February 25, 2009

New York: One City, Two Rags

 

I do not normally advocate layoffs, and I'm not about to start, since all too often that's the way the corporate fats cats keep their own jobs and bloated salaries.

No, I will not be advocating layoffs here. But I am demanding that certain people be summarily fired.

They would include anybody in the chain-of-command at the New York Post who had anything to do with, or any responsibility for, that editorial cartoon that showed policemen, who had just shot dead a chimpanzee, saying "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill".

Artist Sean Delonas on up to the Managing Editor should be terminated immediately, for racial insensitivity that is not acceptable at the Shoppers News, to say nothing of a major metropolitan paper.

Even if we buy the contention that they did not mean for the monkey to suggest bigotry, they should be let go for their unacceptable lack of knowledge of derogatory stereotypes.

The uproar has gotten loud enough that Mr. Big himself, Rupert Murdoch, has been rattled into making an apology. The tabloid's owner says "I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused . . . It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such."

To review: We have an African-American president. Likening him to a monkey is a slur, a serious one. Any fool should know that. If this was unintentional, it doesn't even pass the "Fool Test" Frankly, Mr. Murdoch, the apology is not enough.

Your bozos apparently didn't know, or didn't consider it important. Instead of a New York City daily, maybe they can next work for the Ku Klux Klan Kronicle, where they'd be much more at home.

We should extend our sympathies to the people of New York City, because this was not the only case of shoddy journalism they had to endure.

Paired up with the New York Post is the New York Times, that bastion of self-proclaimed quality. Except, where the Post might have run this story on Page Six, the Times saw fit to display it on the front page – in glaring gray.

Finally, in recent days we have been treated to a hidden, mealy-mouthed statement from Times management for that sleazy hit job on then-presidential candidate John McCain.

You remember it, don't you? That was the one that tried to hype a story on McCain's connections to special interests. As valid as the premise was, it wasn't sexy enough apparently. It went on to imply, with no factual basis, that the senator was having a romantic relationship with a beautiful blonde lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. The sourcing was demonstrably pathetic. To use journalism parlance, the Times didn't "have" the story of the McCain dalliance it was nevertheless suggesting. Am I wrong, or are media supposed to report, not suggest?

Still, to further make sure anyone paid attention to the paltry article, Times editors saw fit to include a glamorous photo of Ms. Iseman. No solid reason, but a lovely picture of a sexy woman.

She sued. Good for her. The case was very recently settled out of court. No money changed hands but the paper printed what amounted to a clarification, a statement saying it had never intended to even suggest there was something illicit going on.

Management then had the mealy-mouthed gall to say it was standing by its story. It thereby provided a devious ending to a mean story where the worst sleaze was running it in the first place, at least with the kind of nasty innuendo that certainly was not "news fit to print"

Newspapers are in trouble. They have been overrun by technology that provides a forum for anyone and everyone who wants to report and comment. These interlopers offer themselves up as alternatives to a mainstream press that all too often speaks for a corrupt establishment.

Papers often respond by looking down their noses at this Internet rabble, as people with careless opinions that are weak on facts, and often highly insensitive. What a pity that two of the nation's most important papers were doing no better.