No Burial for Balakot

trust zahraJ to read a rightwing Bush-loving paper like the wall street journal -- whose op-ed pages r probably more right wing than fox -- dear zara jee this article was written almost a week before it found its way on the editorial page of your favourite newspaper -- the problem with that is -- something that im suprised the WSJ editorial page editor -- prob chose to ignore is that by the time it would appear in print things would have changed considerably - in that context it may actually be quite misleading since it presents an outdated pictrue to readers -- i suggest you cancel your WSJ subscription pronto

Omar:

I understand that you lack the open mindedness of reading anything that provides substantive information or challenges your limited knowledge. The Journal is still the best business information source among many others. All the well thought out sections: Market Place, Money and Investing and Personal Journal speak for themselves. I understand that we are talking about personal preferences - only a narrow-minded idiot would have issues with the Journal or anyother subscription that gives another perspective.

I do believe that Dr. Hoodbhoy`s article was not 100% well suited for the Journal. It jumped into a particluar scenario assuming the readers knew the background. Some background about the massive disaster would have helped the reader who knew nothing about Pakistan. Despite that, the best part about his article was raising the issue of checks and balances in the international media. I am sure Musharraf would never give him a sermon to wash the dirty laundry within the boundaries of Pakistan and not expose it to the rest of the world, unlike what he told some Pakistani women in NY.

I understand it is not everyone`s cup of tea to plan for the future. Some ``enlightened minds`` love stagnance.

#97 by omar_r_quraishi

[trust zahraJ to read a rightwing Bush-loving paper like the wall street journal -- whose op-ed pages r probably more right wing than fox]

The ``Ass``istant Editor of a two-bit rag (whose entire circulation does not exceed the circulation of the WSJ in the city of NY alone) commenting on the WSJ?

Now that is what I would call hilarious!!!!

Isn`t Dawn the same rag where one commentator wrote that Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for American action for Iraq?

zahra jee I am quite aware of what features of WSJ stand out but the editorial page is not one of them -- i doubt it that this piece appeared in the marketplace section -- in any case, someone like you (including shri harry potter jee -- harish iyer if im not wrong -- and who is very civil when he wants his letters printed in pakistani newspapers) is too beholden to things american and capitalistic to understand what i am saying -- and by the way thanks for expanding my vocabulary today -- did not know `stagnance` was a word -- my OED says it isnt but since zahra jee, avid fan of WSJ says it is, it must be --

harry potter jee -- trust a certified paki hater like you to step in when no one is addressing you -- actually the editorial pages of some pakistani newspapers as well as indian papers are probably better than many mainstream US papers which bend over backwards to please dubya and his corporate cronies -- but i doubt it that a moron like you would be able to see that --

for harry potter jee and zahra jee -- avid fans of WSJ

those who are surprised by the political views of the WSJ, and who live in the US, need to wake up

20 Reasons Not to Trust the Journal Editorial Page


Extra! September/October 1995

By Steve Rendall and Jim Naureckas


1. When Anita Hill took a polygraph test to try to substantiate her charges of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas, the
Wall Street Journal attacked her in an editorial (10/15/91) titled ``Credibility Gulch``: ``Lie detector tests are so unreliable they are rarely allowed as evidence in court.``

But just eight months later (6/9/92), when the Journal argued against an Iran-Contra perjury indictment of former Secretary of
Defense (and editorial page contributor) Caspar Weinberger, this was its main evidence for Weinberger`s innocence: ``Mr. Weinberger has taken and passed a lie-detector test on the matter.``

2. Referring to the investigation into the BCCI takeover of the First American Bank, the Journal asked (10/28/94): ``The
particular U.S. concern is discerning how a pack of Arab crooks got control of the biggest bank in Washington, D.C.``

Besides the blatant racism--it`s unimaginable in any context that the Journal would write of ``a pack of Jewish crooks``--BCCI
was not run by Arabs. BCCI`s founder, Agha Hasan Abedi, and Swaleh Naqvi, its chief executive officer, are Pakistani. The Gokal family, which received the largest defaulted loans, are Indian. The biggest loser in the scandal was the ruler of Abu Dhabi, an Arab country.

Deception Overseas

3. George Melloan, then deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page, appeared on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour
(2/19/82) to explain why the Journal had vilified the New York Times` Raymond Bonner for reporting on a massacre of
civilians in El Mozote, El Salvador. Melloan insinuated that Bonner had a ``political orientation that is Marxist in nature.``
Pressed for evidence, Melloan said Bonner ``was covering the guerrilla movement in El Salvador without ever telling anyone,
any of his readers, that he was being conducted around the country on a tour by the guerrillas themselves.``

As Newsday`s Sydney Schanberg pointed out (10/27/92), each of the four articles that Bonner wrote when he was travelling
with the rebels pointed this out; the first article in the series (1/26/82) was headlined ``With Salvador`s Rebels in Combat
Zone.``

4. In a letter to the New York Times (4/12/88), Journal editorial page contributor and former editorial writer Jude Wanniski
claimed there was no evidence linking Salvadoran military officer/politician Roberto D`Aubuisson to death squads, labeling reports to the contrary as ``McCarthyist`` and ``one of the most successful propaganda hoaxes of the decade.``

D`Aubuisson`s well-publicized ties to death squads have been confirmed by internal Reagan administration memos. A March
18, 1981 CIA report to then-Vice President Bush read: ``D`Aubuisson has served as principal henchman for the wealthy
landowners and as a coordinator of the right-wing death squads that have murdered several thousand suspected leftists and
leftist sympathizers during the past year.`` A July 31, 1985 State Department cable stated that D`Aubuisson led a meeting in
which lots were drawn to decide who would ``win`` the opportunity to assassinate Archbishop Oscar Romero, the head of El
Salvador`s Catholic Church (Washington Post, 1/4/94).

5. Journal editorials referred to Angolan guerrilla Jonas Savimbi as ``a veteran of the struggle against Portugal`` (11/8/79;
6/30/89) and claimed (12/21/88) that his ``UNITA rebels have been fighting for Angola`s freedom for 23 years.``

According to correspondence discovered after the Portuguese military government fell in 1978, Savimbi was on the
Portuguese military payroll as an agent fighting against genuine anti-colonial forces (Ray et al., Dirty Work 2; Johnson and
Martin, Frontline Southern Africa)

6. The Journal recently seemed to encourage France to use violence against Greenpeace in its attempt to blockade French nuclear testing in the South Pacific: ``When confronted by fanatics spouting irrational demands, there is often no alternative to using force,`` an editorial declared (7/12/95).

Greenpeace`s ``irrational demands``--that the French cease testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific--are echoed by the ``fanatic`` prime ministers of Australia, New Zealand and Japan, as well as the heads of state of virtually every Pacific Island country.

Crime and Punishment

7. In an editorial on crime (2/11/94), the Wall Street Journal claimed ``it is very nearly routine procedure for criminals to kill
their victims during a robbery to get rid of the evidence.``

According to FBI statistics, there were 672,480 robberies in 1992, and 2,254 murders associated with robberies--so about 99.7 percent of the time, robbers did not kill their victims.

8. An editorial page ``Notable & Quotable`` column (11/13/92) compared ``top problems in the public schools as identified by
teachers`` in 1940 (``Talking Out of Turn, Chewing Gum, Making Noise...``) and in 1990 (``Suicide, Rape, Robbery...``).

