More Hypocritical Behavior From the New York Times

From publishing the Pentagon Papers to revealing the al Qaeda wiretaps to providing lengthy depictions on enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the United States, the New York Times has shown time and again they cannot keep a secret, except …

Except when it benefits one of their own.

New York Times reporter David Rohde was kidnapped and held by the Taliban in Pakistan seven months ago. Since that time, the New York Times has actively and effectively fought to have this information withheld from publication from all news sources, including al Jazeera.

The duplicity exhibited by New York Times executive editor Bill Keller of the New York Times is disgusting. Keller’s justifications for spiking the story for 7 months could apply to each of the stories the NYT was requested to withhold for national security reasons, but did not.

"All along, we were told by people that probably the wisest course for … safety was to keep it quiet." The al Qaeda wiretaps of international phone calls was providing a great deal of safety to all Americans, but the NY Times could not keep to the wise course and destroyed the program with their publication of the information.

"The more you talk about who did what ... the more you're writing a playbook for the [terrorists]." This would certainly apply to the playbook on enhanced interrogation techniques, but the New York Times wants to make sure terrorist world wide know exactly what we will do to get them to talk, and how far we will go to make sure they are not in any real danger during interrogations.

Publication "could increase the danger" to their reporter. The New York Times every day publicizes both information and misinformation that increases the danger to all Americans. Why is their reporter special?

What other information is the Times burying? I wager they are burying and not reporting who kidnapped their reporter and exactly where they were held. That might endanger the lives of the terrorists that took the kidnapper, you see.

When the New York Times published the classified Pentagon Papers, their justification was that they did not "feel like" the papers should be classified, and did not "feel like" they were giving secrets to a nation at war with the United States. Of course, they were wrong, but it really was about how they felt.

When the New York Times published details of the al Qaeda wiretaps, they did not feel the need to provide a justification for exposing a secret and effective anti-terrorist program.

Now they "feel" the need to provide a justification for NOT publishing (and spiking all other news sources from publishing) news that was indeed "Fit to Print" and in no way affected the security of the United States. Funny how things change over the years.

They certainly published stories about other journalists captured in Iran and North Korea during these past seven months ... what made the case of David Rohde special?

Roared In Like a Lion, Leaves With a Whimper

Time-Warner announced today that it will spin off AOL, dumping the company that purchased Time Warner nine years ago in what was to be the first of the megadeals where Internet companies would buy up all the old media.

AOL failed as a media giant for the same reason movies make more money than the theatres do - content is more valuable than access.

The other piece hitting old media now is that multiple-source access is more valuable than single source access. Newspapers are dead, they just don't know it yet.

The Destruction of American Education

Further proof that Schools of Education are educational fraud. In the very smart, very elite, very progressive state of Massachusetts, only 27% of aspiring elementary school teachers could pass the mathematics portion of the certification exam.

A state official claims this result places a shining light on a deficiency of the state's teacher prep program.

What is actually does is shines a light on the whole construct of a "teacher prep" program. There should be no degree in "education". A teacher prep program should be four courses in teaching theory and practice. Otherwise, if you want to teach math, you should have a math degree. If you want to teach science, you should have a science degree. Only in that way will our students be taught by persons who have the intellectual basis to actually teach the subject.

This, of course, is a parallel with Schools of Journalism. Unlike elementary school, which is mandatory, the poor products being turned our with journalism degrees are killing newspapers because the entirely lack an understanding of the material about which they write.

The dumbing down of America continues unabated. Wait until B. Hussein Obama and his appointees dictate the end of homeschooling. You read it here first.