This Sunday the New York Times, my hometown paper, had its first major connect-the-dots piece on the Bush domestic agenda and it wasn’t on the front page either. “The War Against Women,” which did a highly effective job of putting this administration’s complex assault on a woman’s right to chose in a single place, appeared as the lead editorial in the “Week in Review” section. Don’t miss it.
To read The War Against Women click here
Unfortunately, as I’ve said elsewhere — and as Matthew Engel, a correspondent for the British Guardian, writes below — almost the only good reporting on the Bush agenda, foreign or domestic, these days is taking place on op-ed pages where it can largely be dismissed as so much opinion. James Carroll in the Boston Globe, Paul Krugman in the Times, Jay Bookman in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ruth Rosen in the San Francisco Chronicle and other columnists along with op-ed writers are doing real oppositional reporting and sometimes creating news. They are often days, weeks, months ahead of their front pages. It’s amazing. Perhaps the unsung, even unknown heroes here are the editors — why not give a little credit to my breed — at various op-ed and opinion pages around the country, at places like the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle, who are searching out material not to be found in their news sections.
I thought you might all be interested in this British view of the American press. “Political courage,” Engel concludes,” is especially rare.” One historical note of warning: Like many writers on the press, Engel remembers newspapers of the pre-Watergate moment a bit romantically. The first op-ed page was created by the New York Times, for instance — this is as I remember it anyway — largely to give the Nixon administration a place to mouth off and most of the press was no less pallid and timid then. Tom
Bushwhacked
With war looming it is no good the American public looking to its newspapers for an independent voice. For, says Matthew Engel, the press have now become the president’s men
By Matthew Engel
January 13, 2003
The GuardianIt is more than 30 years ago now, though it seems like yesterday. A Republican president, much derided by liberals, was in the White House and his opponents were being lashed by the rightwing attack dogs, led then by the vice-president, Spiro Agnew.
The elite East Coast press, exemplified by the New York Times and the Washington Post, were the special targets of his scorn: “pointy-headed liberals,” he called them, and “the nattering nabobs of negativism”.
But the press laughed last and longest. Agnew resigned in disgrace, to be followed by his president, Richard Nixon – forced out by the investigations of two Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, whose doggedness revealed Nixon’s role in covering up the Watergate break-in and sundry other crimes. It remains one of the greatest – maybe the greatest – moment in the history of American journalism.
It is more than 30 years ago now, though it seems like yesterday. A Republican president, much derided by liberals, was in the White House and his opponents were being lashed by the rightwing attack dogs, led then by the vice-president, Spiro Agnew.
The elite East Coast press, exemplified by the New York Times and the Washington Post, were the special targets of his scorn: “pointy-headed liberals,” he called them, and “the nattering nabobs of negativism”.
But the press laughed last and longest. Agnew resigned in disgrace, to be followed by his president, Richard Nixon – forced out by the investigations of two Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, whose doggedness revealed Nixon’s role in covering up the Watergate break-in and sundry other crimes. It remains one of the greatest – maybe the greatest – moment in the history of American journalism.