The Journal got caught by a hoax which compared two totally dissimilar lists: One was based on the questions (not the
responses) from a 1974-75 poll asking principals about crime in their schools, while the other was derived from a 1943 list of the most common classroom problems. (The phony comparison was debunked in the New York Times Magazine, 3/6/94.) In
reprinting the lists (from Congressional Quarterly Researcher, 9/11/92), the Journal added an error of its own--moving the
date of the ``modern`` problems from 1980 to 1990.

Tree Muggers

9. In two editorials (11/18/92, 1/15/93) urging a pardon for Bill Ellen, convicted in a federal court of violating federal wetlands
regulations, the Journal claimed Ellen had merely been building a ``wildlife sanctuary...to attract migrating waterfowl,`` and was
prosecuted because he had ``allowed two loads of dirt`` to be dumped ``on land that someone representing the U.S. said was a wetland,`` in an area that ``the Soil Conservation Service had previously deemed non-wetland.`` Ellen, the Journal argued, had been unfairly charged with ``violating a [1989] regulatory standard that didn`t exist at the time of his actions.``

Bill Ellen`s ``wildlife sanctuary`` was actually a hunting reserve. He was not charged for violating new regulations, but rather on five counts of violating the Clean Water Act of 1972. Ellen was convicted of filling some 86 acres of clearly wet areas, including part of a tidal creek, a violation of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1898 (Washington Post, 2/20/93). Ellen had
already received three warnings to stop in 1988--a year before the 1989 regulations were added. According to journalist Bill Gifford in the Washington Monthly(11/93), ``Ellen had filled or altered close to 1,000 acres, though the prosecution focused
on areas that were indisputedly wet; the new wetland definition wasn`t even an issue.``

10. ``Violating the Endangered Species Act just might be the best thing Michael Rowe ever did,`` wrote Ike C. Sugg of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in an editorial-page column (11/10/93) titled ``Losing Houses, Saving Rats.`` Rowe saved his
house from California`s October 1993 wildfires, wrote Sugg, ``by clearing a fire-break`` around his property on land designated as a protected habitat for the Stephens kangaroo rat. Arguing that 29 other homes within the ``77,000 acres of private property`` designated as a kangaroo rat study area could have been saved if their residents had likewise broken the law, Sugg lamented, ``most of Mr. Rowe`s law-abiding neighbors lost their homes.``

Nothing prevented the cutting of brush on private land in the kangaroo rat`s protected habitat, since the animal (a relative of the squirrel) lives underground. Nevertheless, the U.S. General Accounting Office studied whether houses could have been saved
if homeowners had been allowed to plow under their land. ``Overall, county officials and other fire experts believe that weed abatement by any means would have made little difference in whether or not a home was destroyed in the California fire,`` the GAO concluded (7/94), noting that the fire, whipped by 80-mile-per-hour winds, jumped over two highways and a canal.

11. The Journal launched yet another assault on the tiny kangaroo rat this year, charging overzealous enforcement of the
Endangered Species Act. Columnist Gideon Kanner (``The Rule of Law,`` 5/24/95), a southern California law professor, wrote that Southern California farmer Tuang Ming-Lin was arrested in February 1994 because he had ``run over five rats with a plow.`` ``Since Mr. Lin speaks no English,`` Kanner continued, ``there is at best a serious question as to whether he even knew about these regulations, though the Feds insisted that they had sent letters advising of their existence.``

According to The Recorder(6/14/95), a law publication, Lin was arrested not for running over rats, but for destroying the
protected habitat of three different endangered species: the Tipton kangaroo rat, the kit fox and the leopard lizard. According to the Recorder, Lin was sent the first letter warning him about the protected species in December 1992; the last of several warnings was conveyed in person, one week before his arrest, by a game warden who told Lin, his son and the farm foreman
that they needed a permit to continue to cultivate the land. Besides the factual errors, it`s ironic that the Journal would have a law professor--in a column titled ``Rule of Law``--argue that ignorance of the law is an excuse.

Atomic Bombast

12. The Journal (8/29/94) blasted the Smithsonian museum`s proposed exhibit on the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, citing the draft script: ``It is especially curious to note the oozing romanticism with which the Enola show`s writers describe the Kamikaze pilots.... These were, the script elegaically relates, `Youths, their bodies overflowing with life.```

The kamikaze quote was not written by the show`s curators but--as was clearly spelled out in the script--by Yukiteru
Sugiyama, a surviving kamikaze pilot. According to the Smithsonian script, it was ``included to give viewer`s insight into [the kamikazes`] suicidal fanaticism, which many American`s would otherwise find incomprehensible.``

13. As evidence of the supposedly soft-on-Japan ``mindset`` of the Smithsonian scriptwriters, the Journal editorial (8/29/94) cited this quote: ``For most Americans, this war...was a war of vengeance. For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism.``

Here`s the full context of the Smithsonian quote--hardly soft on Japan:


Japanese expansionism was marked by naked aggression and extreme brutality. The slaughter of tens of thousands of Chinese in Nanking in 1937 shocked the world. Atrocities by Japanese troops included brutal mistreatment of civilians, forced laborers and prisoners of war, and biological experiments on human victims.

In December 1941, Japan attacked U.S. bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and launched other surprise assaults against Allied territories in the Pacific. Thus began a wider conflict marked by extreme bitterness. For most Americans, this war was fundamentally different than the one waged against Germany and Italy--it was a war of vengeance. For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism. As the war approached its end in 1945, it appeared to both sides that it was a fight to the finish.


14. In defending the use of the atom bomb, the Journal editorial (8/29/94) claimed that a U.S. invasion ``would by all estimates
have resulted in more than a million American casualties.``


``By all estimates``? Official reports to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in June of 1945 estimated total U.S. casualties (including injuries) as between 132,500 and 220,000. Gen. Douglas MacArthur argued in June 1945 that an estimate of 110,000 casualties was too high. Historians have been unable to provide documentation for anything close to the ``one million`` figure (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 6-7/86; Diplomatic History, Winter/93).

Arcane Reporting

15. In an editorial (2/5/93) attacking efforts to increase media coverage of domestic violence, the Journal claimed that FAIR`s report that domestic violence increases on Super Bowl Sunday was ``received as sacred writ by an entirely credulous army of journalists.`` The Journal praised one reporter, the Washington Post`s Ken Ringle, who wrote an article dismissing any link between violent sports and domestic violence (Washington Post, 1/31/93): ``He pursued an arcane reporting technique that has apparently slipped from favor: Mr. Ringle called up the source of the original story to ask if it were true.``

In fact, Ringle never did call up the source of the story--FAIR`s national office--to ask if it were true. If he had, we would have told him that our information about the Super Bowl came from first-hand reports from women who work in domestic violence shelters, and from articles written by journalists who used the ``arcane reporting technique`` of interviewing battered women. One of the reporters specifically cited as part of the ``credulous army`` duped by FAIR, Robert Lipsyte of the New York Times, had actually been reporting about the Super Bowl`s link to battering as early as 1987 (NBC Nightly News, 1/18/87).

In writing an editorial whose whole point was that journalists should be skeptical and check their sources, the Journal editors didn`t bother to check the Post`s story out by calling FAIR. If they had, they might not have repeated Ringle`s errors, and could have avoided making new errors of their own--like referring to the public relations firm Dobisky Associates as ``FAIR`s publicists,`` a firm we`d never heard of until the Journal`s editorial appeared. The Journal refused to publish a letter from FAIR pointing out these and other mistakes.

