Webloggin » What's Your Excuse? Why Do You Still Buy The New York Times?

This is probably one of the hardest articles I have ever felt compelled to write. Right now I am sitting on the train going into the office, laptop loaded with news stories ready for consumption. This is part of my daily routine.

But today is different. I was vaguely aware of the New York Times horrendously tasteless posting of a video and photo of a dying American soldier from Iraq. So I grabbed a bunch of articles on the incident to see exactly what all the fuss was about. When I opened them up I was appalled to see the new low reached by the newspaper. Not only did they post images and video of a dying soldier before and after he had been shot in the head but they did it before the family had even been notified of his death. The act by the NY Times was a direct violation of military rules that prohibits the embedded press from publishing pictures of casualties especially without the families consent as well as that of the military.

But that didn’t stop the anti-war asses over at the New York Times from doing that very thing. The Times even ran a defiant AND convoluted defense of how this happened. Meanwhile they kept the video posted throughout Tuesday night even though they were aware that the family of the slain soldier was very upset about the posting as early as Monday.

It is hard to imagine the pain that Sgt. Leija’s family and friends are going through. Compound that with the New York Times internet posting of the event and you truly have a good picture of how low and slimy the newspaper really is – all activist, all the time.

The Houston Chronicle details the actions by the New York Times, their shallow excuses (some of which don’t add up) and the impact it is having on the family.

WASHINGTON — A photograph and videotape of a Texas soldier dying in Iraq published by the New York Times have triggered anger from his relatives and Army colleagues and revived a long-standing debate about which images of war are proper to show.

The journalists involved, Times reporter Damien Cave and Getty Images photographer Robert Nickelsberg, working for the Times, had their status as so-called embedded journalists suspended Tuesday by the Army corps in Baghdad, military officials said, because they violated a signed agreement not to publish photos or video of any wounded soldiers without official consent.

New York Times foreign editor Susan Chira said Tuesday night that the newspaper initially did not contact the family of Army Staff Sgt. Hector Leija about the images because of a specific request from the Army to avoid such a direct contact.

“The Times is extremely sensitive to the loss suffered by families when loved ones are killed in Iraq,” Chira said. “We have tried to write about the inevitable loss with extreme compassion.“

While it may be true that the New York Times the company has compassion, I have no doubt that their compassion is based on the bottom line and not the particular sensitivities of soldiers, their families and the various other people affected by the Times distasteful decisions. I wonder if the Times staffers bothered to read the heartbreaking tributes left for Army Staff Sgt. Hector Leija on his MySpace page? Did they really consider the family here?

The Times can’t even seem to get their compassionate version of events right.

Chira also said she had been told by the reporter in Baghdad that he had reached out to two people with Texas connections to act as intermediaries to alert the family that a video was going to be posted. They were Kathy Travis, a press aide to Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, and Principal Gilbert Galvan of Raymondville High School.

Travis had a different account.

“Whoa, that isn’t what happened,” she said Tuesday night in a telephone interview. “The reporter called me late Monday afternoon and said he understood that the family was upset and that he wanted us to know that he had the utmost respect for the soldier and wanted us to let the family know that.”

That’s compassion for you, covering your actions until the very end. It sounds to me like the Times tried to pawn this off as a communication mishap when in fact they decided to run the video and pictures despite knowing full well that the content hadn’t been cleared by anyone with authority to do so; least of which is the family.

I would like to think that the Times did this out of concern for the public interest but the truth is that this was just another publicity stunt courtesy of the anti-war establishment that is embedded deep within the newspaper.

Don’t get me wrong here, it is important to discuss the war and its impact on Americans and foreigners alike. But that is not what is happening in todays mainstream media. It is a one sided cadre of anti-establishment activists who are apparently too dense to know the limits of professional journalism or uphold the traditions of reporting the news rather than shaping it.

There are two decent papers that come out of New York in the Post and the Sun. If you find yourself holding the anti-military contribution at the news stand you should step back for a minute, take a deep breath and ask yourself why.

(h/t Michelle Malkin)

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