All the News that’s fit to Suppress
Friday, October 31, 2008 at 05:36AM 
I cancelled my subscription to The LA Times years ago. I cancelled because The LA Times takes that newspaper adage - “if it bleeds, it reads” -- to an extreme; The LA Times features stories of death and mayhem.
The modern trend in journalism is to wrap social commentary around personal anecdotes. And at The LA Times, actual reporting - fact without an agenda – was long ago abandoned in favor of violent, heart-wrenching anecdotes designed to advocate for specific political solutions. Individual, personal heartbreaks - one man’s in-depth tale of booze and wife-beating, or a young woman’s story of prostitution on Sunset Blvd. - became vehicles for illustrating a social injustice, and to promote a cause.
I am not really surprised to read that The LA Times is now suppressing a video tape which reveals Obama’s close ties with PLO spokesperson, Khalidi.
Bias is expressed not only by how something is reported, but in the choice of what to report and what not to report. The LA Times is supporting Barack Obama, and will not release important information if it means that the story might hurt Obama at the polls.
Photo credit: Mere Rhetoric
HT: Michelle Malkin
Media bias 
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Reader Comments (87)
This is my point to Noel about the media. It does not exert a strong influence and report on events neutrally, this is not neutral reporting. The deliberate suppression of information because it will hurt their man.
About the personal anecdotes. I totally agree. The little personal story is put accross to make the political point, and it makes it much more potent way than mere neutral reporting.
Didn't the LA Times say it wasn't releasing the tape as it would hurt their source?
Anyway, it's not the point, but it's good to see that Obama doesn't follow the slavish pro-Israel line at the expense of the Palestinian side.
Should read "slavishly follow the pro-Israel line"!
I guess those people in the picture could be Obama supporters!
Reg -
The LA Times made up a load of old tosh about having to protect their source.
Right.
As if you give a tape to the newspaper with an instruction for its suppression.
Someone at a Fox site ( imagine that, Fox haters-- cannot find it at moment ) wrote a piece very recently, stating that it was neither unusual or unjustified for material to be given under condition of not releasing the original source / source material, in order to protect the source.
There could be reasons for this - the nearby voices on the tape could make it easy to track it to who was holding the camera, etc-- might not make you so popular in the lib set..
This is what I just referred to.
of course there is also the little fact that John Mc Cain has connections to Khalidi.
On a light hearted note but none the less a typical example :
Palin and the Pope
The Pope is visiting DC, and Palin takes him out for an afternoon on the
Potomac . They're admiring the sights when, all of a sudden, the Pope's
hat blows off his head and out into the water.
Secret service guys start to launch a boat, but Palin waves them off,
saying, "Wait, wait. I'll take care of this. Don't worry."
Palin steps onto the surface of the water and walks out to the Holy
Father's little hat, bends over and picks it up, then walks back. She hands the hat
to the Pope amid stunned silence.
The next morning, the Washington Post, NY Times, ABC News, CBS News, NBC
News, and CNN carry a story, complete with photos of the event. The banner
headline reads: "Palin Can't Swim!"
When Arnold Swrazenegger (R) ran as Governor, The LA TImes ran all sorts of bile - confidential or not - factual or not - they just did whatever they could to crush his candidacy.
I was never an Arnold supporter, btw. But it was noticeable, and caused a stir.
Point is that The LA Times is simply not credible when it saws that it is protecting its source. Also,that is the 3rd excuse they have put forward so far.
Pinky: That's irrelevant to the suppression of this tape. Gone are the days when papers reported and the public decided.
From mere Mere Rhetoric, linked above:
"So far the LA Times has come up with the following excuses for not releasing the tape showing PLO terrorist Rashid Khalidi toasting Obama:
(1) "We release the details by reporting what's in the tape"
(2) "We can't release the details because it's unethical"
(3) "We're not going to comment about how we're not releasing the details"
Which means that not only is the Los Angeles Times in clinical denial about their breathtaking lack of ethics - they're actually regressing. Their excuses are getting worse. They're so bad now that Ben Smith is now just openly mocking them..."
Pinky: That's irrelevant to the suppression of this tape
it may or may not be Patty!!!!
This may be a good opportunity for me to point to an actual service to the public discourse that Michelle Malkin did recently. In general, I find her to be a shallow predictable lightweight whose writing is as poor as her sense. But, on the story of the woman who carved a B into her own face Michelle was way ahead of the curve among the blogging right and correctly diagnosed a hoax. I give her credit for that. An opportunity to pander and she did the right thing instead.