Economic Nonsense

16. Journal editor Robert Bartley`s book, The Seven Fat Years, gets its title from the idea that the Reagan years were a time of great prosperity compared to the Carter years. Bartley derives this by measuring from the trough of the early `80s recession in 1982 to the peak of the recovery in 1989--finding a growth rate of 3.8 percent for the ``Reagan years``--while measuring the ``Carter years`` from the 1973 growth peak to the 1982 trough (1.6 percent).

This fundamentally dishonest comparison assigns two recessions--neither of which occurred during his presidency--to Carter, while counting no recessions for Reagan. You could find a 3.5 percent growth rate for Carter by playing a similar game and counting from 1975 to 1980. An honest economist will tell you that you have to compare similar phases of the business cycle: From the 1973 peak to the 1979 peak, there was a growth rate of 2.8 percent; from the 1979 peak to the 1989 peak, there was a growth rate of 2.5 percent. So much for the ``seven fat years.``

17. The Journal praised the 1981 deregulation of the Savings & Loan industry (6/29/81), saying, ``The beauty of these solutions is that they are cheap because they depend on the market and not on the federal till.``

The federal till has so far paid more than $150 billion to cover the costs of this ``cheap`` solution.

18. Editor Robert Bartley has stated that in the U.S., ``there aren`t any poor people, just a few hermits or something like that`` (Washington Post, 7/11/82).

The Limbaugh Connection

19. Wall Street Journal editorial writer John Fund was the ghostwriter of Rush Limbaugh`s first book, The Way Things Ought to Be.

The book is wildly inaccurate, as demonstrated in FAIR`s book, The Way Things Aren`t.

20. Republican strategist William Kristol referred to Rush Limbaugh as ``almost a Wall Street Journal editorial page of the airwaves.``

for shri harry potter jee and zahra jee -- esp the former moron


something that a `two bit rag` from pakistan would not do

---

Action Alert

Top Papers Agree to Exclude Critics in Exchange for ``Scoop``

6/2/00

In accepting a deal to tell only one side of an important story in exchange for a ``scoop,`` editors of the Washington Post, New York Times and Wall Street Journal violated fundamental principles of journalism and betrayed their readers` trust.

According to Howard Kurtz, media reporter for the Washington Post (5/29/00),``a publicist hired by United Airlines and US Airways offered three major newspapers a deal that none of them could refuse. The pitch: We`ll give you the exclusive details of a $5 billion merger if you promise not to call any outsiders for comment.`` All three papers agreed to this censorious arrangement, which only fell apart because the Financial Times website broke the story early, negating the agreement.

It`s disturbing that a newspaper would agree to report a major story by relying entirely on one party in the story for information and comment. But the editors` explanations only made things worse. The Wall Street Journal`s managing editor, Paul Steiger, claimed to ``hate those kind of arrangements`` (which implies that this is not the first), but explained that ``if the news is big enough, we`d rather give it to our readers with whatever caveats are appropriate.`` But is a corporate press release without any outsider comment really ``news``? And wouldn`t a ``big`` story call for even more caution and balance, rather than a ``caveat`` saying that normal journalistic procedures weren`t followed?

Washington Post financial editor Jill Dutt also put doing the story quickly ahead of balance: ``It does a better job for readers to have the story on the first day than not to have the story,`` she contended. As a matter of fact, Dutt said, the Post doesn`t really need outside experts: ``The Washington Post, regardless if no one is called, can give much better background and context for the significant issues involved in the deal.``

And she understands why corporate executives would want ``a clear shot at giving investors your side of the deal before you get all the naysayers.`` It should go without saying that it is not a newspaper`s role to facilitate companies` corporate strategy, or to protect them from ``naysayers.``

Dutt`s bottom-line rationale for accepting the airlines` ``scoop`` under their restrictions was: ``I don`t want to get beat.``

New York Times business editor Glenn Kramon likewise accepted this kind of deal-making as the price for being a major player in business journalism: ``We`ve been serious about business news for too long to be cut out of big stories like this, and it`s about time we were included.`` But it`s no honor to be included in a race to the bottom where newspapers compete to be first through abandoning journalistic values like balance, depth and accuracy.

Howard Kurtz is to be commended for bringing this breach of journalistic standards at major news outlets, including his own, to the public`s attention. But his assessment--that the story underscores ``the degree to which corporate executives, like politicians, are increasingly determined to shape coverage of their exploits``--is incomplete. Surely it`s also a devastating indictment of the media outlets that accept and abet such manipulation.

ACTION: A coalition of leading media critics and groups, including FAIR, has written to the editors of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, asking for an explanation of their policy on secret exclusionary deals like that proposed by United Airlines/US Airways(http://www.essential.org/alert/releases/secretletrel.html). Please contact one or more of these papers and let them know that agreements to tell only one side of a story are not acceptable journalism.

CONTACTS:

New York Times, letters@nytimes.com

Washington Post, E.R. Shipp, Ombudsman, ombudsman@washpost.com

Wall Street Journal, letter.editor@wsj.com

zahra my advice for people like you who live overseas and think they know everything going on `back home` is shut up and stop pretending that you know how it is back home -- a call to an uncle in isloo doesnt do that by the way -- as for mushy not giving pervez hoodbhoy a chance to say any of this, you obviously havent seen or read the coverage of the quake -- a lot of which has been scathing -- in some more so than this `email` article

makes you wonder about the NYT doesnt it -- oh but how can the assistant editor of a two bit rag from pakistan say this hain na hairy potter jee?

Judith Miller, the Fourth Estate and the Warfare State


Media Beat (10/17/05)

Norman Solomon


More than any other New York Times reporter, Judith Miller took the lead with stories claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Now, a few years later, she’s facing heightened scrutiny in the aftermath of a pair of articles that appeared in the Times on Sunday -- a lengthy investigative piece about Miller plus her own first-person account of how she got entangled in the case of the Bush administration’s “outing” of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.

It now seems that Miller functioned with more accountability to U.S. military intelligence officials than to New York Times editors. Most of the way through her article, Miller slipped in this sentence: “During the Iraq war, the Pentagon had given me clearance to see secret information as part of my assignment ‘embedded’ with a special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons.” And, according to the same article, she ultimately told the grand jury that during a July 8, 2003, meeting with the vice president’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, “I might have expressed frustration to Mr. Libby that I was not permitted to discuss with editors some of the more sensitive information about Iraq.”

Let’s replay that one again in slow motion.

Judith Miller is a reporter for the New York Times. After the invasion, on assignment to cover a U.S. military unit as it searches for WMDs in Iraq, she’s given “clearance” by the Pentagon “to see secret information” -- which she “was not permitted to discuss” with Times editors.

There’s nothing wrong with this picture if Judith Miller is an intelligence operative for the U.S. government. But if she’s supposed to be a journalist, this is a preposterous situation -- and the fact that the New York Times has tolerated it tells us a lot about that newspaper.

Notably, the front-page story about Miller in the Times on Sunday bypassed Miller’s “clearance” status and merely reported: “In the spring of 2003, Ms. Miller returned from covering the war in Iraq, where she had been embedded with an American military team searching unsuccessfully for evidence of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.”

In effect, during the propaganda buildup for the invasion of Iraq, while Miller was the paper’s lead reporter on weapons of mass destruction, the New York Times news department served as a key asset of the warfare state.

“WMD -- I got it totally wrong,” the Times quoted Miller as saying in a Friday interview. “The analysts, the experts and the journalists who covered them -- we were all wrong. If your sources are wrong, you are wrong.”

