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December 10, 2004
Miller blasts the New York Times
Mark Crispin Miller is arguably one of the finest progressive authors and thinkers of our time. Today, he wrote an open letter to the New York Times regarding their conspicuously nonexistant coverage of Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearings on Ohio voting irregularities. As always, Miller nailed it. Read the whole letter at Buzzflash. An excerpt:
And yet the New York Times, our nation's "newspaper of record," did not even mention it, much less cover it. The hearings were on Wednesday. There was no word of it in Thursday's paper, nor any word, belatedly, in Friday's. (Thursday's Times did run a couple of long stories on the electoral situation in Ukraine, but none on the quite similar, and -- to Americans -- vastly more important story here at home.)
Such silence is bizarre. It's deeply wrong. In fact, it's un-American. For what public issue could there be that matters quite as much as the integrity of our elections? What, then, could possibly explain, or excuse, the Times's failure even to note Conyers' hearings? For that matter, what explains the Times's thorough indifference to this crucial subject? Like all American news outlets, the Times is obligated, by the First Amendment, to attempt to keep its readership informed about the government, so that the government is answerable to us, its ultimate custodians. Rather than deal squarely with the ever-mounting evidence of massive fraud by the Republicans, the Times instead has merely ridiculed those raising questions, as if such patriotic citizens were laughably insane.
The hearings were one of very few shining moments of modern day American democracy. Watch the hearings here (RealVideo only). Try time index 1:17:00 for a stunning speech by John Bonifaz of the National Voting Rights Institute. If you haven't done so, buy a copy of either of Miller's books: Cruel and Unusual or The Bush Dyslexicon.
Posted By Bob Cesca | December 10, 2004 09:43 PM | DIGG ME!
Comments
You'd think that these outlets would be racing to be the first to break this story. Shit, seeing as how they hype up everything else without cause (anybody remember the "summer of the shark" not to long ago?) you'd think that when something big actually might be going down, they'd be all over it. How is it that Ms. Spears antics in Vegas warrent more coverage than an investigation into vote fraud. Hell, even if there is none, shouldnt these papers be the ones to tell us, because they were on the front lines doing their own investigation, and reporting on it? One way or another, I thought this was their fucking job.
Posted by: Lactar ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.bobcesca.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at December 11, 2004 01:36 AM
