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As Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales has exhibited a complex and often antagonistic relationship with the truth. Few media outlets, however, have invoked the term ‘liar’ to describe this trait. Clark Hoyt, public editor of the New York Times, discusses the power of the ‘L’ word.
What I found completely missing from your report on the L word in relationship to the Attorney General (and the rest of this administration) was any mention of how much the rules have changed. Try this; do a lexus/nexus search of stories run by major media, including NPR, looking for stories about Al Gore, Bill Clinton and John Kerry that used the L word freely and often. As a further check on media credibility you might also search the database for the L word connected to George W Bush, a man with only nodding aquaintence with the truth.
Thank you for all you do.
Barry Poor
i found the comments of the public editor trying. yes, it is hard to read a mind, but it strains credibility to interpret either Gonzalez's of Bush misstatements to be anything other than willful and with an intent to deceive.
the beauty of english is its mix of simple words dervided from anglo saxon verbs with complex words from latin and the romance laguages. the latinate words allow english to be very subtle. the anglo saxon roots allow us brevity and directness. sadly, the times elects to avoid the necessary directness, perhaps because it fears be damned a liberal.
well, here is a simple anglo saxon word: shame!
Early on in the interview you said that you were talking about editorials, not news. Clark Hoyt heard you kept on talking about news coverage. I'm sorry that you weren't a little harder on him. I'm not hungry for the NYT to validate my opinions, but if they don't share them at least I want them to own up to what they do think! Perhaps this all ties into the Craig LaBan story, regarding that other L-word, libel.
During the interview, Mr. Hoyt said (paraphrasing) that it was not the job of the Times (or news in general) to draw conclusions, but to put the facts out there for readers to draw their own conclusions. This speaks to and begs the issue of intellectual honesty, which the Times certainly has not been know for, as in the example of Judith Miller, or in its publishing its book review of Bill Clinton's book on the front page. The Times is not intellectually honest with its readers, in my view. The Times picks its alleged 'facts' with attention to social, political, and economic agenda.
Maybe it's time we think about the definition of 'facts.' this might do those who share mr. jackson's (#4) point of view the most good. Mr. Hoyt, I thought, explained his reasoning clearly: To call Gonzales a liar in the news pages would mean, by definition, that the reporter has somehow worked his way into the AG's tiny brain, where he presumedly could examine motive (if he had a light to get through all the darknes). Is there any margin for error to say the AG lied? A tiny, tiny bit. That's because it hasn't been proven -- as a fact -- that he lied. Is it factually correct to state the situation as the Times did: That just about everything out of the guy's mouth was either untrue or tough for most people to believe? Yes. The Times has it's faults, to be sure. But it seems a bit unfair to criticize a newspaper for sticking to the facts.
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