But analysts, experts and journalists were not “all wrong.” Some very experienced weapons inspectors -- including Mohamed ElBaradei, Hans Blix and Scott Ritter -- challenged key assertions from the White House. Well before the invasion, many other analysts also disputed various aspects of the U.S. government’s claims about WMDs in Iraq. (For examples, see archived news releases put out by my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy in 2002 and early 2003.) Meanwhile journalists at some British newspapers, including the Independent and the Guardian, raised tough questions that were virtually ignored by mainstream U.S. reporters in the Washington press corps.

Reporters select sources -- and the unnamed ones that Miller chose to rely on, like the Pentagon’s pet Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, were predictably eager to spin tales about WMDs in order to fuel momentum for an invasion. Yet the official line at the New York Times has been that its news department was fooled with the rest of the media best.

On May 26, 2004 -- more than a year after the invasion of Iraq -- the Times published a belated semi-mea-culpa article by two top editors, including executive editor Bill Keller. The piece contended that the Times, along with policy makers in Washington, were victims rather than perpetrators: “Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations -- in particular, this one.”

But the Times did not “fall for misinformation” as much as jump for it. The newspaper eagerly helped the administration portray deceptions as facts.

The carnage set loose by those deceptions is continuing every day. But the Times’ extensive Sunday coverage of its own machinations, with Judith Miller at the center of the intrigue, had nothing to say about the human consequences in Iraq.

In elite medialand, the careers of journalists at the New York Times loom large. In contrast, the lives of American soldiers -- and especially the lives of Iraqis -- are more like abstractions while the breathless accounts of press palace intrigues unfold.

The apex of the Times hierarchy has provided no indication of personal remorse or institutional accountability. And the next time agenda-setting for U.S. military action -- against Iran or Syria or wherever -- shifts into high gear, it’s very unlikely that the New York Times or other top-tier U.S. media outlets will present major roadblocks.

On June 14, 2003, shortly before he was promoted to the job of executive editor at the New York Times, the newspaper published an essay by Bill Keller that explained why the U.S. government should strive to improve the quality of its intelligence. “The truth is that the information-gathering machine designed to guide our leaders in matters of war and peace shows signs of being corrupted,” he wrote. “To my mind, this is a worrisome problem, but not because it invalidates the war we won. It is a problem because it weakens us for the wars we still face.”

#101 by omar_r_quraishi

I won`t speak for Zahra because she can do it herself, much better than the purported journalists who nitpick on grammar because they aren`t capable of doing much else.

[those who are surprised by the political views of the WSJ, and who live in the US, need to wake up]

Ha, big deal!! Of course, for a Paki reporter who by his own admission took to his heels when confronted by a sleuth with a gun, talking about journalistic integrity is akin to a whore preaching the virtues of virginity.

#100 by omar_r_quraishi

[(including shri harry potter jee -- harish iyer if im not wrong -- and who is very civil when he wants his letters printed in pakistani newspapers)]

Just because the Dawn is a two-bit rag doesn`t mean the absolute garbage printed in its pages goes unchallenged. As to being civil, being an ``Ass``istant Editor, surely you know that is how letters to the editor are addressed? Or are you such a moron that this simple fact escapes your pea-sized brain?

BTW, why the deafening silence over the commentary that claimed Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for Iraq? Or is it that the ``Ass``istant Editor doesn`t like answering uncomfortable questions?

shri hairy potter jee -- you should know i hope that lying is the last refuge of a scoundrel --

what you say ``Ha, big deal!! Of course, for a Paki reporter who by his own admission took to his heels when confronted by a sleuth with a gun, talking about journalistic integrity is akin to a whore preaching the virtues of virginity. `` -- is a lie -- have never said this anywhere but i do remember veeresh interpreting this to be the case when i told him that after murtaza bhutto was gunned down in 1996 when i arrived on the scene with another reporter the policemen present were asked by their commanding officer to point their guns at us and to make sure we did not proceed any further -- he also made a directive which basically said that if need be they should shoot the reporters --i am afraid this does not mean that i ``took to my heels when confronted by a sleuth with a gun`` -- i am afraid you will have to do better than that -- yes im sure zahra J will be able todo that and more -- esp given that going by from what i have read on this site, a fair proportion of its users think her to be a whacko of the highest order -- or at best quite confused --

well considering that i am partially looking after letters myself these days hairy potter jee i think i do have a fair idea how they are printed -- i also know that those who indulge in such things should be, at the very least, accused of hypocrisy -- as for the `deafening silence` hairy potter jee -- i think paki haters like you conveniently choose to ignore things when they want -- the views of a freelance columnist do not reflect the views of the newspaper itself -- just like the rantings and ravings of an indian express or HT columnist against muslims or pakistanis or both may not necessarily reflect the views of those newspapers

the WSJ is a good paper indeed -- no wonder zahra jee and harry potter jee like it so much -- by the way hairy potter jee, hope u will email the WSJ editor at the email given at the end and ask him for an apology

Action Alert

Wall Street Journal claims sex is secret of young businesswomen`s success

2/16/00

A recent front-page story of the Wall Street Journal cheerily announced, ``InToday`s Workplace, Women Feel Freer To Be, Well, Women`` (2/7/00). The firstof two subheadings explained what the Journal thinks being, well, women isall about: ``Floppy Bow Ties Give Way To More-Alluring Attire; Sex Banter HasIts Place.`` (When the story jumped to its continuing page, the headlinereferred to ``The Feminization of the Workplace`` -- as if the essence offemininity can be reduced to fashion and innuendo.)

The second subhead wonders about the effects of feminine expression in theoffice: ``Flirting -- or Good Business?`` The article suggests that -- likemen who have supplemented their business skills with their golf games --ambitious young women are using their looks, their charm, and even``unabashed flirting`` to advance professionally.

But how does the Journal define women`s workplace flirtations? ``Teasing,bantering, a direct look in the eye.`` One perpetrator described in the piece``jokes and makes lighthearted comments in the office, smiles and sometimesuses sarcasm.``

This dubious definition of flirting aside, the Journal doesn`t muster anyevidence to support the idea that young businesswomen are ushering in themillennium by flirting their way to the top. It`s a trend the Journal claimsto observe but makes little effort to document, aside from a few anecdotesfrom some 20-somethings who say that ``playing the attractiveness card`` helpsget their foot in the door with established businessmen who won`t talk tothem unless they smile pretty. The piece includes no countervailing quotesfrom young women who deny efforts to play up their sexuality in pursuit ofincreased success.

Ostensibly seeking the feminist point of view, Journal reporter EllenPollock interviewed Gloria Steinem and NOW president Patricia Ireland. Butwhile they described office flirting as potentially confusing and contestedits productivity, it is unclear if Steinem or Ireland were ever askedwhether they think large numbers of women are actually using it as abusiness strategy.

Then there was the opinion of a male engineer who says that these femaleflirters are the professional equivalents of teasing cheerleaders, who tauntand manipulate male coworkers with ``a smile and a promise of more,`` and endup ``on the fast track to promotions.`` This is what men`s anger in theworkplace is all about, the engineer fumed: ``[Men] realize that when allthings are equal, that females have the advantage. If you have an advantageyou shouldn`t be allowed to use it.``

The Journal does not mention that since there are still only three femaleCEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and since women still make only approximately75 cents for every dollar men earn, all things are certainly not equal incorporate America. So much for women`s ``advantage.``

For expert commentary on this supposed new trend, the Journal turned toanti-feminist author Warren Farrell, who they describe impartially as a``write[r] about men and their relationships with women.`` Farrell claims thatwhen young, attractive women interact casually with male coworkers, menbecome ``confused`` about their intentions and may react innocently, therebybecoming ``vulnerable`` to sexual harassment charges.

