Roger’s Rules

January 21st, 2008 5:54 am

Why does anyone believe The New York Times about anything, ever?

I am glad that our former paper of record is getting some small portion of the obloquy it deserves for “Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles,” the front-page story it ran on January 13 inaugurating a series about the supposed violent tendencies of American soldiers who had returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

There were, the Times moaned, “121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war.” Oh-my-god, has BushHitler transformed the U.S. Military into a bunch of homicidal maniacs?

Not quite, Virginia (actually, the authors were Deb and Liz: Deborah Sontag and Lizette Alvarez–remember those names and avoid them). As my colleague Bob Owens at Pajamas Media reported a few days ago, the ink was barely dry on tomorrow’s fish-wrapper before Sontag’s and Alvarez’s patchwork of innuendo, statistical “creativity,” and ideological twisting of facts came to light. In the first place, the “121″ homicides that the Times cites would actually represents a far lower murder rate than among the general civilian population. Sontag and Alvarez never get around to mentioning that little tidbit.

Even worse, however, is the link that Sontag and Alvarez imply, but by no means demonstrate, between military service and homicidal behavior. As Owens notes,

Of those 121 summaries, 40 do not show direct ties between the stresses of deploying to combat zones and the homicides for which these veterans were charged, and of those, 14 were of highly dubious nature.

The appropriately named Travis D. Beer, an Army reservist deployed to Iraq, pleaded no contest to motor vehicle homicide, and had two prior arrests for driving under the influence. The Times does not note if those prior arrests occurred before he deployed to Iraq.
Jonathan Braham, a Marine veteran of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, shot a man whom he thought had sexually abused his stepson. According to the Times’ own reporting, he was adamant that his service in Iraq did not play a role in his decision to shoot the alleged abuser.
Brian Epting was sentenced to six years for vehicular homicide when he lost control of his car while drag racing in 2005 and killed Robert Duffy, a World War II veteran. Is the Times seriously implying that his deployment to Iraq in 2003 is to blame for a drag racing death?
Michael Gwinn Jr. has a history of domestic violence.
Robert G. Jackson was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, as was Johnny Williams Jr., which cannot readily be tied to military deployments. Likewise, James Pitts has psychiatric problems predating his deployment to Iraq.
Michael Antonio Jordan had a juvenile criminal record and was involved in gang activity.
Christian Mariano was acquitted for acting in self-defense, and yet the Times still included him on this list.
Jason R. Smith, a National Guard veteran and Atlanta narcotics officer, shot elderly Kathryn Johnston in an infamous no-knock raid, and is currently being treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, but his attorney cannot say what the proximate cause of his PTSD may have been.
Aaron Stanley’s sideline occupation as an alleged methamphetamine and marijuana dealer may have had more to do with his homicides than his deployment to Iraq. Vernon Walker killed two fellow soldiers while dealing drugs.
Larry Jaimall West was a member of the Crips street gang.
Jared Terrasas had a conviction for misdemeanor spousal abuse prior to his deployment to Iraq
Jessie L. Ullom had already been charged with abusing his infant son before he saw combat.

Owens also provides this helpful historical reminder:

[T]he bizarre emphasis of the New York Times upon veteran violence without the provision of context can be understood by remembering that Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the Times, once said during the Vietnam War that if a North Vietnamese soldier ran into an American soldier, he’d rather see the American soldier shot.

What if someone were to apply the sort of statistical reasoning to the Times that the Times applies to the men and women that make life cosy in and around the newsrooms of our former paper of record? As it happens, someone has. In an inspired piece of investigative journalism, the weblog Iowahawk reveals the seamy truth in a sensation, Pulitzer-Prize-winning bid called “Bylines of Brutality” (”As Casualties Mount, Some Question The Emotional Stability of Media Vets”). The sad, sad story begins:

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence of that America’s newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters? Answers are elusive, but the ever-increasing toll of violent crimes committed by journalists has led some experts to warn that without programs for intensive mental health care, the nation faces a potential bloodbath at the hands of psychopathic media vets.

“These people could snap at any minute,” says James Treacher of the Treacher Institute for Journalist Studies. “We need to get them the help and medication they need before it’s too late.”

Statistics of Shame

Accounts of media psychopathy, while widespread, have until now been largely anecdotal. In order to provide a more focused and systematic study of the crisis, Iowahawk researchers set out to identify and tabulate criminal arrests and convictions of current and former journalists. While by no means comprehensive, this 10-minute project yielded a grim picture of a once-proud profession now in the grips of tragic, drunk, violent, child-raping rage.

The stories cited in the opening paragraph, while instructive, are by no means isolated. Google searches return hundreds of crimes attributable to workers in America’s media industry, and millions of pages containing the terms “journalist” and “murder.” They are as shocking in their detail as they are in their number.

