Hit Piece Journalism

[Geee]

Town Hall:

Front-page editorials, disguised as news stories, have become such familiar features of the New York Times that it should have been no surprise to discover in the December 28th issue a front-page story about a professor of finance at the University of Houston who has been a paid consultant to financial enterprises.

 

Since professors of all sorts have been paid consultants to organizations of all sorts, it is questionable why this was a story at all, much less one that covered an entire inside page, in addition to a central front-page opening, under the headline "Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward."

 

Do academics who attack Wall Street, as consultants to government agencies or other organizations, not get paid?

 

Like the corrupt French official in the movie classic "Casablanca," the New York Times is "shocked, shocked" to discover that consultants get paid defending the kinds of people that the New York Times attacks.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

[The NY Times Looks In the Wrong Place for Corrupt Academics

John Hinderaker

12/31/13

 

Academic research of all kinds receives funding from a variety of sources. Does the money taint the research? That is a complicated question that sometimes deserves to be asked. But this hit piece by David Kocieniewski in the New York Times, titled “Academics Who Defend Wall St. Reap Reward,” is a disgrace.

 

(Snip)

 

But the main point I want to make is somewhat different. The Times and other left-wing commentators are quick to assume that any connections between academics and private enterprise are somehow suspect. But how about the government? Every sentient being knows that the federal government, in today’s world, is just another interest group–the biggest, most powerful, and often most sinister interest group of them all. How about academics who take grant money from the government? Are they not tainted and corrupt?

 

The obvious examples are the global warming alarmists who have received billions of dollars in subsidies from the U.S. government. Climate alarmists are swimming in cash because they produce “research,” which is often merely a bad joke, that supports the federal government’s desire to assert more power over the American economy and your own life-style. Will the Times do an expose on, say, Michael Mann? Will they send a FOIA request to Penn State and scrutinize Mann’s emails? Will they draw an invidious connection between government money and the conclusions that climate alarmists conveniently assert, even though they are scientifically absurd? Will David Kocieniewski author an article in the Times titled, “Academics Who Defend Federal Government Reap Reward?”

 

Just kidding. The linkage between politics and “journalism” is now complete. In a corrupt rag like the New York Times, it is pointless to look for anything other than political advocacy.