Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted

By Bob Kohn and Robert Kohn

Book Overview

For over a hundred years, the New York Times has purported to present straight news and hard facts.? But, as Bob Kohn shows with absolute clarity, the founders' original vision has been hijacked, and today, instead of straight news, readers are given mere editorial under the pretense of objective journalism.? Kohn shows point by point the methods by which the Times' mission has been subverted by the present management-routinely slanting the presentation of the facts in leads, headlines, and placement; utilizing polls, labels, and loaded language to convey particular views, not genuine news; and staffing the newsroom with hacks who manipulate information to further a leftist agenda.? Kohn shows how such fraudulence directly corrupts hundreds of news agencies across the world; and by revealing all their methods of manipulation, he teaches readers how to decipher the slants in even the subtlest of cases, providing an entertaining and enlightening lesson in fraud-busting.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0785261044
• ISBN13: 9780785261049
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

A rational, un-hysterical view, well documented case study

The tone of this book is not inflammatory, unlike some others of the same genre from both sides (Al Franken's ".Liars." being a notable example). So if you're a liberal you should be able to get through it without taking a chainsaw to it. Both conservatives and liberals will learn things they might have been unaware of before, and certainly will never read the NY Times the same way again.Mr. Kohn takes the basic tenets of journalism - who, what, when, where, why and how -- and applies them to specific and numerous examples of headlines and articles from the Times. In many cases, even without his narrative, it is obvious that these basic principles were ignored. Indeed, he helps the argument along further by imbuing this omissions with sinister motivations. One could initially write this off as the whinings of a right-wing conspiracy, but there are really too many examples, with too much impartial evidentiary support, to trivialize the author's possible agenda.In a best case scenario, if the NYT did indeed commit accidental errors in its practice of journalism, that in itself calls to question the quality of the "nation's newspaper".As a conservative, I was less angry than saddened that such an eggregious and overwhelming abuse of power has been practiced for the last generation.

The skinny on The New York Times

This is not the all-too-familiar whine from the right about the unfair and unbalanced "liberal media." The author is a reasonable and perfectly sane citizen who deplores the recent conversion of the NYT from the newpaper of record to a yellow sheet that editorializes in many front page stories. Chapters 3 through 12 analyze in detail, with many pertinent examples, the techniques that reporters and editors of the Times deploy in order to insinuate the paper's editorial slant into what purport to be straight news stories.The only aspect I dislike is that Bob Kohn harps a bit too much on a theme song entitled "Mean Old Times Picking on Bushie." Aside from that, I fear that the book may become an underground best seller in journalism schools. Read the wrong way, it is an ambitious young reporter's guide on how to move up from the Podunk Chronicle to the New York Times, in 10 easy lessons.Get it and, as Glenn Reynolds says, "Read the whole thing."

Best Media Expose' Ever

Mr. Kohn hits the nail on the head about the New York Times. Being from the Midwest, I never realized that the Times had such far-reaching influence. With over 650 media outlets that subscribe to their news wire service, their news bias is picked up and run in the majority of daily newspapers throughout the U.S., including my daily newspaper. It is frightening to see how, over the years, they have expanded their editorializing from the editorial and commentary pages to the front page -- which should be used exclusively for reporting, not editorializing. His succinct and popular writing style makes this a quick and enjoyable read.

An Indispensable and Thoroughly Researched Book

The full subtitle of JOURNALISTIC FRAUD is "How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted." This is not, as one might expect, a 312-page treatise concerning the Jayson Blair fiasco and how it brought disgrace upon the New York Times, though certainly Bob Kohn could easily have done such a treatment. As Kohn notes near the end of JOURNALISTIC FRAUD, the Blair scandal actually deflects attention from the real scandal at the Times, which is its practice of passing opinion as straight news. What JOURNALISTIC FRAUD is, however, is a thorough, point-by-point analysis of the journalistic mechanisms by which the so-called, self-styled "Newspaper of Record" (a term that, incidentally, is a marketing ploy, nothing more) permits its editorial viewpoint to distort its news coverage.A couple of decades ago a major weekly magazine used to proudly advertise that within its pages, "Fact is presented as fact, and opinion is signed as opinion." It wasn't true then and it isn't true now, but the magazine in question was at least savvy enough to know that the appearance of fairness and objectivity is important. This standard was the rock upon which the Times built its reputation. The Times's editorial page has always leaned, if not fallen, leftward. Fair enough. That is the function, the reason for existence, of the editorial page of any newspaper: to present the viewpoint of the editors. Once upon a time, however, an effort was made to keep the editorial pink ink from seeping through to the rest of the Times. Kohn notes that Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who shepherded the Times to the reputation of respectability that it is currently squandering, wrote in the 1950s that "...no matter how we view the world, our responsibility lies in reporting accurately that which happens." As Kohn demonstrates, to devastating effect, those days are long gone. Under the captaincy of Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, Jr., the grandson of Arthur Hays and the current publisher of the New York Times, the ship he commands does not merely float on the Red Sea. It's taking on water, and he's standing amid ships, bailing it onto the deck. A few years ago I spent several weeks dissecting the Times for my poor, long-suffering New York-born wife, reading their headlines and stories and pointing out the slant and how it was done. I wish that Kohn had written JOURNALISTIC FRAUD back then; he does the same thing I did, and does it much better than I ever could. Kohn examines what journalists refer to as the five Ws and the H --- Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How --- and uses examples culled directly from the Times's pages to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt how the Times slants and distorts its reporting to project a left-wing viewpoint. The indictment of bias here is based not upon a random story here and there but on a demonstrably repeated and systemic pattern of distorting the reporting of its news in an effort to project its editorial viewpoint and to influence

Thoughtful and thought provoking

Mr Kohn, clearly someone who loves the NY Times newspaper, writes a very interesting and engrossing expose of exactly how the Times purposefully distorts the news. Mr Kohn provides a reasoned argument that the Times has lost its way and seems incapable of reporting the news without inserting its editorial opnion.Throughout the book, Mr Kohn sites numerous, real examples from the Times, and demonstrates the methods employed by the various writers to insert opinion or innuendo disguised as fact. Though the information and examples could have been dry, Mr Kohn's writing style is lively, informative and interesting.The temperment of this book is even handed, not the shrill tone of some other books purporting to expose wrong doing in other public institutions. Mr Kohn also suggests ways for the the NY Times to improve, get back to reporting real news, and continue as an important institution.I highly recommend this book. It is useful for not only tracking the distortions of the news by the NY Times, but can be applied, with equal effectiveness, to network news, CNN, Fox, et alBuy this book, it's outstanding.