Furthering the media`s continued misrepresentation of sexual harassment as amisinterpreted but innocently intended one-time event, the Journal featuresFarrell`s charge that ``It only takes one mistake in a man`s life to have apotential for ending his career.`` For men who seek to suppress their sexdrives in the office, Farrell insists, working with engaging young women is``like being an alcoholic and seeing drinks all around him.``

The implication: The mere presence of young women in a business settingcreates a hardship for men who seek to resist temptation, and for olderwomen considered too far past their prime to leverage their looks for aboost up the corporate ladder.

Under the newly-coined phrase ``the deportment gap,`` the Journal identifiesonly two roles for women in the workplace: the ``stern,`` ``somber,`` humorlessand supposedly asexual women of ``about a decade ago`` who refuse to trade ontheir sexuality for success, pitted against the ``far more relaxed,````feminine`` 20-somethings who are ``using the personal tools at their disposalto get ahead professionally``-- tools such as Capri pants and tank tops.

``Does this represent the triumph, or the betrayal, of the feministmovement?`` the Journal asked. They call it a ``hard question,`` but theJournal`s query doesn`t seem ``difficult``--it seems disingenuous in a storythat implies young women are succeeding not based on their intelligence buton their willingness to exploit their sexuality -- even when there is noevidence for this claim. (Most of the behaviors described are as innocuousas maintaining eye contact and expressing a sense of humor.) Since the onlyplace the ``deportment gap`` seems to be popping up is in the pages of theJournal, the better question might be, ``Does this WSJ article representignorance of, or hostility to, the real experiences of professional women?``

ACTION: Think the Journal`s idea of young women trading sexuality forsuccess was based more on stereotypes than on any hard evidence? Let theJournal know.

CONTACT:

Journal staff writer Ellen Pollockellen.pollack@wsj.comFax: 212-416-2350

Pollack`s editor, Carol Hymowitzcarol.hymowitz@wsj.com

Letters can be sent to Pollock and Hymowitz at:The Wall Street Journal200 Liberty StreetNew York, NY 10281.

Please ``cc`` letters to Jenn Pozner.

for zahra jee and shri hairy potter jee -- i hope you morons know who edward herman is



By Any Means Necessary
The Ultra-Relativism of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Page

Extra! September/October 1995

By Edward S. Herman


With the largest daily circulation of any national newspaper, 1.8 million, and with an affluent and elite audience, the Wall Street Journal is one of the most influential mainstream media organs. Its large circulation is based in substantial measure on its high-quality news offerings, which gives Journal readers a better-than-average view of reality. The paper also has an editorial page, which is under separate operating direction from the news department.

A 1993 publisher`s report to Journal readers (presented in a full-page New York Times ad, 1/25/93) pointed out that ``the Journal`s editorial views do not guide or even influence the paper`s news coverage.... The news pages exist to accurately cover and impartially analyze events and trends. The editorial page, while often doing its own reporting, filters events through its philosophic lens and expresses opinions accordingly.`` But the two sections, publisher Peter Kann claimed, do share the ``fundamental value`` of ``integrity.``

News Vs. Editorial

Indeed, the two sections of the Journal often seem to be at odds. The news department frequently presents facts incompatible with conventional political lines, whereas the editorial page regularly ignores (``filters events``) or contests facts that don`t fit its editorial position.

Thus, in a famous expose of June 8, 1981, Journal news reporter Jonathan Kwitny showed that ``Apparent Errors Cloud U.S. `White Paper` on Reds in El Salvador,`` whereas the editorial page was an unquestioning conduit for Reagan-era propaganda on El Salvador throughout the 1980s, as a matter of principle. (``We tend to give the benefit of the doubt to those resisting totalitarianism,`` the paper once acknowledged—-8/17/84.)

When U.S.-backed guerrilla leader Jonas Savimbi claimed to control a third of Angola, his word was enough for the editors (12/16/81); the claim was refuted by Wall Street Journal reporter Steve Mufson the next day (12/17/81).

The news department often features articles suggesting the imperfect workings of the free market (Tony Horwitz, ``9 to Nowhere: These Six Growth Jobs Are Dull, Dead-End, Sometimes Dangerous,`` 12/1/94) and the high social costs of regulatory weakness (G. Bruce Knecht, ``Houston Firms Sold Risky Toxic Waste` For Wall Street Giants,`` 12/20/94), whereas the editorial department uniformly sings the praises of the free market and the merits of deregulation.

Occasionally the two departments collide almost directly, as with reporter Kwitny`s August 1985 series detailing the shady qualities of the Italian secret services and political culture and their U.S. connections. The artictes shed unflattering light on Michael Ledeen, a neo-con propagandist with close ties to Italian intelligence who frequently appeared on the Journal`s editorial page, and undercut the papal assassination conspiracy theories that the editorial page was pushing, which were sourced largely to Italian intelligence.

However, the two sections of the paper do in fact complement one another. The news department probably has greater freedom of action by virtue of the editorial page`s aggressively reactionary support of an unfettered capitalism and each and every imperial venture abroad. And the frequently far-fetched positions staked out by the editorial page probably gain in prestige through their proximity to the high-quality news reporting.

Ultra-Relativism and Double Standards

Editor Robert L. Bartley, who has run the editorial page since 1972, has claimed (3/26/95) that the editorial page stands for a moral firmness and absolutism—``saying that some things are right and others wrong,`` in contrast with a ``liberal establishment`` that is ``seized by relativism...offering biases many now see merely as double standards.`` Bardey does acknowledge that he indulges in ``the outrageous,`` which he learned from his supply-side guru Jude Wanniski (Jerry Rosenberg, Inside the Wall Street Journal), but he implies that this is an amusing and harmless oddity.

In fact, however, even a cursory study of the editorial page indicates that its ``outrageousness`` is not innocuous, but involves relentless name-calling and bullying in the service of a rigid right-wing ideology, helping cover over frequently tendentious and superficial analyses. Furthermore, the editorial page does not hew to a single standard of right and wrong—-``relativism`` and double standards are absolutely integral to its operation, so much so that its basic practicecan be described as ``ultra-relativism.`` This entails the willingness to use any intellectual means to forward political aims; facts and claims that help are pushed without scruple, those that conflict are ignored or denied, and those who point out such inconvenient facts are attacked and smeared.

Bardey`s justification for his own incessant double standard is that he supports the forces of freedom against totalitarianism (8/17/84). But this doesn`t excuse a double standard in evaluating evidence, unless one is an ideologue who operates on the principle that the end justifies any means. (This is, of course, what the ``totalitarians`` are alleged to believe.)

Bardey`s use of ``totalitarian`` is essentially a device for labeling ideological enemies—-the elected Allende government of Chile was treated harshly because it was ``Marxist,`` hence incipiently totalitarian, whereas Gen. Augusto Pinochet, in the process of installing an actual totalitarian regime but viewed as on our side, was declared non-totalitarian by editorial fiat and received unrestrained apologetics.

The double standard is observable in word use on virtually any issue. Thus the editor castigates congressmen David Bonior and Richard Gephardt for their ``soak-the-rich demagoguery`` in proposing higher taxes on the affluent (6/15/95). But the word ``demagoguery`` was never used between 1972 and 1995 for proposed policies soaking the poor, or in connection with Reagan`s demagogic attacks on welfare mothers or the 1988 Bush campaign`s use of Willie Horton.

