Did you see The New York Times this morning? The "Gray Lady" had a news article looking at how these health care "death panels" are simply false rumors. Yet tucked inside the article is a major swipe at The Washington Times. Read below. The full article is here.
The specter of government-sponsored, forced euthanasia was raised as early as Nov. 23, just weeks after the election and long before any legislation had been drafted, by an outlet decidedly opposed to Mr. Obama, The Washington Times.
Huh? Folks, those words WERE NOT in an editorial. That was an actual news article where the reporters actually call The Washington Times, "an outlet decidedly opposed to Mr. Obama." That is quite a sweeping statement. It's one thing to write that on the editorial page. It's quite another to report it as "fact' in a news story. CBN News contacted The Washington Times for a response. Below is a quote from John Solomon, the Executive Editor of The Washington Times.
"We don't begrudge any news organization the right to report on issues important to its readership. But it is wrong, inaccurate, irresponsible and insulting for the New York Times to brand an entire newspaper as "decidedly opposed" to President Obama because of the voice of its editorial pages. Nothing can be further from the truth when it comes to our newsroom. Our news pages have no agenda except to accurately and fairly cover the news, including that made by the administration. When I took over as Executive Editor I asked that the editorial and opinion pages be taken out from under my leadership so that there could be a bright line between opinion and news within the daily operation of the newspaper. If the New York Times had paid the courtesy of calling us for fair comment before publishing this morning, we could have reminded them of that. But they didn't even practice that basic tenet of journalism.
Let's look at the facts. On the morning of the Inauguration, our newspaper's front page featured an essay by President Obama, the only newspaper in America to do so. Last Sunday, our newspaper accurately described the week of victories President Obama had in Congress. This morning _ the very day the New York Times besmirched our newsroom unfairly _ we featured a front-page interview with White House health care adviser Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel in which he explained the evolution of his thinking on health care rationing. Those are the hallmarks of a newsroom doing factual and fair reporting. I challenge the New York Times to prove otherwise."
John Solomon, Executive Editor, The Washington Times
It's interesting that while The New York Times was trying to make a statement about the so called anti-Obama Washington Times, it turns out the Gray Lady may have actually exposed their bias in a very clear and direct way. When you can't quite figure out whether an article is an editorial or a serious news story, that's a problem.