The L.A. Times published Robert Scheer's latest Canard-o-matic-breaking column this Tuesday. It would be interesting to hear the Times' official defense of Scheer's work, especially in light of editor John Carroll's stated interest in combating the (unfair, in his view) perception that the Times is "a liberal, 'politically correct' newspaper"
I want everyone to understand how serious I am about purging all political bias from our coverage ... we are not going to push a liberal agenda in the news pages of the Times."I can't imagine what the Times' excuse for continuing to publish Scheer would be. I speculate on a motivation here, but I have no idea what kind of public explanation they might offer. In any event, I know that ignorance is not the problem. My traffic log shows that I received several dozen hits for the Canard-o-matic and other Scheer-related postings from the L.A. Times proxy server (198.187.230.40) since May 21. These hits were by way of links from Hugh Hewitt, the LA Examiner, Cathy Seipp, Andrew Sullivan, Instapundit and Best of the Web. There was even a google query for scheer "jessica lynch".
So there are people at the Times who read the more prominent web sites that criticize the Times and show Scheer's journalism to be both partisan and fraudulent. Still, they continue to publish Scheer anyway. Why? If there is a good reason for this, the Times' audience deserves to hear what it is.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 05, 2003 07:00 AMMaybe they value diversity of opinion.
Posted by: wbb on June 5, 2003 06:02 AM"Scheer's journalism to be both partisan and fraudulent"
Scheer is a commentator. He's allowed to be partisan. His column appears on the editorial pages.
You know, like those partisans George Will and William Safire and Jonah Goldberg.
As to the "fraudulent," your shrill claims seem to stem mostly from your objections to Scheer's characterizations of administration comments.
I'll have some sympathy when you explain why its okay for Donald Rumsfeld to "characterize" to the U.S. Congress about Iraqi WMD that he had "no direct evidence" of.... (WSJ, 6/5/03, pg. A4). See my comments to "Weekly Canard."
Posted by: Harry on June 5, 2003 08:13 AMOf course Scheer is entitled to his own opinions, but just like the rest of us, he is not entitled to his own facts. Unfortunately, the notion that it's OK to make up facts in support of a strongly-held opinion - on or off the editorial page - is pervasive among the L.A. Times's staff. Scheer is just the most obvious - and hence, the least dangerous - of the lot.
Posted by: Xrlq on June 5, 2003 03:40 PM