Why I’m giving up on the New York Times September 29, 1985

 

 

Sunday without the Sunday Times.

I’m boycotting it because of its skewed coverage at a time when I’m trying to broaden my horizons. The concept that the paper of record should be biased appalls me.

I would like the balance everything off by saying I don’t buy “Soldier of Fortune” magazine; yet it’s just not the same thing.

The problem is that too many people take the New York Times too seriously, reacting to its pages as if verses from The Bible – which it is not.

This betrayal of editorial standards bothers me more than it should, since it has always been a questionable venue, I’ve just come to notice its bias more these days as politics ramps up under Reagan.

It almost feels as bad as them poisoning babies or kicking a blind man down a flight of stairs.

The problem is what do we replace it with? Mother Jones, The Nation and such publications are worse, but we never accepted them as legitimate as we always have the Times, and now we’re like an addict who can’t find a substitute drugs.

It’s the classic Coke vs. new Coke crap all over again.

Let’s face it, there is no such thing as objective truth; the best we can do is an approximation.

Take abortion, for instance, the paper is all out in support for it because they believe men oppress women. Getting a woman pregnant historically has been a way of keeping them faithful for centuries. Abortion gives them a way out but ignores the central fact that they are doing so by taking a life – which is why some many pro-abortion people are desperate to say it’s not a life, so as to be relieved of the guilt.

They claim a fetus is nothing more than a tumor, and we think nothing of cutting a tumor out.

This also ignores the convenience abortion provides most women who change their minds half way through a life-changing process, and also ignores the people most likely to get abortions are people of color – which is why most of the clinics are located in those neighborhoods. The founder of Planned Parenthood founded for the particular reason to abort black babies.

The pro-abortion people are clearly more concerned with social impact of a pregnancy than the rights of an unborn child. Everybody wants to make love without consequence.

We get nothing but the rare cases in the Times about the suffering woman. I guess it’s just too hard to interview a fetus to find out how he or she feels.

Is it murder? Would many of these women seek backroom abortions in the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade?

We don’t get both arguments from the Times or Boston Globe or any of those other once-dependable institutions of the Fourth Estate, publications that make those fighting for the fetus seem like nut jobs.

That’s not fair.

It’s also not the only issue in which these noble publications slant their coverage, making it seem as if the only intelligent-thinking people believe as they do, the rest must by hillbillies.

The Times has an agenda and yet many people read it as gospel, keeping themselves deluded by never hearing any other side.

That’s sad. I guess maybe I’m better off not expanding my horizons with such a dish rag anyway.

 

 1985 Menu 


email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

An old nemesis December 11, 1985

The clock is ticking July 18, 1985

Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985