While some journalists’ alleged offenses are limited to propery crimes and theft — such as Redwood City (CA) radio reporter Joe McConnell and Former Detroit TV Reporter Suzanne Wangler — often they take a darker turn, resulting in public endangerment. Current and former journalists seem particularly enthusiastic about driving the nation’s highways and streets in drug and alcohol fueled stupors. Among the journalists arrested or charged with DUI offenses since 2000 include Salon and Guardian columnist Sidney Blumenthal, Chicago TV news anchor Walter Jacobson, Kansas City TV reporter Steve Shaw, Nashville newspaper columnist Brad Schmitt, Albuquerque Journal reporter Chris Vogel, Rocky Mountain News editor Holger Jesen, New York Post Columnist Richard Johnson, Idaho State Journal columnist Brady Slater, Tampa Tribune editor Janet Weaver, St. Petersburg Times reporter Eric Robert Gershman, and Lexington (KY) TV reporter Angelica St. John.

How many unsuspecting American motorists and pedestrians remain at risk from alcoholic media professionals is still a matter of scientific conjecture, but one thing is certain: journalists can be even more deadly outside their cars. Often the journalistic gateway to violent behavior begins with stalking and trespassing — such as has been alleged of People magazine reporters Jeffrey Neal Weiss, and, in an unrelated incident, Don Sider. But sometimes, as in the case of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, serial stalking behavior goes unpunished and the perpetrators go on to seek more serious thrill-crimes. Journalists recently charged with violent offenses include New York Times reporter and alleged batterer Michael Katz, British reporter Ben Stubbings, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Margaret Gillerman, charged with striking a police officer.

It is an inspired . . . I was going to say “parody,” but really it is far too close to the original to be called a parody. Perhaps it would be more accurate to compare it to the play Hamlet stages to “catch the conscience of the King,” a dramatic re-enactment of the very crime Claudius had committed but had yet to acknowledge. It worked for Hamlet; will Iowahawk’s performance work for the rest of us? It is too early to tell. But read the whole thing here. It is more truthful, and far more amusing, than anything you’ll read in the Times.

Update: And here are some posters relating to The Media Violence Project!.

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19 Comments

1. Diggs:

Soldiers (and probably Marines as well) are told that the media they encounter on the battlefield are not the enemy. Such a blanket statement is not always true, but it is what we are told.
How refreshing it would be to have J schools tell would-be reporters that US Army Soldiers, and USMC Marines they encounter in the course of their lives are not the enemy.

Jan 21, 2008 - 8:30 am 2. renminbi:

The Times has become really vile. Perhaps people should be asking advertisers why they use The Times, or am I just being a hothead?

Jan 21, 2008 - 8:36 am 3. Olderthandirt:

Just love the history bit about Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger Jr.! I’d like to rework his famous phrase into the following: If there were a choice of reading the NY Times or having a bowel movement, use the Times for cleanup afterwards. However, it’s always good to get a tetanus shot after touching the NY Times in any way!

Jan 21, 2008 - 8:39 am 4. Ike Andrews:

The left’s terribly dishonest (and boring) meme of the war-vet-gone-psycho gets a pseudo-scholarly makeover in the New York Times and the anti-war, anti-Bush crowd tsk-tsk’s its way into another delusional daydream about the awfulness of American hegemony. Thank God for the “Army of Davids” rising up against this corrupt giant and exposing the Times’ dishonesty, and thanks to Iowahawk for the brilliant way in leading the charge and to Roger for the added exposure on Pajamas Media.

Jan 21, 2008 - 8:47 am 5. david foster:

Seems to me that the NYT is seriously diluting the value of its brand–which is closely connected, obviously, to its reputation for accurate, factual, and comprehensive reporting–in order to pursue a political agenda. How does this square with the fiduciary obligations of public-company management to shareholders?

Jan 21, 2008 - 8:48 am 6. J'hn1:

Wasn’t there an online category of a Pulitzer?
IowaHawk should get at least a nomination for it.

Jan 21, 2008 - 9:08 am 7. QuickRob:

How long before the NYT succumbs to defeat in a survival of the fittest to print?

Jan 21, 2008 - 9:12 am 8. david still:

Everyone that writes read the NY Times and then picks what they want to blast. And then reads the paper day after day because it is still the best in America.
The Times article was focusing in a series about what happens to vets from iraq war. It is not putting down the military but rather if you look for inplications the article strongly suggests that the Bush administration has neglected to help our returning soldiers. Don’t believe that? Check what is going on in VA Hospitals for openers, that is, budget cuts etc and the failure of Bush to sign the bill put before him that would put substantial money toward helping vets
ps: I am a vet

Jan 21, 2008 - 10:28 am 9. Mark:

David,

I think YOU misunderstood the article. The authors are trying to say that the war made these vets kill. But as you can see by the IowaHawk post 40 of these 121 accusations have no relation to the veteran’s service overseas.