Bartley`s enemies are consistently given derogatory labels that are often misleading or absolutely wrong, whereas ``friends`` are free of such labels. Rebels in Guatemala and El Salvador, and the governments of Angola and Nicaragua (under the Sandinistas), were always described with epithets: ``Marxists,`` ``Marxist-Leninists,`` ``Soviet-backed`` or ``Cuban-directed.`` (e.g, 6/1/84, 12/9/83) Jonas Savimbi, trying to overthrow the government of Angola, was never referred to as ``South Africa-backed.``

Killings by enemies are ``savage episodes`` and ``atrocities,`` whereas murders by friends are ``combat`` and mentioned tersely without any snarl words. The Sandinista ``thugs`` used ``jackboot tactics`` to run their ``police state.`` (6/30/89) The words ``fear`` and ``terror`` were used freely for Nicaragua, but not El Salvador or Guatemala, which were vastly more fear-ridden. U.S.-supported dictatorships like El Salvador, Guatemala or Chile under Pinochet are never police states, nor are they puppets.

Worthy and Unworthy Victims

The editorial page double standard and ultra-relativism in judging the value of human life was dramatically illustrated by the editorial treatment of the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador in December 1981, in contrast with the alleged deaths of ``yellow rain`` victims in Laos in the early and mid-1980s.

When Raymond Bonner of the New York Times and Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post reported from El Mozote that the Salvadoran army had murdered some 700 to 800 civilians there, the Wall Street Journal editors wrote a furious attack, particularly on Bonner, for alleged gullibility and revolutionary romanticism (“The Media War,” 2/10/82).

The editorial itself was a remarkable illustration of neo-con convenient gullibility, taking the official denials as credible and never hinting at any possible bias in official sources. The editors expressed not the slightest concern for over 700 peasant victims, including several hundred children. In their editorial on the victims of yellow rain in distant Laos, on the other hand, the editors left tears strewn on the page over the ``ghastiiness`` of the cruel weapons employed against ``helpless people,`` with ``children choking over their own blood.`` (9/21/81)

Editorial ultra-relativism on the value of human life is illustrated by many other cases. When the military seized power in Chile in 1973, there was not the slightest expression of sympathy for the thousands of people tortured and murdered; the editorial aim was solely to contest alleged exaggerations. ``It is amazing there has been as little bloodshed as there has,`` the editorialists marveled (11/2/73), although the understated CIA figures at the time were already 2,000 to 3,000 deaths. (Lawrence Birns in The Nation, 1/19/74, gave a compelling analysis of how the Journal editors dishonestly attacked Newsweek`s reporting on the large number of bodies found in a Santiago morgue.)

The same writer who was responsible for most of the articles playing down the human costs of the Chile coup, Everett Martin, did express worry about another group of potential ``victims``—-the leaders of the Argentine military after the restoration of democracy there in 1983. Martin was greatly concerned about retribution against the Argentine generals (1/20/84): ``Democracy means restraint,`` he wrote, and President Alfonsin`s problem is to prevent the people ``from committing their usual self-destructive excesses.``

Similarly, the editors mention that the Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo of Nicaragua is the ``target of brutal attacks from the Marxists who run the regime`` (9/21/84); another article suggests that the Sandinistas ``may be setting the archbishop up for assassination.`` (12/9/83) But the editors never compared his treatment with that of the actually assassinated archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, by the ``anti-Communists`` who ran that country.

The editorial page`s instrumental valuation of human life was also on view in its apologetics for Renamo, the Mozambican terrorist group. Organized in the 1970s by the white Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith to destabilize Mozambique`s post-colonial government, Renamo was adopted after the fall of Smith`s government by apartheid South Africa for the same purpose.

A leading historian of Mozambique describes it as ``simply a mercenary unit of a white colonial army`` with no political program or aspirations. Its terrorism was so terrible that even the Reagan and Thatcher administrations ``refused to treat Renamo as a bona fide anti-communist movement`` despite pressure from the far right. (Malyn Newitt, A History of Mozambique). The U.S. State Department itself put out a report in April 1988 claiming that Renamo had no observable political program and it ``conservatively estimated that 100,000 civilians may have been murdered by Renamo`` in the years 1986-88 (Robert Gersony, ``Summary of Mozambiquan Refugee Accounts...in Mozambique``).

But for the editorial page, Renamo was bona fide anti-Communist, and thus no mention was made of these mass deaths, and Renamo was put in a benign light. Although Renamo had ``a checkered past,`` it was the ``Marxist`` and ``Soviet-backed`` regime in Maputo that is ``repressing`` and ``as bloody as ever``; no negative adjectives were used to describe Renamo, which couldn`t have done so well ``if it hadn`t tapped genuine democratic support`` (4/1/85).

A complementary op-ed column castigated Margaret Thatcher for supporting the Mozambican government against ``pro-Western`` forces (Gerald Frost, ``Why Thatcher Coddles Mozambican Marxists,`` 8/12/87). No level of devastation and mass killing is beyond eliciting the apologetics of ultra-relativism.

Propagandist of the State

The editorial page has served as a virtual propaganda arm of the state in its imperial ventures, most openly and blatantly in the Reagan era. Throughout this period the Reaganites wanted to vilify the Soviet Union and its allies(the ``Evil Empire``) and to cast all the designated ``freedom fighters`` in a good light. The editorial page provided this propaganda service with enthusiasm. The editors repeatedly expressed their approval of the Reagan Doctrine of supporting right-wing guerrilla movements (e.g., ``Savimbi`s Success,`` 6/30/89), and regularly engaged in extended propaganda campaigns geared to Reagan administration needs.

In September 1981 the Reagan administration announced that the Vietnamese military was using Soviet-supplied chemical weapons against Laotians. The evidence was a few leaf samples containing an allegedly non-native organic compound, plus claims of ``yellow rain`` dropping from the sky and subsequent medical disorders. The leaf samples, and especially the claims of rain and sickness related to it, were always of questionable authenticity.

Eventually it was established that the organic compounds in question were native to the area; and Professor Matthew Meselson also found that there had been earlier Chinese complaints of ``yellow rain`` that Chinese investigators traced to droppings of bee feces. When Meselson also disclosed that the dominant component of the leaf samples allegedly showing communist chemical warfare also was bee feces(Foreign Policy, Fall/87; Scientific American, 9/85), the case collapsed—-except in the Wall Street Journal.

The editorial page specialist in this subject, William Kucewicz, acknowledged that the Journal had responded to an appeal from administration officials to ``keep this[issue] going,`` and ``we decided to take this on as a cause.`` (Technology Review,
4/86; cited in New Yorker, 2/18/90)

The editorial page took up the Reaganite campaign immediately and put to work all its usual formulas: It accepted the official propaganda at face value, and went on to trumpet test results and experts supporting the party line, while ignoring or deriding conflicting evidence. Its gullibility was without limit in accepting data based on interviews that even U.S. Army officialscame to doubt (Foreign Policy, Fall/87). The editors never mentioned the Chinese yellow rain case, or the eventual finding that the organic compound claimed by the Reaganites to be non-indigenous to the area was in fact commonplace.

