Hugh Hewitt fisks an op-ed by the New York Times’ Bill Keller, and responds, “What a newspaper chooses to give presidents is a market-driven decision”:
The New York Times fancies itself as a responsible voice of elite opinion so it conducts itself in a certain way. That’s its choice. But it owes the president nothing.
It does owe, hwoeber, its customers and the country very distinct obligations.
It owes its customers accurate information. The Jayson Blair scandal and the many subsequent black eyes the paper has suffered over the past few years has damaged the Times’ brand, as has its ideological hot flashes that occur within its editorials and among its columnists. The past few days’ scandal at the Los Angeles Times involving Michael Hiltzik, Pulitzer winner, is just the latest in a parade of MSM meltdowns that confirms the public’s low opinion of journalists’ highopinion of their own talents and ethics.
Far more improtant, however, than the accurate information it owes its customers, MSM owes the country obediance to the laws.
That’s rather hard for the MSM to remember. For the past four decades, elite journalists (with the Times leading the way) increasingly thought of themselves as being “neutral“, cosmopolitan and aloof from their home country–and pooh-poohed any upstarts who dared root for the home team.
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