The institutional arrogance that characterized the New York Times' decision to publish secret U.S. diplomatic cables is by now familiar to its readers. It's certainly familiar to readers of William McGowan's new book, Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America. Read my column @ Human Events on Gray Lady Down, which depicts a newsroom drenched in "subtle and not-so-subtle anti-Americanism, anti-bourgeois hauteur, hypersensitivity toward 'victim' groups, double standards, historical shallowness, intellectual dishonesty, cultural relativism, moral righteousness and sanctimony."

Oh, so what you're saying via your description is that the NYT's newsroom is a den of scum sucking liberals.

The best articles on WikiLeaks and the failure of the mainstream media, which has conclusively been proven to be establishment conservative by multiple scholars using empirical, irrefutable facts and data, have been written by Glenn Greenwald and can be viewed at: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

In it he quotes journalism professor Jay Rosen who adequately describes the state of the establishment conservative media such as the NYT and Washington Post who said this regarding why leakers have run to WikiLeaks and not the mainstream establishment conservative press like NYT and Washington Post. Rosen states,

"In the American case, one of the reasons is that the legitimacy of the press itself is in doubt in the minds of the leakers. And there's good reason for that. Because while we have what purports to be a "watchdog press," we also have -- laid out in front of us -- the clear record of the watchdog press' failure to do what it says it can do, which is provide a check on power when it tries to conceal its deeds and its purpose.

So I think it's a mistake to try to reckon with WikiLeaks and what it's about without including in the frame the spectacular failures of the watchdog press over the last 10, 20, 30, 40 years - but especially recently. And so without this legitimacy crisis in mainstream American journalism, the leakers might not be so inclined to trust an upstart like Julian Assange and a shadowy organization like WikiLeaks...

These kinds of huge, cataclysmic events [the Iraq War] within the legitimacy regime lie in the background of the WikiLeaks case, because if it wasn't for those things, WikiLeaks wouldn't have the supporters it has, the leakers wouldn't collaborate the way they do, and the moral force behind exposing what this Government is doing just wouldn't be there...The watchdog press died, and what we have is WikiLeaks instead."

Okay, I'll bite.

I read your article in Salon. I see Rosen's point about mainstream journalism and people's mistrust of it, but nowhere in Greenwald's article (or what you've quoted of Rosen's) do either talk of a "conservative" press.

To suggest either the New York Times or Washington Post are conservative in nature or outlook is frankly ridiculous and nothing you've linked to or quoted even suggests it.

You asked once if I understood the definition of socialism. I'm beginning to wonder about your grasp of conservatism as a concept. You're reducing it to a catch phrase for everything you dislike.

The statement was an aside within a broader statement, and I appreciate the fact you agree with the main statement. Citing these sources which reinforce the ancillary point, that the NYT and WP are establishment conservative news outlets, is tiresome but takes very little time.

WP:

12/02/2010: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/12/ta120210.html

07/12/2009: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-washington-post-aka-f_b_230188.html

06/01/2009: http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/06/01/dcs-fox-on-15th-street-still-hates-unions/

06/17/2009: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=06&year=2009&base_name=fox_on_15th_aka_the_washington_1

NYT:

2004 (Iraq War support and promotion): http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/23/1079939624187.html

10/26/2010: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101026/cm_yblog_upshot/ny-times-reporter-defends-profile-of-wikileaks-assange

Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsiBl2CaDFg

08/08/2010: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/baker080810.html

11/30/2010: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/labor-shortages-in-china-are-an-argument-against-raising-the-yuan

These sources took about 7 minutes to find. I could probably continue doing this for hours, finding innumerable sources that would stretch for hundreds of lines, if I had the time. The important distinction that must be made is that they are establishment conservative media outlets, so they support foreign wars, muscular foreign policy abroad, corporate tax breaks, regressive tax structures, a weakening of public enterprise safety mechanisms, and are generally beholden to private concentrations of power. Regarding social or cultural issues, the Washington Post is moderate and the NYT is liberal, generally speaking.

Does the richest man in the world own shares in the NYT? Is said man a patriot of the USA? Does he have a vested interest in the destabilization of power politics? Is even the Va.City/state bowing to said power? Who is using who?

PMA… sorry I haven’t been able to respond until now. Thanks for the links you supplied to give me a better understanding of where you’re coming from when you describe such institutions as the New York Times and the Washington Post as the, “conservative establishment.” I think we are in agreement in one aspect of your contention, and diametrically opposed in the other.

So, as to where we agree:

I would definitely be on your side when you contend that mainstream media has failed in its efforts to be bias neutral, and that they tend to have a pack mentality with regards to both the stories they publish and the ideological bent they bring to these stories.

Where we would disagree is your assertion that their ideological bent is in any way conservative in nature.

Let’s look at your links for a second and then where we disagree:

Link #1:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/12/ta120210.html

Eric Altermann has been on a Quixiotic quest to disprove the idea that mainstream media has a liberal bias for quite some time now.