Here we have a nonstory. Obama at a party praises a guy who is not a friend of Israel. So what. He isn't running guns to the PLO or congratualting them on blowing up civilians. He's praising a guy he knows at some private party.
As for the tape, if the paper claims they are holding it back to protect a source of their story that seems fairly standard as a journalistic practice. They may have wanted to see the tape so they could confirm the story, and the source may have agreed on condition that the tape not be released because he or she would be intentified. Reporters protect their sources, and have gone to jail on occasion to do so. The Times did publish the story itself which indicates they aren't hiding the story.
The LA Times story detailing Obama's close relation to PLO supporter, Khalidi was published before Obama was the chosen candidate,when he was still running against Hillary.
Pinky: My post is about suppression of news by The LA Times, not McCain. So, imo, it is irrelevant.
I don't think that Palestinians or Palestinian Americans should be expected to be big time friends of Israel.
And I think that it is legitimate that they are part of the US political process. Politicians should deal with them. I would be happy to talk to them myself.
But...I'd like to see that tape!
Mahons -
Here we have a nonstory
If it's no big deal, let them release the tape. Let them speak truth to power.
This does Obama no favours. If he's a robust candidate his reputation will stand up to candid disclosure and open appraisal.
Even if this is no big deal, an impression is given. That impression is that the media suspects Obama cannot stand up to it, that his feet are of clay, that his reputation will be easily punctured.
The media has had months to show its faith in their candidate and it chose instead to run.
Patty - you want a real story about media bias that conservatives seem to be missing, or at least not highlighting - The New York Times disgusting profile of Cindy McCain which when compared with their fawning blindly over Michele Obama made me want to puke.
That to me is a story worth mentioning. It won't effect how anyone votes (wives are a side issue in the context of the election), but it clealry demonstrates a double standard and what I consider to be an unnecessary and revolting article. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Pete - the nonstory is the event itself, so he praised some guy at a party. We need to see this on video?
Journalists are entitled to protect their sources, and that seems to be what they are doing here. That part isn't even a story it is a hyped up excuse for rightworlders to avoid talking about the obvious - the election is slip sliding away from them. However at least it is allowing them to concentrate on what they like best - media bashing and conspiracy theories.
Mahon's, it's what others are saying at the podium, say, anti-semetic things, while obama sits on that is troubling, fron what I've heard. At work, can't post links now.
But just like with Rev Wright. Obama didn't say those things, but for 20 yearas he didn't get up and leave either.
Where's Judge Scirica when you need him? Release the tapes!
Mahons: We disgree on so many things.... I think suppression of news during a Presidential campaign is important. You don't.
So, let's just agree to disagree. For the sake of the children (and by that I mean our fellow travelers here at ATW) if nothing else.
I'm not entirely sure that this thing is being concealed in order to protect a source.
Charles - an interesting point, but do you believe he was clapping enthusiatically for the destruction of Israel or contributing to a suicide bomber fund? And how far has the guilt by association efforts taken McCain?
Patty - No. I don't think the suppression of news is a good thing, you are mischaracterizing what I have written. I think in this instance the story has been written, the news provided and a source protected. The "news" has not been suppressed.
Phantom, I think it's being suppressed to protect a source of Democratic Jewish votes in Miami Florida that could swing that state to McCain.
Mahons, reporting on Rev Wright and seeing Rev Wright on tape are two different things!
Charles
Yes, that is a real possibility.
Even our friends on the Dem side of the aisle tend to concede that the media is in the tank tor That One, and this may be another example of that.
--
I miss poor Reverend Wright. Its a pity the Obama guys chained him up in the basement like that.
If we don't see the tape, we can't say what's in it.
We can't say The LA Times has already reported the story until we see the tape.
The LA Times was given a tape by a source in order to report what is on the tape. and now the LA Times is suppressing the news.
'The New York Times disgusting profile of Cindy McCain which when compared with their fawning blindly over Michele Obama made me want to puke.
That to me is a story worth mentioning. It won't effect how anyone votes (wives are a side issue in the context of the election), but it clealry demonstrates a double standard and what I consider to be an unnecessary and revolting article.
'
Agreed Mahons- that was an awful piece of 'journalism' and I am suprised there was not a right-world uproar over it.
The LA Times tape is really a non-story. Mc Cain's politics by association backfires on him at every turn.
Pinky: "The LA Times tape is really a non-story"
How do you know? The LA Times will not let the public see the tape. So, the public cannot judge whether or not it is an important story.
