When one of our major educational institutions is accused of racism, is it proper for one newspaper to control the news? Columbia University has been been undergoing its own internal investigation (yes, another!) about complaints of strong anti-Israel bias by its professors. According to the NY Sun:
In an effort to manage favorable coverage of its investigation into the complaints, the university disclosed a summary of the committee’s report only to the Columbia Spectator, the campus newspaper, and the New York Times. Those newspapers, sources indicated to The New York Sun last night, made an agreement with the central administration that they would not speak to the students who made the complaints against the professors.
No comment necessary, I suppose… although some Columbia students apparently have a mind of their own. Go figure. (hat tip: Dave Sobel)
Roger, your heart is in the right place, in your query “Is it proper for one newspaper to control the news?”. Controlling and managing the news is something that goes against a basic tenet of our democracy.
Let’s broaden this, and join us in signing the petition to Stop Fake News and Government Propoganda in government. Looking for 250,000 good men and women. Let’s stop the administration’s liberal use of organizations like Ketchum Communications, and commentators like Armstrong Williams, to attempt to control the news.
Why, thank you, Mr. or Ms. JC, whoever you are, for your kind compliment. Of course I oppose thought control and fake news of all sorts, including the likes of Armstrong Williams who has apologized on televsion so often now it is getting to be nauseating. And of course his power as compared to the New York Times is as a gnat to an elephant. Nevertheless, I agree. Thought control stinks. I am loathe, however, to accept advice on petitions from people without the cojones to sign their (verifiable) names and I am sure most people feel the same way.
This from reelcobra.blogspot.com
New York Times Spins Columbia University Anti-Semitism Report
Here we go again. Note how New York Times writer Karen Anderson attempts to obscure the findings of the investigation into Anti-Semitism in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at Columbia University:
Columbia Panel Reports No Proof of Anti-Semitism
By KAREN W. ARENSON Published: March 31, 2005
An ad hoc faculty committee charged with investigating complaints that pro-Israel Jewish students were harassed by pro-Palestinian professors at Columbia University said it had found one instance in which a professor “exceeded commonly accepted bounds” of behavior when he became angry at a student who he believed was defending Israel’s conduct toward Palestinians.
But the report, obtained by The New York Times and scheduled for release today, said it had found “no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic.”
It did, however, describe a broader environment of incivility on campus, with pro-Israel students disrupting lectures on Middle Eastern studies and some faculty members feeling that they were being spied on.
Note that Anderson has started the piece by citing “incivility” by pro-Israel students, and the feeling by some faculty members that they were spied on. She goes on to mention, in passing, the biased composition of the investigative committee itself.
Many have already questioned the makeup of the ad hoc committee, pointing out that several members have expressed anti-Israel views. The committee included Farah Griffin and Jean E. Howard, professors of English and comparative literature; Lisa Anderson, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs; Mark Mazower, a history professor; and Ira Katznelson, a professor of political science and history and the committee’s chairman.
Then Anderson actually cites three examples of Anti-Semitic behavior that contradict the New York Times headline.
But the committee said that after meeting with 62 students, faculty members, administrators and alumni, and reading written submissions from more than 60 others, they were most concerned with three alleged instances of intimidation, all from the 2001-02 school year before Mr. Bollinger took office. Link
posted by reelcobra @ 8:07 AM 0 comments
…the university spokesperson divulged that the university had granted the Times exclusive rights to read the report. In return for the right to see the report before anyone else, the New York Times agreed not to seek comment from students. The article was released before any students were even permitted to read the original report. The report was defined in the public consciousness by the university without any thought about its students.
I see the Ad-Hoc Committee has been taking advice from the Columbia School of Journalism again.
We don’t need no education;
We don’t need no thought control
“… the New York Times agreed not to seek comment from students.”
Even if only for that one day, this is a stupid act on the part of the Grey Lady. It is analogous, or even equivalent, to CNN’s “reporting” from pre-invasion Iraq only those things vetted by the government – an abdication of the will to report news rather than supplied Pablum. Both can be done if the baby food is labelled and footnoted/explained, but the MSM no longer does this – instead reverting to yellow (in several senses of the word) journalism that was supposed to haved died out by the Forties.
I don’t have a problem with a handout as long as it is so labelled. Many organizations give handouts, and they are often useful and informative. But that the U insisted on censorship (or “prior restraint”) is reprehensible, and that the Times agreed should be cause for a re-assessment of policy within that organization.
Oh well, the Times is one of the papers that are considering making on-line occasional visitors like myself pay the SAME as those who have the dead-tree version delivered (see the suit against Google in Europe). So we soon may no longer hear much about anything from them.
