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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An old nemesis December 11, 1985

Image
    Surisky hated me from early on in grammar school, although “hate” may be too strong a word to describe his reaction to me. I was simply available to him for abuse, Third grade was pivotal for both of us. Prior to that, we were simply feeling our way through Catholic School routine, emerging eventually as whole personalities from the muck of early childhood. He came across as a thug, trying to convey the image of a tough guy. He wore a leather jacket and spiked boots, and snuck into see James Dean movies. Third grade was tough on everybody, including the teachers, who considered us the worst class in the history of the school – even in the safe grades of Kindergarten, First and Second. Two of the three nuns retired after passing us on. But it was in the third grade that we began to work our magic, driving even the stout-hearted nuns crazy. Later, the nuns tried to break our spirit. But we fully represented our age and had the full impact of the 1960s behind us. So,
Read more

Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985

Image
    Pauly is leaving Passaic again. This comes after two years of us rubbing shoulders after he had been cast out of paradise in Towaco, after his goddess, Jane, went and married that man Pauly calls “a bum.” This has been a tough two years, filled with Pauly’s typical manipulation, his usual shaping of reality to his own needs often at other people’s (mine) expense. When Pauly first came I had Fran’s cultist brother as a temporary guest and Pauly spent most of his time trying to push me into getting that guest out. A few months later – in November – Fran got the ax from her ex and changed her mind about moving in with me after I had committed the spare room to Pauly. He assumed she meant more to me than he did and was already packing when I told Fran no. She had no place to go except for her father’s house, a father she had a love/hate relationship with, and she held it against me, even though we continued to see each other romantically. Pauly being Pauly drove me out of
Read more

The clock is ticking July 18, 1985

Image
  We’re talking love here – silly fictional love with all the connotations of disaster. I seem to be on the meat chopping block with Safire looking for qualities in me that are lacking in her husband. The fact that there is a husband in the first place greatly disturbs me. All this said, I’m uncertain as to why I haven’t ended this already, except to know she is too much like my ex-wife to pass up without a closer examination. Even the way she thinks: slow, methodical, going from point A to point B. It has only been a week since she blurted out drunk that she wanted me in bed. It seems like much longer. And she hints of something more permanent, suggesting that I might fill in for her husband for a much longer duration. The night before last she suggested I come see her in her trailer, as if she is legally separated from her husband, when in fact she is supposed to be biding time until he finds them both a place to live in Baltimore. This is the same kind of smoke and mir
Read more