the two versions comes in their respective headlines. The original headline (”Few From Obama’s Youth Remember His Drug Use”) implies the possibility that Obama lied in claiming to have used drugs. That’s not me reading between the lines; Serge F. Kovaleski, the writer, raises this possibility directly:
…or he added some writerly touches in his memoir to make the challenges he overcame seem more dramatic.
The second headline (”Old Friends Say Drugs Played Only Bit Part in Obama’s Young Life”) holds a completely different implication. The claim is no longer that “few” people remember Obama’s drug use, but that his drug use only played a “bit part” in his life. Mr. Kovaleski now is backhandedly acknowledging the truthfulness of the drug use claim while at the same time seeking to minimize it. The tone remains dark and accusatory, as if this contradicts Obama’s claims. But if you go back and read Dreams from My Father, you’ll see that only a page and half is devoted to his drug use; never did he imply being anything more than an occasional user. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve never particularly liked Hillary. I don’t like that she runs on Bill’s name with the good, and separates herself from the bad (and as a fan of welfare and unions, I don’t put Bill on as high a pedestal as most Americans do). I don’t like that the Clintons have always worked separately from the Democratic Party. I don’t like the scandals. I don’t like the closed door policy meetings.
Until now, I could’ve lived with either. I agree with about 80% of Hillary’s voting record in the Senate, and at the end of the day I vote on issues rather than style. But Hillary has done something that no other politician has been able to do in my lifetime: she’s made me feel repulsed with myself for being a Democrat. Read the rest of this entry »
An e-cquaintance and I have started a campaign aimed at convincing Al Gore to publicly endorse Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential bid:
Vice President Al Gore, we are calling on you here and now to endorse Senator Barack Obama in his bid for President of the United States. As a man of your accomplishments and stature, your voice will travel farther and louder than the voices of others. Your words will convince swing voters that they should vote not for the Establishment candidate, but for the right candidate.
Mr. Vice President, we are in need of your support, and we are in need of it now.
Shameless plug, but The Obama Movement is now available for purchase in select bookstores and on Amazon.com! It features a collection of short essays written by students and young professionals who support Barack Obama in his bid for the United States Presidency. One of those said supporters happens to be me.
It was a regular day at Boston University’s Agganis Arena. The crowd was screaming, cheering, smiling and laughing. But there was no basketball game and no concert. Rather, there was a politician. A politician?
Proving that politicians can be Rock Stars too, Barack walked on stage to a crowd that anxiously awaited his presence–as a matter of fact a sold-out crowd of 5,800–the largest his campaign has seen thus far.
Not impressed yet? There’s more. Unlike many previous events, every attendee paid for his or her ticket–students, $23 to stand on the floor; most, $230 for arena seats; some, $2,300 for VIP seats and a pre-show reception.
That’s right. It can cost more money to see Barack Obama than it can The Rolling Stones. Read the rest of this entry »
This piece is a hypothetical news article dated March 5, 2008. It supposes that Al Gore has just secured the Democratic nomination, and it explains how he pulled it off.
Excerpt:
When Al Gore asked America last December to “re-electâ€? him, voters reacted with surprise and skepticism. He was widely liked, but pundits called to question whether or not such a last-minute campaign was winnable. After Super Tuesday, nothing is clearer: it was. Yesterday, Gore clinched the Democratic Party Presidential nomination. […]
Although Gore’s candidacy appeared to be a last-minute decision made just in the nick time, the reality is that Gore’s campaign was far more calculating than that. The biggest advantage to getting in a Presidential race early is that there is time to get the candidate’s name out. This was a moot point for Gore, who’s most talked about documentary of the decade won two Oscars and who once before received a plurality of the American vote for President.
For Gore, it was most advantageous to wait. By entering the race in December of 2007—10 months after his most formidable opponents Senator Obama and Senator Clinton—Gore gave himself distinct advantages over his competition.
The real reason that we’re questioning Obama’s race has nothing to do with a white mother, a Kenyan father or an ancestral distance from slavery. No, the real reason is more significant and more telling as to where contemporary America is on the fronts of the fight against racism. The real reason for the questioning of Obama’s race is that for the first time in American history, the phrase “viable black Presidential candidate� is not a paradox, but a reality.
![The Obama Movement [Book Cover]](http://www.freerobby.com/wp-content/uploads/theobamamovementcover.jpg "The Obama Movement [Book Cover]")