Do you get it?

What is was the rate of murders committed by veteran’s prior to 9/11? I don’t know, but when journalists become scientists and people believe them we are all in trouble.

Jan 21, 2008 - 10:49 am 10. beckett:

Brilliant stuff by Iowahawk. One quibble though. How could he have missed the DUI citation of Bill Moyers, the preachiest scold of the liberal/left.

Jan 21, 2008 - 10:59 am 11. Matt:

David, thanks for your service, and I agree that there are problems that urgently need to be addressed re: the care and benefits given to vets. I also agree that the Bush administration, Bush included, is blameworthy for the fact that some of these problems persist.

That said, you’re smoking your socks if you think the article in question did not put down the military.

And I’ll say one thing more – the authors and editors of that article are not fools, they are liars. I say that based on one premise: No one could be involved in producing an article on (behavior x) in (social subgroup x) without even CONSIDERING the statistical context of the larger society. Those folks are smart, they went to college, they KNEW they were putting out a deceptive article. That was their intention.

Jan 21, 2008 - 11:18 am 12. Alo Kievalar:

I’ve always believed that a person’s NAME subtley but significantly affects his development as a human being, however distant and unquantifiable those effects may be. “Arnold Schwarzzeneger” (currently “governor” of California) and “Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr (formerly Commander of the Coalition Forces/Iraq) are appellations that quickly come to mind. The verb “to nix” and the noun “vixen” and what they mean are too close to the surname “Nixon” (and what it came to mean) to be mere coincidence.

I can’t comment on the surname “Alvarez” and I don’t have to comment on the surname “Sontag” other than to say that any written opinion piece that is the product of these two forces should probably be approached with trepidation.

Although everyone knows what “average” is, no one can actually be placed in that specific category of measurement. That is to say, everyone is either above or below average.

This means that whenever you take a portion of the whole, it will always be above or below the national (or whatever) average of whatever you are trying to prove.

As Mr Kimball points out, “…the “121” homicides that the Times cites would actually represents a far lower murder rate than among the general civilian population.” and that those homicides were largely committed by individuals of questionable character, characters nurtured and formed long before they entered military service.

So we could easily “prove” that service in Iraq is actually a character enhancing experience, rather than the other way around.

All this proves nothing except to confirm that old adage: “You can prove anything with statistics. “

It’s too bad that the NY Times is no longer what it once was.

Mr Kimball has often referred to the NY Times as “our former paper of record”. I wonder if sometime he would let us know why he now considers the NYT as our “former” paper of record and if there is currently any paper worth considering “our (current)paper of record”.

Jan 21, 2008 - 12:06 pm 13. belloscm:

…Everyone that writes read the NY Times and then picks what they want to blast. And then reads the paper day after day because it is still the best in America…

Hard to argue with some of this. Although I do see the NYT as a vital source of info, it is, by no means, the only one. It is one metric by which I try to determine ground truth. And learn what the other side is thinking.

Now on to the subject of the subject:
Sorry, but “Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles,” was a poorly disguised hit piece, another effort by the Times’ to undermine/discredit “Bush’s War.” If you can’t report on the surge without revealing that the surge is, in fact, working, it’s better to re-hash the old vets as killers meme.
I read every one of the 121 cases and found less than 30 that demonstrated direct evidence of combat-related PTSD. If the “real” number is closer to 30 and not, in fact, 121, what’s the story? I get it, less than 30 is relatively insignificant, while 121 is a “quiet phenomona” that rates a full length, front page story in the Sunday NYT.

Just because you have served in an area that is a designated war zone, doesn’t mean that you have been to war. Lots of REMFs depicted in the Times’story. Working in the Motor Pool back at Camp Snafu sniffing ether and selling meth isn’t the same as goin’ house to house in Fallujah. But, “war” is hell, didn’t ya know? Don’t even get me started on the methodology used by the NYT in putting this story (and I do mean, story) together. “Statistical Creativity” is being generous, to say the least.

Btw, please make a better effort to become an informed “vet” before you begin to lay all of the shortcomings of the VA at the feet of the current administration. Most surveys of vets receiving treatment for Iraq / Afghanistan war-related injuries show a high degree of satisfaction with the treatment they have received. Not that you would hear about this in the NYT. Btw, did you know that parts of Walter Reed are a shit-hole? NYT readers do. Yep, we could be doing a lot better by our veterans. Nope, it didn’t start with the BusHitler Admin, as much as Dick Cheney would like for all of us to STFU about all of the cheap wheelchairs and ill-fitting prosthetics. An informed “vet” would know that vets have been trying to cash in empty promises since at least 1776.