For opponents of the yellow rain hypothesis, the editors employed their usual ad hominems: An outstanding critical review of the case in the Chemical and Engineering News (1/9/84) was attacked because one of its 64 cited sources was allegedly biased. Meselson, a very distinguished biologist, allegedly had a ``personal and intellectual stake in the issue.`` Meanwhile, the editors celebrated Professor Aubin Heyndrickx, a right-wing Belgian specialist in chemical warfare (but no expert in organic-biological compounds, as was Meselson). They proved that he was as objective as Robert Bartley himself by citing his statement that his only concern was ``protecting freedom and human rights from the totalitarians.`` (2/15/84)

The editorial page also pitched in vigorously in support of the claim that the May 1981 shooting of Pope John Paul II had been sponsored by the Bulgarians and Soviet Union, in retaliation for the Pope`s support for the Polish Solidarity movement. Right-wing reporter Claire Sterling`s views on this subject were offered directly and indirectly, and all conflicting evidence and alternative models were ignored or caricatured. For example, the fact that the assassin Alt Agca had threatened to kill the Pope in 1979, before Solidarity existed, was unmentioned. (See Herman and Brodhead, The Rise and Fall of the Bulgarian Connection.)

Editorial page writer Suzanne Garment even wrote an editorial column (6/15/84) proclaiming the high credibility of Italians: ``This is the Italians—-no American hawk paranoids but instead people who live with a new government every 30 days. You simply cannot doubt their word.`` No, not if you are a propagandist building your case without scruple.

One of Sterling`s most remarkable claims was that the CIA and Reagan administration were holding back on pressing the Bulgarian Connection because of their devotion to detente!(They were trying ``to shield the Russians from public view``—-Human Events, 1/26/84.) This lunatic idea found its way into a Journal editorial (12/21/83), as did Sterling`s claim that Agca appeared crazy during his trial as a ``signal`` to the Bulgarians to get him out—-or else (3/2/86). When Agca never produced the ``or else,`` Sterling and the editors were silent.

After the 1991 confirmation hearings for CIA chief William Gates disclosed how Gates and William Casey had pushed the theory over the protests of CIA professionals, who thought the case was fraudulent, the editors still allowed Sterling the final word (11/5/91). A letter to the editor by this writer pointed out Sterling`s failure to mention CIA official Melvyn Goodman`s testimony that CIA analysts had not taken her claims seriously because they had long since penetrated the Bulgarian secret services. The letter was never published.

Editorial Page as Enforcer

An important part of the editorial page`s service to the state is its role of enforcer, bullying into quiescence any media or independent institution that puts clients of the United States in a bad light. The Bonner case is the classic example of editorial help in silencing media criticism. The long editorial ``The Media`s War`` (2/10/82) was in fact a war on the media in the guise of a concern for media improprieties, and it closely paralleled the efforts of the Reagan administration`s Office of Public Diplomacy to intimidate the media into adherence to the party line.

The editorial accused Bonner of gullibility because Bonner got his information on the El Mozote massacre from peasants in rebel territory; he was therefore alleged to be a naive victim of ``a propaganda exercise.`` The only evidence mat the first-hand peasant reports were ``propaganda`` was that they disagreed with pronouncements of the U.S. embassy and Salvadoran army.

Bonner was removed from his Central America beat soon after the government/Journal assaults, a development widely regarded as an object lesson in the cost of reportorial integrity. Bonner states in his book Weakness and Deceit that a U.S. general in El Salvador credited the editorial with having ``turned the press around.`` ``The foreign editor of one major newspaper sent copies of the editorial to his correspondents in Central America,`` Bonner wrote. ```Let`s not let this happen to us,` was the message, according to one of the paper`s reporters.``

After the U.N.-sponsored Truth Commission on El Salvador vindicated Bonner`s reporting in early 1993, Bardey explained (3/18/93) that he never denied a massacre took place, only that ``neither the press nor the State Department has the power to establish conclusively what happened at El Mozote.`` This was dishonest evasion. Bartley never challenged State Department claims on this ground, and his operating principle was openly ``giving the benefit of the doubt`` to his side, a euphemism for intentional gullibility.

The other form of problematic dissent during the Reagan years came from the human rights groups, who regularly documented the mass killings of the official forces in El Salvador and Guatemala and the terrorism of the U.S.-sponsored contras attacking Nicaragua. The administration itself carried out a serious campaign of intimidation against Amnesty International, Americas Watch and the Washington Office on Latin America in the early 1980s, assailing their reporting on Guatemala as one-sided and apologetic for what Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Enders called the ``ferocious`` and ``terrorist attacks`` of the guerrillas.

The editorial page joined this campaign, parroting the Reagan line, accusing Amnesty International and Americas Watch of applying ``a gentler standard to U.S. adversaries in Central America than to U.S. friends,`` failing to apply ``universal standards`` and using ``ad hominem attacks`` on ``those offering conflicting evidence.`` (8/17/84) It is of course remarkable chutzpah for the editors, who never apply universal standards and use ad hominem attacks daily, to even use such words—but when they do use them in reference to others this merely tells us that others are criticizing something the editors support.

The editors criticized the Americas Watch charges of illegal mass displacement by the Salvadoran army, saying, ``Goodness, one would almost think a war is going on,`` ignoring the fact that there are rules of war on the point that can be violated (8/17/84).

In the same editorial, however, the editors were full of indignation for the Nicaraguan displacement of the Miskito Indians, failing to note that ``a war is going on`` and misstating the facts. Juan Mendez of Americas Watch pointed out in a letter to the Journal (9/21/84): ``You have it backwards: the relocation did not `happen to have caused thousands of Miskitos to take up arms against the Sandinistas.` The evacuation was ordered after the armed attacks by Miskito and non-Miskito contras had caused 60 dead in the Rio Coco villages.``

If Salvadoran President Jose Napoleon Duarte says that the rebels are using civilians as shields, that satisfies the editors, although in the very same article they savage the human rights groups for their failings on the use of evidence (9/21/84). The accusations of Americas Watch and Amnesty International gullibility by editors who were themselves gullible as a matter of principle was laughable. But these pitbull attacks, no matter how hypocritical and lacking in substance, were effective in putting the human rights groups on the defensive.

Editorial Page Vs. Democracy

Although the Journal claims to support political democracy, time and again the editors throw their weight in favor of authoritarian rule. Their true guiding principle seems to be service to the interests of the market. When this demanded a termination of democracy, as in Brazil in 1964, the Philippines in 1972, Chile in 1973 or Haiti in 1991, the editors could be counted on to lend moral support.

This is frequently put in terms of a Red threat in the old democracy, justifying its replacement with non-democracy right now, but with greater promise for the long run. AUende was allegedly mismanaging Chile`s economy, growth was slow, authoritarianism was looming, and the army understandably reacted (11/2/73). The editors` tolerance of killing and terrorizing in response to such hypothetical threats of killing and terrorizing is seemingly without limit.

Contributing Editor Robert Barro happily calls attention to the fact that democracy doesn`t necessarily maximize ``growth`` (``Pushing Democracy Is No Key to Prosperity,`` 12/14/93; ``Democracy: A Recipe for Growth?`` 12/1/94). Barro takes it for granted that growth, independent of questions about income distribution, economic security and public participation, is all we should be interested in.

Nor is the editorial page supportive of democracy at home. It does not call for its termination, but its neoconservative attacks on oppositional ideas, individuals and policies, its pitbull aggressiveness and intolerance, are subversive of the democratic spirit and, ultimately, democratic institutions. Its attacks are not merely disagreements; they are intended to silence.

The editors are not concerned with money in politics; if those who have the gold make the rules, that is the appropriate result of the free market at work and hence an area of silence. The same goes for media concentration and commercialization; after all, the ``liberal establishment`` is still ``ensconced in...much of the media`` (5/26/95), so pitiful giants like Robert Bartley, Rupert Murdoch and Newt Gingrich can barely be heard over the liberal din.

