A brief item in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on the launch of a new newspaper in New York of which the editor of Smartertimes.com will be the managing editor. The item reports, "The New York Sun, a daily newspaper being started by investors and former members of The Forward, announced yesterday that it would begin publication in the spring." In fact, of the 11 backers announced by the New York Sun yesterday, a grand total of two of them are former investors in a company which once owned 50% of the Forward newspaper and which now owns zero percent of the Forward newspaper. As for being "members of the Forward," the phrase is meaningless. You can be a member of the Careless Journalists Association, but you can't be a "member" of the Forward any more than you can be a "member" of the New York Times. It's a newspaper, not a membership organization. There is something called the Forward Association, which owned the half of Forward Newspaper LLC that was not owned by the company that the two New York Sun investors invested in. The Forward Association has members. But none of them are among those starting the New York Sun. Maybe the Times meant to write "former staff members" of the Forward. The Times item goes on to report that Seth Lipsky will be "vice president of the new paper's parent company." As the press release issued yesterday makes completely clear, Mr. Lipsky will be president and CEO of the new paper's parent company. He does not hold the title of vice president of that company.
Racial Profiling: An item in the national briefing column of today's New York Times reports, "Michigan: More Domestic Security: Dearborn, home to the country's largest concentration of Arab-American Muslims, is creating a new police position to oversee terrorism-related security. Mayor Michael A. Guido said the city would earmark $250,000 in next year's budget for counterterrorism, including heightened building security, hazardous-materials response and handling anthrax threats. The lieutenant, who has not yet been named, will be a liaison to state and federal agencies."
What is the relevance of the "concentration of Arab-American Muslims" in Dearborn to the fact that a new police anti-terrorism position is being created there? The Times article doesn't say. Are the Dearborn-based Arab-American Muslims hiring a police lieutenant to protect them from terrorists who are not Arab-American or Muslim? Or are the non-Arab-Americans and non-Muslims in Dearborn concerned about an attack by the Arab-American Muslims in their midst? The New York Times metro section today manages to write an entire full-length news article about the appointment of a new deputy police commissioner for counterterrorism in New York City without making any stray remarks about how many Arabs or Muslims there are in New York, so it's a bit odd that this brief in the national section would mention the issue in Dearborn without making the relevance clear.
Clintonesque: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times profiles an aide to Bill Clinton. Speaking of a bakery in Harlem, the aide declares, "They got empowerment zone money. And who created the empowerment zones? Clinton." That's a distortion that the Times passes along to readers without even a raised eyebrow. The Housing and Community Development Act of 1987 included an enterprise zone program, based on the ideas of Jack Kemp. In the Clinton administration, empowerment zones, which are enterprise zones with more government spending, were hardly a White House initiative. As Mitchell Moss described it in the Spring 1995 issue of City Journal: "Congressman Charles Rangel of Harlem, then the third-ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, was largely responsible for inserting the empowerment zone proposal into the 1993 act, which combined tax hikes for the rich with tax credits for the working poor. Before that, President Clinton had given up on any large-scale public investment program, after failing to pass an economic stimulus package that would have channeled federal money into communities across the country. But Rangel pushed hard to authorize tax credits and funds for empowerment zones in the budget reconciliation act, which was subject to a single up-or-down congressional vote. Once the money was authorized, it took the joint efforts of New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley and Congressman Rangel actually to appropriate funds for the empowerment zone program in the appropriation bill for the U.S. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for fiscal year 1995." To say that Clinton "created the empowerment zones" without giving credit to Mr. Kemp, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Bradley is to twist history.
Say That Again: An article on Page B2 of today's New York Times reports, "Donor's Death at Hospital Halts Some Liver Surgeries." An article on page A15 of today's New York Times reports, "Death of Donor Halts Some Transplants." The Times editors apparently liked this news story so much they printed it twice.
Militants: A front-page article in today's New York Times studiously avoids the use of the word "terrorists" to describe Arabs who intentionally kill Jewish civilians. The Arabs are referred to as "militants" and "gunmen" but not as terrorists.
Front-Page News: Two students are shot inside an Upper West Side high school, the first such attack in New York in nearly 8 years, and what does the New York Times put on its front page today instead? A feature on catfish in Arkansas. The school shooting didn't even merit a mention in the "inside" box on the paper's front page, according to the judgment of the Times editors.