P.S. I’m a 30 yr vet.

Jan 21, 2008 - 12:16 pm 14. Anonymous:

For David Foster: It doesn’t square. But Pinch Sulzberger doesn’t care much. Here’s why: The New York Times Company has a dual class of stock, in which the stock held by the Ochs family has far bigger voting rights than does the publicly held stock. So the Sulzberger family can sit back and ignore to outside challenges, secure in the ancient legal principle, “Well, what are you going to do about it? We’ve got the votes.”

This is what the public shareholders are going to do about it: last year, a Morgan Stanley money manager sold Morgan’s holdings in the publicly held stock (7.15% of the total) after witholding its votes for the election of company directors for two years, and asking Sulzberger to give up the dual class voting privleges. Pinch had ignored him. He realized that Pinch would contintuea to tell him to go to hell with his damn changes. So he sold. It depressed the stock price. I think it is possible that Pinch is deliberately running down the price of the public then tell everyone in the world to go to hell. Risky, but it might work. It could also be that Pinch is just a witless fool who is squandering his family’s inheritance. It happened with the Reid family, who owned the old New York HERALD TRIBUNE for three generations before they were forced out. Pinch is the fourth generation of the Ochs family to control the TIMES. My bet is he will be the last.

Here’s an article that gives details:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117742039922080417.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster

Jan 21, 2008 - 12:53 pm 15. Kevin R.C. 'Hognose' O'Brien:

Here is an article in a military-town newspaper — a paper that generally misses no opportunity to bash the town’s biggest employer. They ran the Times piece and faced a subscriber and advertiser revolution. Then, somewhat belatedly and under pressure, they did what no one else has done: compare GI crimes in the years since 9/11 with GI crimes in the years before.

http://www.fayobserver.com/article?id=283595

“Twelve Fort Bragg soldiers have been accused of killing 13 people in the six-plus years since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Observer records. In the six years before the terrorist attacks, 16 Fort Bragg soldiers were accused of killing 18 people.”

Fort Bragg is the home of the 82nd Airborne Division, the XVIIIth Airborne Corps, the Special Forces command and school and two SF Groups, and various other special operations units.

These elements probably have been more deployed and in more actual fighting than anybody else in the military. They’ve lost more lives and friends and arms and legs than anybody. They’ve definitely killed more enemies than anybody (unless you’re Pinch, who sees these things in reverse). So they ought, if the Times’s theory is solid, to be nuttier and more violent than anybody.

Every homicide is a multidimensional human tragedy, but the Times’s attempt to label me and every other GWOT vet a murderer is a crime.

I can only assume that their advertisers, too, hate us, and are determined not to take any of our blood money.

Jan 21, 2008 - 2:26 pm 16. Anonymous:

Koster, you are right on the dual stock status and Ochs family views of ’screw you’ to the public at large. But there is one thing the Ochs can’t duck — creditors. A company of NYT’s size has a fair debt load in order to capitalize the equipment. Most large capitalizations come with some strings attached. One of which is the debtor must maintain a certain level of equity position to protect the creditors interests.

Well as the NYT stock keeps dropping the equity position shifts downward. At some point one of NYT’s major creditors is going to issue a capitalization request, ie. cough up cash. Its at this point that the death spiral really begins. Once one creditor makes a issue, most of the other majors follow right behind them protecting their positions. At that point most highly capitalized companies are cooked. They don’t keep that much cash on their balance sheets.

A class holding won’t protect them from the creditor call.

Jan 21, 2008 - 4:42 pm 17. Broadsword:

When the MY Times, afire in the main masts burns to the waterline, it will not be too soon. If for nothing else than their leaks they deserve all fair and unfair contumely and contempt aimed at them. Rooted, mocking hogs!

Jan 21, 2008 - 5:41 pm 18. Roger’s Rules » Who caused the global economic crisis? (Hint: it wasn’t George W. Bush):

[...] the general population, a titdbit that the Times neglected to mention. At the time, I asked “Why does anyone believe The New York Times about anything, ever?“, a question no one has yet answered to my [...]

Dec 22, 2008 - 7:53 am 19. Rex Flex: Politics » Who caused the global economic crisis? (Hint: it wasn’t George W. Bush):

[...] of the general population, a titdbit that the Times neglected to mention. At the time, I asked “Why does anyone believe The New York Times about anything, ever?“, a question no one has yet answered to my [...]

Dec 23, 2008 - 11:16 am