“those newspapers, sources indicated to The New York Sun last night, made an agreement with the central administration that they would not speak to the students who made the complaints against the professors” (“these newspapers” being the Columbia Spectator and the New York Times). Even by the standards of the NY Times, this would be an incredibly awful thing to do. It’s difficult to imagine that even these people would destroy their remaining credibility so casually. Do we have any independent confirmation of this?
In my opinion, a one-day exclusive doesn’t really qualifies as “control” of the news. Aren’t exclusives fairly common practice in the news biz?
The main problem isn’t the exclusive, if there was such…it was the stated agreement not to talk to students with complaints. When coupled with that, the exclusive looks much worse.
I agree with photoncourier. Also, although exclusives are common, it’s rather strange that a university would sign one when accused of racial bias, don’t you think?
I agree that the agreement not to talk to the complaining students is inappropriate, and more so if it extends past the first story.
It just seemed that Mr. Simon was a little hyperbolic in claiming that the NYT was controlling the news via a one-day exclusive. There’s enough to criticize in its reportage without going over the top.
One technical legal point – prior restraint exists only where the government is the censor.
Roger:
Yet another internal investigation that is stage managed from the start. They have the right to conduct their investigations any way they want but the unbelievable guts of the University, supposedly the bastion of open inquiery and the land of detailed research that limits it’s investigation and try’s to limit the distribution of it’s findings. And then the vaunted New York Times prostiutes it’s traditions by getting on it’s knee’s and agree’s to the demands of the School by restricting it’s reporters ability to get the full story. If the vaunted Times allows itself to be bullied into presenting a incomplete story and becomes the mouthpiece of the school administration propaganda team then they have truly lost much of their credibility and joined the Armstrong Williams school of paid Journalism. They got the exclusive but they did not get the full picture. And they willingly bent over for the school.
What chutzpah! At least CBS and the UN used outside individuals so that they could attempt to claim that the investigation was unbiased. Columbia University made no such pretense. They simply investigated themselves and found that not only were the professors not guilty of any offense it was they who were the injured party. I guess the next thing we could look forward to is the public lynching of the individuals who made the complaint as a warning to the rest of the students.
Let’s see. Racist professors clear selves of racism charges. Yawn. Pretty much standard operating procedure at the Marxist indoctrination camps formerly know as universities.
But then the racist professors conspire with the so-called “paper of record” to suppress their misdeeds? Another yawn. The Times has suppressed Marxist misdeeds for years:
http://www.nationalreview.com/stuttaford/stuttaford050703.asp
“those newspapers, sources indicated to The New York Sun last night, made an agreement with the central administration that they would not speak to the students who made the complaints against the professors”
So the NYT let the subject of the article dictate who their reporters could talk to. This is pure Hollywood, with the PR flacks demanding content control over interviews and articles and Vanity Fair scurrying to grant it to them…
There is an extensive collection of links about this story at Kesher Talk:
http://www.hfienberg.com/kesher/2005/03/academic-integrity-and-middle-east_31.html
If you are a blogger, please post something about this. This story needs to be kept alive.
Photocourier hits the nail on the head.
The whole point of the one day exclusive was an attempt to shape the public debate, hoping that general interest would wane very soon thereafter with only the mantra “Columbia cleared” reverberating in the back of our memories.
As recently as 4 years ago, very few of us would have found out about this sleazy exclusive. Thanks to the blogoshpere, that’s changed, but (and I hope I’m wrong but) I don’t think this particular story will have legs. That is, unless the professors in question feel foolishly emboldened enough to strike again, which I hope they do if they can somehow be “caught on tape”.
Also, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but was “anti-semisitism” ever really a significant part (if a part at all) of the complaints investigated here? Or has the MSM done an “about face” and instead of criticizing Jews for equating anti-Israeli views with anti-semitism it has gone and made that assumption itself?
“One technical legal point – prior restraint exists only where the government is the censor.”
Not exactly, JJE. It’s more accurate to say that the First Amendment prohibits the imposition of a restraint on a publication before it is published, with a few exceptions (obscenity, “clear and present danger to the country, etc. — that is to say, material that does not qualify for First Amendment protection). For example, a plaintiff can’t seek to enjoin the publication of a book that he claims libels him. He can only seek libel damages afterwards. (As a practical matter, of course, these things are often settled in advance, with the offending material revised or deleted.) But it doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not the the government is the censor, as the “prior restraint” issue obviously can come up in a purely private lawsuit.
Hey Roger, are you going to be on Kudlow anytime soon? If so, that might be a good place to discuss this matter…