People used to say that the public has a "right to know" and the newspapers provided us with information towards this end. But this is obviously no longer the case.
The fact that a major newspaper in a major city is actively suppressing news in an election cycle is the news. Suppression of news is now acceptable.
Patty - you don't even have the story without the report of the LA Times. If one reads the article itself, which was published some onths ago, they fairly lay out what is in the tape. The news is thus not being suppressed.
Again you repeat the accusation that people favor suppression of the news, which is untrue. In this instance the story is out, the news reported and the source protected. Journalism 101.
Charles- what you want is not the news or the story but the salicious slant a video might provide. True or not? And how bad could this speaker really be if McCain's organization has funneled funds to him?
Pinky, this is an Uproar by the base, not McCain.
The NYT was a usual hit piece by that rag. We're used to it.
Charles - um no, both McCain and Palin have latched onto this.
As for a usual hit piece you are wrong. It was an extraordinary pathological attack on Cindy McCain, focusing on her miscarriages and medication addiction and the unfortunate things she did will addicted that any decent person would recognize as the kind of sad thing an addict would do. It was manifestly irrelevant to the election. When contrasted with the fawing portrait of Michelle Obama it defies any sense of ethical reporting.
If your lot would focus on the real and not the imagined you would have had a shot at winning this election.
"your lot", he says!!
Salem's Lot would perhaps be more appropriate given the festive holiday.
An cynical man might mention the irony in those who support an Administration that suppressed photos of caskets coming home to America from Iraq, who deny reporters full access to the prison camp in Gitmo and who created their own faux journalist. I am that cynical man.
If your lot would focus on the real and not the imagined you would have had a shot at winning this election.
I agree. For example on ATW, you and I Mahons were the only people discussing the hatchet job on Mrs. Mc Cain.
The Mc Cain campaign missed the boat on that, and many other issues, which is why they are struggling the way they are at this stage. A badly run campaign.
Supression of the news? Well, the past 8 years perfected that didn't it- and people are dying for it.
I assume the NYT didn't talk about her on the ground work in Bangledesh, not the rock star photo op bs, but the mother theresa stuff? Thank you for bring the full extent of the depravity of the NYT to me Mahons.
We do have a shot at winning, and we WILL WIN. You may take this as my gentleman's bet!
Scratch a cynic and find an idealist!
I read the Times six days a week, but not Sunday.
Far,far too large, when you're doing a lot of other reading. Plus I save a few trees that way.
assume the NYT didn't talk about her on the ground work in Bangledesh, not the rock star photo op bs, but the mother theresa stuff? Thank you for bring the full extent of the depravity of the NYT to me Mahons.
Charles, no they did not. What they did write was an absolute disgrace. My sister told me there was quite a follow-up in the 'letters' page with furious NYT readers rightly letting the NYT have it for such a terrible attack on the woman.
WSJ man myself. (mahons knew that already)
I'm glad to hear it Pinky. It renews my faith in man somewhat!
BTW, are you still in NYC or Penn?
The WSJ is one great newspaper. And at $100 a year for home delivery, the steal of the century. I read it six days a week also!
I still find the NY Times to be the best written paper, despite the bias (which has crept from the opinion section into strict news coverage as we all know).
Charles - they did mention the adoption, although in what I considered a way that tried to paint it as part of her strangeness. It was a hatchet job that was simply uncalled for. I don't know Cindy McCain, and she has her faults I am sure like all of us, but they put her through the ringer in a way a tabloid might have done. I suspect that some of the episodes of her life where so painful that the McCain camp decided not to prolong the protest of the article so as not to have expose her further to the talking pundit barbarity of our modern day.
I think that the best US papers I have seen are
NY Times
Washington Post
Wall Street Journal
Of the European papers, I give the Irish Times very high marks. and flit around the English ones on stories of interest
The worst paper in the country has to be The Austin American Statesman - what a complete waste of trees.
Unfortunately, most local papers are in a death spiral. Not good to begin with, they now must cut costs which makes them even worse.
I love newspapers, even the mediocre ones, and I hate the slow and not so slow decline that I see.
Not to rub salt in the conservative wounds by mentioning The Last Hurrah, but I recall the press conference scene where fictional Mayor Frank Skeffington mentions that he admires one of Boston's premier newspapers which he subscribes to because it makes fine kindling.
The latest from the Obama Fan Club
Ah yes, the riot claim. If the "outsider" loses then "they" will riot. How subtle.
Erica Jong shouldn't be allowed to speak. Writes one sex novel, and she thinks she's a big thinker