This week, journalists are quite concerned about shameful moments in history. Yet, conservative radio host Mark Levin on Wednesday found OTHER moments they aren’t so fond of remembering. On his show, Levin excoriated the New York Times for lecturing Donald Trump and Republicans on Civil War statues. He mocked, “The New York Times is said to be the paper of record. The New York Times is the paper that all the left-wingers pick up when they are going on Amtrak.”
He derided the Times as:
The very newspaper that sought to conceal the Holocaust, something that Donald Trump has never done! Just as Franklin Roosevelt attempted to conceal the Holocaust! Something Donald Trump has never done!
(For audio of the segment, go here.) Citing the love liberals have for FDR, the host wondered, “Where are the Franklin Roosevelt memorials? Why aren’t we ripping them down?... The only modern President to put American citizens in internment camps!”
Levin then read from this 2013 Daily Beast expose of the New York Times:
Between 1939 and 1945, The New York Times published more than 23,000 front-page stories. Of those, 11,500 were about World War II. Twenty-six were about the Holocaust.
So why did “the paper of record,” which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is said to have combed through every morning, decide to bury the bulk of its Holocaust coverage deep inside the paper, nestled between advertisements?
...
We now know that the U.S. government was aware of the genocide as early as 1942. The “fourth estate” was aware as well, yet still pussyfooted around it. As an example of the Times’s paltry coverage of the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of approximately 6 million Jews, the film points to a story published in the paper July 29, 1942, about the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. The story bore the headline “Warsaw Fears Extermination,” was published on Page 7, and was not even a stand-alone story, instead consisting of a handful of paragraphs nestled next to an ad for Emerson spinet pianos.
“It was a bad judgment call,” former Times reporter Alex Jones (’83–’92) says in the film. “It was something that mattered as much as anything as far as news judgment, and The New York Times blew it.”
Levin seethed, “Oh, they blew it? Over and over and over again! For ten years, they blew it! The New York Times. And they dare to write an editorial trashing Donald Trump, who is responsible for none of this?”
A partial transcript is below:
The Mark Levin Show
8/16/17MARK LEVIN: Did Donald Trump ever try to cover up the Holocaust? I would ask Jim Acosta, who is a complete clown? I would ask Don Lemon, who is a complete moron. But then again, they don’t want to be asked.
...
LEVIN: The Media now have a base. MSNBC has the hard-left wing kooks. CNN is competing for the hard-left wing kooks by hiring a conga line of hard-left wing kooks, much like MSNBC’s hard-left wing kooks.
...
LEVIN: But when are we going to hold people actually responsible for things that they’ve done? Things that they’ve done. And if the things that they’ve done are so unconscionable, why should we rely on them today? Why should we give them any credibility today? And yet, the New York Times is said to be the paper of record. The New York Times is the paper that all the left-wingers pick up when they are going on Amtrak.
...
LEVIN: The very newspaper that sought to conceal the Holocaust, something that Donald Trump has never done! Just as Franklin Roosevelt attempted to conceal the Holocaust! Something Donald Trump has never done!
...
LEVIN: Where are the Franklin Roosevelt memorials? Why aren’t we ripping them down? Why aren’t we ripping them down? The only modern President to put American citizens in internment camps!
...
LEVIN: Liberal history professors time and again rate FDR the greatest president! He’s cited by the Democratic Party over and over again! “Well, he gave us Social Security.” He also gave us internment!
...
LEVIN: Here’s a history lesson. I know it’s not a statue, but it’s a history lesson. Even the Daily Beast picked up on this back in 2013. Between 1939 and 1945, and I’ve talked about this many times, “the New York Times published more than 23,000 front-page stories. Of those, 11,500 were about World War II. Twenty-six were about the Holocaust. So why did “the paper of record,” which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is said to have combed through every morning, decide to bury the bulk of its Holocaust coverage deep inside the paper, nestled between advertisements?
The documentary short Reporting on the Times, which will make its premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival— ” remember this was written in 2013 — “tackles this frustrating question. Directed by Emily Harrold—who, at 22, is the youngest filmmaker at the festival—and inspired by Laurel Leff’s award-winning book Buried by the Times, the 18-minute film provides a fascinating mix of archival footage and talking heads, including a Warsaw Ghetto survivor, former Times reporters, and historians, to get to the bottom of The Times’s decisions.
“We had to wear armbands with the Star of David,” Warsaw Ghetto survivor Estelle Laughlin, who was 10 when the war broke out, says in the film. “I remember when my mother first put on the armband, she said, ‘Wait until the world will hear about this.’ My mother was an optimist.”We now know that the U.S. government was aware of the genocide as early as 1942. The “fourth estate” was aware as well, yet still pussyfooted around it. As an example of the Times’s paltry coverage of the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of approximately six million Jews, the film points to a story published in the paper July 29, 1942, about the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. The story bore the headline “Warsaw Fears Extermination,” was published on Page 7, and was not even a stand-alone story, instead consisting of a handful of paragraphs nestled next to an ad for Emerson spinet pianos.
“It was a bad judgment call,’ former Times reporter Alex Jones (’83–’92) says in the film. ‘It was something that mattered as much as anything as far as news judgment, and The New York Times blew it.”
Oh, they blew it? Over and over and over again! For ten years, they blew it! The New York Times. And they dare to write an editorial trashing Donald Trump, who is responsible for none of this?