As the liberals have dominated ``large sections of the judiciary`` as well (5/26/95), the editors could sympathize with Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese`s suggestion that Supreme Court rulings are not necessarily binding on public officials (10/29/86), which American Bar Association president Eugene Thomas said would, if implemented, ``shake the foundations of our constitutional system.``

Editorial Page Vs. Free Speech

The editors have expended great energy in assailing the threats to free speech posed by ``political correctness`` and the ``liberal establishment`s`` imposition of multiculturalist materials on victimized students and alumni. But once again the double standard and selective use of evidence call into question editorial interest in free speech per se.

Pinochet`s muzzling the press, killing dissident journalists and academics, and imposing military rule and standards of correctness on Chilean universities did not bother the editors at all. Jeffrey Hart, the Dartmouth academic and long-time editorial page favorite, was much concerned with the P.C. threat, but openly enthused over Pinochet`s dictatorial rule: His office featured a photograph of himself and Pinochet exchanging pleasantries (Counterpunch, 1/15/94). For ultra-relativism, free speech is for my side alone.

At home, the vast expansion of right-wing funding for ``free enterprise chairs,`` campus think tanks, law and economics programs, and lecture series with a clear and open bias (see Larry Soley, Leasing the Ivory Tower) has not bothered the editors at all. In neo-con mythology, the business community and conservatives are fighting a defensive battle against the left and the ``liberal establishment`` (``contemporary liberalism...is on the attack, forcing everything through the filter of politics``—12/13/94), so that although virtually all the money flowing to the university with an ideological bias and political agenda is right-wing, this merely serves to correct a serious imbalance.

Lee Bass`s $20 million gift to Yale to foster a Western Civilization program was considered an admirable idea by the Journal editors; no question was raised about an outside party pushing a specific program, if it was the right one. When Yale returned Bass` gift after he insisted on helping to choose the faculty as well, the editors had problems only with the intervention of faculty ``enforcers`` (12/13/94).

The Enola Gay controversy also involved the editors in a remarkable display of intolerance and totalitarian attitudes. The Smithsonian`s proposed display had tried to put the atomic bombing of Japan in a historic context, rather than as a patriotic effusion, although it was on balance supportive of President Harry Truman`s decision to bomb. Air Force historian Richard Hallion called it ``a great script.``

But the American Legion and especially the Air Force Association disapproved, and made it into a political issue, eventually succeeding in getting the contested program canceled, the program director ousted and a Senate resolution passed denouncing ``revisionist`` interpretations.

The editorial page of the Journal naturally entered this fray (1/31/95), asserting that ``the people`` had risen up to contest the ``liberal establishment`` The editors somehow confused ``the people`` with the American Legion and Air Force Association, the latter a longstanding lobby for the Air Force. Essentially the editors and AFA objected to real history; they wanted traditional uplifting, patriotic history, without the carping of the real thing. The editors thus considered the defeat of the contextualized exhibit a triumph.

The editorial statement that there was ``the well-known political correctness problem with the exhibit`` (5/3/95) demonstrates once again that for the editors P.C. simply means failure to conform to their ideological dogma. The editors did note (1/31/95) the fears of historians ``that one set of assumptions is simply going to be imposed by fiat in place of their own.... That would be unfortunate, we guess. But we don`t plan to feel very sorry for these academics.``

Free Lunch Economics

The editorial page was notable in the Reagan era for its advocacy of supply-side economics and Reagan`s economic policies—-policies that resulted in a tripling of the national debt, soaring poverty rates and, most damning to supply-side theory, falling savings rates and net investment levels.

Numerous Journal opinion pieces have been devoted to rebutting claims that inequality increased during the Reagan/Bush years—although, given the number of other pieces actually praising the virtues of inequality (e.g., Barro, ``Inequality and Its Charms,`` 2/10/93), this may have been seen by the editorial board as cause for regret.

During the Reagan era, the editorial page strenuously defended the ongoing massive deficits, claiming they were exaggerated in size, importance and potential growth: ``The real deficit story is that the deficit is shrinking away,`` the Journal reassured in 1984 (6/28/84); in 1991, when the deficit hit $269 billion, the Journal declared (10/31/91) that its ``role seems a lot bigger than it really is.``

Displaying its usual double standard, however, the Journal had consistently assailed the much smaller deficits of the Carter years; ``deficit spending`` was called the ``fundamental cause of inflation`` (3/22/78), and Carter`s low public esteem was blamed on his failure to bring deficits under control (6/1/78). But these were Democratic rather than Republican deficits, and did not serve the benevolent ends of the latter.

In his book The Seven Fat Years as well as in editorials, Bartley blamed the Reagan-era deficits on the Democrats, although Reagan`s budget proposals, if fully implemented, would have produced a total eight-year deficit of more than $1.2 trillion (New York Review of Books, 8/13/92).

The editorial page has been a proponent of deregulation, virtually without limit, and there has been a stream of editorials and guest columns proposing deregulation in environmental controls and many other spheres of activity. Guest Milton Friedman (5/16/95) proudly recalled his percipient Newsweek article of 20 years back (1/8/73) demanding the complete elimination of the Food and Drug Administration, now perhaps in the works thanks to Newt Gingrich and Robert Dole.

The great illustration of deregulation in action in the Reagan era, the loosening of the reins on the S&Ls, was greeted with enthusiasm by the editors in 1981 (6/29/81): The new authority to ``make all types of loans and enlarge the scope of their investments`` is a means of solving their problems that is ``cheap.`` When this cheap solution turned out to be quite expensive in the late 1980s, the editors characteristically placed all the blame on the Democrats, not on deregulation and not the Reagan administration`s handling of the issues.

Comics Page or Reactionary Headquarters?

Some people view the Journal editorial page as a kind of comics page complement to the news section. Indeed, its crude double standards, selective use of evidence and outright prevarication are often laughable.

On the other hand, in his analysis of the Enola Gay controversy, historian Mike Wallace refers to the page as ``the GHQ of reaction.`` This is equally valid: From their strategic position in a major media enterprise, the editors have been able to help lead the ongoing counterrevolution, with consequences observable to all. It is important to recognize, however, that leadership of this counterrevolution has been entirely incompatible with editorial ``integrity`` and support of democratic values.

---

Edward S. Herman, professor emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of several books, including Corporate Control, Corporate Power; Beyond Hypocrisy; and (with Noam Chomsky) Manufacturing Consent. A longer version of this article is available from FAIR.

#107 by omar_r_quraishi on October 21, 2005 2:20am PT


goatbrain: When Dawn prints a piece saying Ivan was divine retribution for Iraq, that`s the private view of Anjum Niaz(although it was on Dawn`s website)...

So going by your goatbrain logic, all the articles you don`t like in the WSJ are the individual views of the authors and in no way impugn the credibility of the newspaper itself....

Re: # 109

Arjun:

Excellent point! Since the said interactor attacked the Journal vs pointing out his likes or dislikes therefore his point has no weight. I love the Journal. I do think that the editorial section lacks the spirit. I hardly know anyone who subscribes to the Journal for its editorials.

#108 Omar, sorry for intrusion.

I have been loyal fan of WSJ for over 20 years. I gladly pay for the on-line version while I will not pay a single cent for those liberal papers like NY Times. I agree that people living in US really may not know true conditions in India or Pakistan, but then it does not make you an expert either on what value WSJ adds to business people in USA or our preferences and values.

Quoting some worthless liberal professor or Judith Miller does not in anyway reduce our respect for this great paper.

Now please continue your dialogue with Zahra, Harish and Arjun.

Re: # 111

Pardesi:

Very valid point, as usual.