Anne Kornblut, the new New York Times reporter on the Hillary beat, betrays the liberal bent of the Times by reporting on Hillary’s fundraiser with Rupert Murdoch by quoting only the liberals outraged at her, and having no space for the conservatives outraged at him. "The brazenness of this move is almost too much to stomach," complains liberal blogger David Sirota. Paul Waldman of Media Matters, or as Kornblut calls it, "the liberal advocacy group MediaMatters.org," (coded message: please read it today), complains more about the left than about Hillary, since Media Matters is part of the Clinton army. But he added, "Nothing could be better for his media properties than for her to be president of the United States...I just can’t figure out what’s in it for her."
There are some other tidbits from the Wednesday edition as dissected at TimesWatch:
– Above that story on the same page (C-15), David Herszenhorn reports on former Senator Bob Kerry being shellacked from the left for inviting John McCain to be the commencement speaker at the liberal New School for Social Research. It’s a fairly balanced story of left vs. left, but the best part was the truly incensed anti-McCain professors:
"Senator John McCain does not believe in a woman's right to control her own fertility," shouted Ann Snitow, a professor of literature and gender studies. "He has been opposed to Roe v. Wade for more than 20 years. He is a man who believes in female sexual slavery." Ms. Snitow added: "What would he have to do to not be invited? Would he have to say we should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran tomorrow?"
– You can never call the New York Times anti-communist, but it’s still jarring to see how they underplay the, shall we say, small conflict between communism and liberties? See this on Subcomandante Marcos hitting the Mexican media from reporter James C. McKinley: "The appearance underscored Marcos's odd position in Mexican politics as he tries to remake himself as a kind of civil rights leader, though one with a Marxist vision for the country."
-- Finally, just an aside on Wednesday’s front page: I don’t think we’ll being seeing wider media play for Geraldine Fabrikant’s story on corporate perks, at least not from crusading Time magazine and excess-hating NBC News:
Richard D. Parsons, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, owns a small vineyard in Tuscany that produces a Brunello di Montalcino selling for $80 a bottle, adorned with a crest of the Parsons family.
Twice a year, he boards one of his company's four jets to visit his 20 acres in Italy. When he does, Time Warner shareholders pick up the bill.
So do shareholders of General Electric when Robert C. Wright, a vice chairman, flies to his vacation home in Palm Beach, Fla., and Bank of America shareholders when Charles K. Gifford, the chairman emeritus, flies among his homes in Boston; Nantucket, Mass.; and Key Largo, Fla.
We won't hold our breath that NBC's Lisa Myers or Time's muckraking Barlett and Steele will be all over these outrages.
