COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

Dear Times editorial staff,

Thank you for the questions you raised in this article, in which you quite gallingly manage to blame the President for the absence of positive news stories in your newspaper.

I'm glad you're finally showing an interest in the issue. As any recovering addict will tell you, the first step is to admit you have a problem. Of course, you haven't gotten to that stage in your recovery yet. But when you're dealing with with a neurotic who's so hopelessly consumed in their dysfunction, even the smallest signs of progress are great victories.

Nevertheless, I'll be straight with you.

The reason we see so few positive stories in your paper is, quite frankly, because you have failed. You have failed your readership, and you have failed your community. You have failed because you are so immersed in the dysfunction of reflexive urban liberalism that, like the drunken, lampshade-wearing man who embarrasses himself and everyone around him at the company Christmas party, your shortcomings have become patently obvious to everyone around you except yourself and your enablers.

Let me take you back to 2004. Brian Chontosh, a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, won our nation's second highest military award, the Navy Cross, when he closed with and destroyed an enemy element at close quarters in a classic example of battlefield decisiveness and audacity.

Chontosh's action was certainly a newsworthy event. His was the first Navy Cross or Distinguished Service Cross level award issued for the Iraq war, and was the highest award issued until that time. And yet a search of your website for Brian Chontosh's name turns up not a single mention prior to today's column.

You, of course, blame the White House for failing to promote his story. But since when do New York Times reporters need to be spoon fed stories by the White House? Is this the kind of newsroom staff you've created?

But even then, you're still wrong. Because even as the USMC was decisively engaged in Fallujah, the Marine Corps published his story on the USMC website, and issued a press release describing the action. It even came with a photograph.

Somehow, the Sacramento Bee got wind of the story. As did a number of your readers. Pretty much everyone in the military knew who Brian Chontosh was as soon as he got awarded the Navy Cross - and marveled at the lack of coverage in what was once a respectable newspaper.

So the local and regional press got it, the military press had it, and the soldiers and marines in the field had it, and were talking about it. And there was a press release about it. Hell, the Wall Street Journal got the story, right down the road from you. And you didn't pick it up. And like any addict, you're playing the victim, blaming everyone around you but yourself for missing the scoop.

And so those of us in the military, and who have loved ones in the military, can only scratch our heads and marvel at the dysfunctional attitute you are showing about this incredibly huge blind spot in your coverage.

And a glaring blind spot it is. I would love to be able to say that Chontosh was a one-off. But it wasn't. Consider:

You raised the specific instance of SFC Paul Ray Smith, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for an action in which he lost his life -- and of course, blame the President for your failure to get the story.

But the record shows that in February 2004, just about everyone on the planet had the story. Except the New York Times. Hell, even the Australian media picked it up.

Now, granted, your staff is operating at a significant handicap: Apparently, you have entire editorial units, entire copy desks, and fact checkers who don't even know what a Congressional Medal of Honor is.

This, in and of itself, is symptomatic of the yawning chasm between the class of people from which you draw your editorial staff and the class of people you serve.

This is an example of the immense deficit you're running in your collective fund of information when it comes to covering military affairs.

This, in and of itself, is dysfunction.

Bill Keller, your paper is stumbling around like a drunken fool, and it's gotten to the point where you're ruining your reputation. Military men have already all but washed their hands of your crap coverage in exasperation. We already know you are too wrapped up in your own neurosis to cover our fighting men and women with any degree of accuracy.

Yes, some people like Blackfive, Greyhawk, Cori Dauber, and myself, have already tried, on numerous occasions, to stage an intervention. But your illness has already caused a lot of people to give up on you.

But it's worse than that.

Leigh Ann Hester, a guardsman out of Kentucky, was the first woman to win a Silver Star since World War Two, for her own actions leading a counterattack against an ambush. I had it. Greyhawk had it. The Wall Street Journal had it. It was all over the Kentucky Press, of course, and the Army Press. The Army was alive with conversation about the action, which was interesting not only for her decoration, but for the operational lessons we could derive from it. An entire After Action Report was made public on the fight, which is fairly unusual.

Your paper managed a paltry 573 words on it. (The Washington Post, in contrast, managed several TIMES the coverage the New York Times was able to muster.)

In what way is this the fault of the Bush Administration?

Perhaps most galling is your mention of Rafael Peralta as evidence of your point: That the lack of coverage in your pages is the result of the Bush Administration not pushing the story.

Indeed, a search of your archives shows not a single instance of coverage of Peralta's death, the circumstances of which earned him a recommendation for the Congressional Medal of Honor, other than a passing mention in your decontextualized "names of the dead" on September 18th, 2004.

But Peralta's story was publicized by the USMC at the time, on their official site. Hell, they had someone write a feature on it. Do you just not cover the Marine Corps during time of war? Is that it?

It's Bush's fault you don't pay attention?

Gannett had the story.

Moreover, it's also clear that when the New York Times does get a story in a timely manner, you cannot be trusted to report the story honestly.

Is that the Bush Administration's fault, too?

The New York Times has evinced a capacity for twisting words, for hearing only what they want to hear, that would rival that of any addict in full flower.

The New York Times also manages to forget the fundamentals of journalism. When John Ashcroft gave a press conference in 2004 to announce that the US was looking for several suspected Al Qaeda operatives, and went public with pictures and names, your paper managed to run an entire article without even mentioning the names, and without running a single photo of the wanted men. So much for the Five W's. Somehow, though, your paper found space to run a photograph of a photographer photographing the the photographs of the wanted men.

Just how the fuck does that serve your readership? How the fuck does that serve the community? How the fuck does that serve anyone except some frustrated lit crit on your editorial staff with a misguided hard-on for metacriticism, and damned be the community he or she serves.

The Times also has a knack for missing the important military developments in the field, even though they are known to other news outlets.

The New York Times makes the same mistakes again and again. If you read your paper, it becomes apparent that your staff - the one recruited from the fever swamp that the New York literary and media scene seems to have become - regards the military as an alien culture-and one so far beneath them that they cannot be bothered with developing any expertise in military operations - even during time of war.

The New York Times has a problem. And it's not just your problem. You are hurting all of us.

Please. Get help.

Splash, out

Jason

Update: More in a similar vein from Cori Dauber