(full disclosure: I have not read “What liberal Media?” but I have read enough about it to understand the point he is trying…and failing…to make)

However, let’s just stick with this article for a second. He suggests that the Post has a conservative bias because they’re afraid of (or pandering to) the Right and it shows in their desperate attempts to find a blogger that conservatives approve of. He neglects to point out that in the case of Dave Weigel, the Post was in no way looking for a conservative blogger. Rather, they were looking for a blogger to blog on Conservatives. They found a liberal that fit the bill, and when his true opinions came out, were forced to admit his ideology was liberal.

Alterman’s argument would have been better served if Weigel actually was a conservative, but since he wasn’t, all Alterman has done is prove the opposite of what he proposed.

Countering his arguments in “What Liberal Media?” is a fairly decent review on Amazon’s home page for Alterman’s book (of all places) which I include here:

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1LGBNM2IQUG3Y/ref=cm_cr_dp_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0465001769&nodeID=283155&tag=&linkCode=

Another decent review that points out Alterman’s inconsistencies (in that he’s claiming mainstream media is conservative in bent by pointing to the new media as his example) can be found here:

http://reason.com/archives/2003/07/01/media-critic-critique-thyself

The author makes the great point that if mainstream media was oh so conservative in bent, then new media wouldn’t thrive as an antidote (or juxtaposition) to mainstream media. Alterman is also disingenuous by claiming that conservatives say that “media” is biased when that’s not the case. They claim that mainstream media is biased, not all media.

Finally, Alterman’s article is about the quest to find a conservative blogger to appeal to conservatives and thus bring up the Post’s readership. It’s more about the Post trying to reach a greater conservative audience than a condemnation of the Post as being conservative.

Link #2:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/the-washington-post-aka-f_b_230188.html

The second article just proves that the post’s economic prognosticators suck. The author’s attempt to link the post to Fox in the title of the article is the only point at which the author subtly suggests that they’re right wing.

Link #3 & #4:

http://www.fair.org/blog/2009/06/01/dcs-fox-on-15th-street-still-hates-unions/

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/beat_the_press_archive?month=06&year=2009&base_name=fox_on_15th_aka_the_washington_1

All three of these links are to the same commentator, Dean Baker. I would say that none of these reinforce your argument because all they are showing are the views of one man, not a greater overall view.

Link #5:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/23/1079939624187.html

This article just proves that the NYT has had serious problems with fact-checking for a long time. I would further state that since every intelligence organization on the face of the earth was telling everyone that Saddam had WMD’s, the NYT’s failure is not evidence of their being conservative…but perhaps evidence of what the author called, “a pack mentality.”

Link #6:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101026/cm_yblog_upshot/ny-times-reporter-defends-profile-of-wikileaks-assange

Since Sweden has a warrant out for Assange’s detention for questioning, I think John Burns can stand solidly behind his article and that Greenwald is off base in his criticism

Link #7:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsiBl2CaDFg

Much as I think Chomsky is a loon, you’ve picked the one area where I think he’s on to something. Governments try to manufacture consent through propaganda all the time. A good read on the subject would be Ian Kershaw’s “The Hitler Myth” which describes the methods Hitler’s propaganda machine used to foster an image of the benevolent dictator with the Big Lie.

However, I agree with what Tom Wolfe had to say in the clip, that there’s not some sinister cabal of conservatives trying to portray themselves as liberals so they can get on with their nefarious works…Bilderberg Society aside.

Link #8

http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/baker080810.html

Okay, citing Dean Baker again. Too narrow a sampling to bolster your argument.

Link #9:

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/labor-shortages-in-china-are-an-argument-against-raising-the-yuan

Um…Baker again.

You then stated:

“The important distinction that must be made is that they are establishment conservative media outlets, so they support foreign wars, muscular foreign policy abroad, corporate tax breaks, regressive tax structures, a weakening of public enterprise safety mechanisms, and are generally beholden to private concentrations of power. Regarding social or cultural issues, the Washington Post is moderate and the NYT is liberal, generally speaking.”

Your last sentence I would entirely agree with.

However, the term establishment conservative media is to my mind inaccurate. Just because something is “establishment” does not necessarily mean it is conservative.

As for support of foreign wars, that is not an idea that is solely the purview of conservatives or even the idea of conservatism. Nor is the idea of a muscular foreign policy.

See as a few examples:

The Soviet Union in Eastern Europe.

Cuba in Angola.

The U.S. (under Kennedy) in Vietnam.

France in Algeria.

China in Tibet or with regards to Taiwan.

Etc. etc.

Examples of progressive or socialist or Communist support for foreign wars and a muscular foreign policy abound, and Marx’ ideas of a Worldwide revolution belie the argument that only a conservative supports war.

And the statist policies of many progressives certainly suggest a desire for concentration of power in private hands.

Anyway, I’m not here to change your mind (nor think that I could), but do appreciate that we’re able to have a civil discussion of our differences. Thanks again for giving me some insight into your thought process.

Why do Americans who were born into the bosom of luxury and comfort in the greatest and most prolific country on the planet hate it?

Just wondering.

ASDF...that's a great question. Maybe Arthur jr. will write an op-ed on the subject some day.

Or Chomsky could write a book. Or Olbermann do a commentary? Or Babs Streisand? Or Mr. Moore?