Mr Fonda and the Gray Lady

Scandal rocks liberal media icons

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

The New York Times and CNN are having a bad year. Their hypocritical liberal bias has been splattered across the journalistic landscape like road kill on a Texas highway.

While CNN’s cowardly appeasement of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime ranks as the more serious sin, the New York Times’ ham-handed efforts to explain the Jayson Blair debacle ranks as the more entertaining of this spring’s news scandals.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, Blair was fired by the New York Times after fabricating facts in at least 38 of 73 stories, which ran under his by-line. The “gray lady” itself admitted “the widespread fabrication and plagiarism represent a profound betrayal of trust and a low point in the 152-year history of the newspaper.” Blair subsequently apologized for a “lapse in journalistic integrity”.

But all the spin coming from the New York Times can’t explain away how Blair was able to fabricate news for so long without being caught. What the editors knew and when they knew it is a relevant question. So far neither executive editor Howard Raines, nor any other New York Times editor, has lost his job as a result of the deception. That’s the journalistic equivalent of allowing Ken Lay to stay in charge of Enron.

Further dirtying the newspaper’s liberal skirts is the fact Blair is black. There are allegations – some from the Times newsroom itself – that he was given preferential treatment and his journalistic lapses overlooked because management was looking for a black star in a newsroom notably lacking in diversity.

There you have it: affirmative action failing in one of the nation’s foremost bastions of liberalism.

And then there is CNN’s shameful behavior in Iraq. The network, founded by the former Mr. Ted Turner-Fonda, suffered a black eye during the recent battle to liberate Iraq when it came to light that Eason Jordan, CNN’s top news executive, spiked stories about Iraqi atrocities to preserve access to the Hussein regime.

How many Iraqi’s lost their lives at the hands of Saddam’s brutal henchmen because CNN failed in its journalistic mission to enlighten its global audience will never be known. CNN will now take its place as the biggest house organ to a brutal dictatorship since Pravda served the Soviets.

Suffice it to say that if it had been Fox News and the Washington Times embroiled in these reportorial scandals, this nation’s liberal media would be having a field day. So, those of us in real America can take satisfaction in finally seeing the double standard of the New York Times and CNN laid bare for the entire world to see.

With their combined credibility now lower than that of a Saddam Hussein information minister, market forces will likely exact punishment on the discredited duo. CNN has already been knocked from its rating perch by “fair and balanced” Fox News, and an ascendant MSNBC. As for the New York Times, well like other gray ladies on Broadway, its time to turn out the lights and leave the stage.