{"id":370182,"date":"2018-07-20T14:29:15","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T13:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/action-alert-tell-nyt-not-to-present-center-right-as-left\/"},"modified":"2018-07-20T14:29:15","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T13:29:15","slug":"action-alert-tell-nyt-not-to-present-center-right-as-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/action-alert-tell-nyt-not-to-present-center-right-as-left\/","title":{"rendered":"Action Alert: Tell NYT Not to Present Center-Right as \u2018Left\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Right<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/strong> (7\/17\/18<\/a>) brings you the views of the whole political spectrum–as defined by the New York Times<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The New York Times<\/b>, despite its above-the-fray self-image, is one of most overtly ideological institutions on earth. Its primary editorial purpose\u2014as laid out by its own opinion page editor earlier this year (James Bennett: \u201cWe are in favor of capitalism\u201d\u2014FAIR.org<\/b>, 3\/1\/18<\/a>)\u2014is to defend the unimpeachable virtues of capitalism. As such, whoever the Times<\/b> holds up as \u201cthe left\u201d\u2014in its sourcing and in its hiring practices (FAIR.org<\/b>, 4\/20\/17<\/a>)\u2014has to first and foremost accept the primacy of the market and the broader virtue of a US-run global order that promotes this particular ideology.<\/p>\n

Even so, when Times<\/b> reporter Jennifer Jett (7\/17\/18<\/a>) wanted to recap reactions\u2014\u201cfrom the right and left\u201d\u2014to Donald Trump\u2019s recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the choice of pundits she turned to to represent \u201cthe left\u201d was exceedingly bizarre. Somehow Alina Polyakova, a conventional wisdom-echoing research director at the NATO-aligned and -funded think tank<\/a> Atlantic Council, <\/b>\u00a0and Fred Kaplan, a champion of the Iraq War<\/a> at Slate<\/b>, were offered by Jett as \u201cthe left.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third member of this three-person list was Atlantic<\/b> staff writer James Fallows, the one person included whom you could argue was some species of leftist (though the Radical Middle Newsletter<\/b> cites<\/a> him as an example of a \u201cgreat radical-centrist journalist\u201d). While The Atlantic<\/b> is generally a center-right publication, Fallows is at least a skeptic of US military power, but by no means a consistent anti-imperialist.<\/p>\n

Polyakova has made a name for herself in the emerging cottage industry of Russia experts who are willing to toe the US NatSec consensus<\/a> line that Russia is the alpha and omega of all bad things in the US, Europe and the Levant. Kaplan, for his part, is simply a dull, reliable partisan. Polyakova and Kaplan pushing the Sinister Russia Puppeteer narrative is anything but unexpected, but one has to wonder: In what universe are they \u201cthe left\u201d? They have no history in left-wing activism, politics, academia or media. They are, for better or worse, boilerplate centrist hawks, toeing the exact line 99 percent of our media do.<\/p>\n

By contrast, the \u201cright\u201d was represented in the Times<\/b> feature by pundits from bona fide outlets of the conservative movement: the National Review<\/b>, American Conservative<\/b>, Weekly Standard<\/b>, The Federalist<\/b>.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/strong>‘ strange vision of who “the left” is.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Fallows, whom one could argue represents a meaningful segment of \u201cthe left,\u201d echoes the MSNBC<\/b> line that Trump, when he refuses to reject Putin\u2019s denials of US intelligence charges that Russia intervened on Trump\u2019s behalf in the 2016 election, is \u201cshockingly advanc[ing] the interests of another country over those of his own government and people.\u201d<\/b> It would be disingenuous to suggest there wasn\u2019t a sizable segment of the American left who believe this to be true\u2014and believe it to be a genuine threat to working-class interests\u2014but this belief is by no means uniform.<\/p>\n

Lots of professional opinion-havers on the left, from Noam Chomsky to Matt Taibbi to Katrina vanden Heuvel, are skeptical of the whole premise, and feel trafficking in the prevailing Manchurian Candidate fear-mongering fuels Cold War forces, avoids broader issues of inequality and establishment failures, and could lead to escalation in Syria, Ukraine and possibly even a nuclear war. None of these voices, of course, are permitted to be heard from in the New York Times<\/b>, whose opinion pages were united in breathless indignation that the US intelligence community was having its good name dragged through the mud.<\/p>\n

The only non\u2013\u201csky is falling\u201d take permitted, per usual, is from the revanchist right wing\u2014in this instance, the American Conservative<\/b>\u2019s Pat Buchanan<\/a>. As we\u2019ve noted in the past, anti-interventionist positions are almost always represented by libertarian or nativist voices; this way publications can tell themselves they didn\u2019t uniformly follow the official pro-military line, without allowing actual anti-imperialist or leftist voices that may muddy the waters by making fundamental critiques of our system, rather than the white supremacy\u2013flattering, pseudo-opposition offered up by antisemites like Buchanan.<\/p>\n

Given that milquetoast centrists were standing in for the left, one might wonder whom the Times<\/b> held up to represent the \u201ccenter\u201d: none other than hotel room doormat USA Today<\/b> and arch-neoconservative Iraq War\u2013promoter<\/a> and child-rape apologist<\/a> Anne Applebaum. The voices of the American center, indeed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a small but telling example. The Times<\/b>\u2019 primary charge is to firmly establish the parameters of debate. To do this it must offer up the most banal, NATO-echoing conventional wisdom as representing the acceptable left wing of this debate, and, as it does with its opinion page (FAIR.org<\/b>, 6\/20\/17<\/a>), only permit \u201cfringe\u201d positions so long as they come from the far right and never really offend traditional centers of power.<\/p>\n

ACTION ALERT:<\/i><\/strong>
\n<\/i>
\n<\/i>Please tell the New York Times<\/strong> to use actual voices from the left to represent \u201cleft\u201d opinion\u2014on the Helsinki summit or anything else. <\/i><\/p>\n

email:<\/strong> ourpicks@nytimes.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Twitter<\/strong>: @NYTimes<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/p>\n

Feel free to leave copies of your communication in comments below. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

h\/t Tim Shorrock<\/i><\/p>\n

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