And hesheit'll still need a Department of "Free" Fish Handouts.
I
n a year infamous for memos fabricated by the moonbatty Left,
here's one that rises to the level of liberal perfidy which, due undoubtedly to The Conspiracy's current focus on conspiring against the forces of equally abundant Idiotarianism elsewhere, apparently hasn't been fisked yet. Not to worry. LC Local 666 is more than willing and happy to do its part to ensure our vastness extends even to this most braindead region of Libdrooldumb.
Date: 10th November 2004
Memorandum for: THE STAFF
From: Slimes assistant managing editor Allan M. Siegal, Chairperson, Credibility Committee [sic]
Subject: Re-examining Our Credibility
In the last year and a half, The Times has deepened and widened its efforts to deserve readers' trust.
By providing Al Jazeera-like cover for DNCBS and Dan Rather's efforts to foist forged anti-Bush memos on the American public? Or defending your own bogus, near election-eve "missing" explosives story?
Most notably, we have appointed a public editor and given serious consideration to his questions and advice;
Dan Okrent has held that job since
October 2003. So how come you didn't give "serious consideration" to his advice to skip that bogus "missing" explosives story?—What? He never gave you such advice? Oh. Well, that's different.
...we have required that every unidentified source quoted in the paper be known by name to at least one editor;
But by no one else, of course. Like, say, your readers.
...we have tried to describe our sources and their motives more candidly and usefully.
Let's see, a "source close to the White House" or another "with knowledge of its inner workings." But leaving out such "candid" information as "who worked for the same county Dhimmicratic party in Texas which held fund raisers attended by Dan RaTHer." I can see how doing so would be "useful" to
your readers your Leftist-propaganda rag.
We'd like to believe we have reduced our dependence on anonymous sources;
According to the
Slimes Style Manual (amended Nov. 3, 2004), every internal staff memo should now contain at least one obviously laughable line like this in order to lighten the considerably gloomy mood prevalent these days throughout the
Slimes.
...certainly we have begun trying and intend to push ahead.
Jayson Blair would be proud.
Now, as Bill Keller told us in his town hall meetings before the election,
Town hall meetings? So it's official, then. Slimes is now its own Dull City in A Sinkhole™. All future correspondence with it should be addressed to Mayor Pinch Sulzberger, Jr., 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY Nytcoville, Lalaland. Concerned readers needn't worry about putting Slimesville on their envelopes by "mistake." Each will wind up in the same circular location as all other such mail.
...we want to examine our practices, and our readers' demands [that you stop being overtly biased all the time], even more thoroughly. We especially want to examine the measures we have NOT yet taken, asking ourselves why not, and whether they could improve our accuracy and accountability.
Just one measure NOT yet taken: Cease being an exclusively Dhimm al-Qratic Party caterer and transcript service.
Why not: Because raving socialists don't have too many other places left where they can gather conspicuously to eat tofu and promulgate their loony ideas.
Could they improve our accuracy and accountability? Why is this relevant to anyone now? It's not like you have a whole lot of readers around any more who'd even notice.
For that purpose, Bill has asked me to put together a committee of news people to collect and evaluate those possibilities.
Fox. Henhouse. 'Nuff said.
It will be a small group,
Wouldn't want to open it up inadvertently to that overwhelming number of rabble who still think facts and identified sources have a valued place in any of your alleged reports.
...but a central part of its mandate will be to reach out to everyone anywhere in the news department who offers a useful idea.
"Reaching out" to them is usually the prerequisite for effectively slapping such folks down. It's hard to know where they all are unless you convince them they can come out and willingly share their, er hum, Yoozful Idears®.
Some of our first thoughts about proposals to examine include these:
* Can we cut back, or even cut out, our attendance at background briefings by nameless officials?
After all, that's how your favorite Bush-hating former Bush administration official (and Qlinton holdover) Richard "Bandstander" Clarke got busted for having
actually praised the administration for its "new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of Al Qaeda." Although your own reporter attended or should have attended this background briefing, you of course conveniently forgot to give it even one mention in all your reports touting every syllable of Clarke's anti-Bush
claims hate speech. Certainly would be much easier in the future to omit these kinds of highly relevant facts if you don't ever bother showing up at these briefings.
* Can we otherwise squeeze more anonymous sources out of our pages?
Hey, you forget. Your amended
Style Manual requires only one obviously funny line per memo. Still, it'd be funnier if you'd plagiarized
Slate's Jack Shafer here:
- If the past predicts the future, we should expect the memo to inspire the anonymice[™] to start reproducing in the
New York Times [Spew Pork Rinds] faster than tribbles on the starship Enterprise!
At least tribbles are squeezable.
Can we make our attributions (even the anonymous ones) less murky?
Can you write "now working as a top advisor to the al-Qerry Qampaign" on the front page above the fold, instead of just "national security expert who has a
very special way of keeping top-secret documents warm" on
page A-16 below it? In a word...
Nah!
Are there some stories we can afford to skip if they are not attributable to people with names?
You already do that, even when they are fully attributable to such people. Most of those stories are under your rag's nonexistent Special Section subtitled
Good News From Iraq.
* Can we encourage writers, in an organized way, to cultivate the respect of our sources by checking back with the people they have interviewed, and making sure they have both words and nuances correct?
Why break your long-standing precedent now? Besides, the only nuances you're demonstrably interested in are those swarming like flies over the incoherent policy
statements blitherings of
your rag's Diminishingcrat endorsees for president.
* Is there a systematic way to keep track of the errors we make, and analyze their causes, and make better use of training to reduce their frequency?
You ought to hire ol' Kenneth as head instructor for that training. I hear he's looking for a job now. He'll even include his own vintage 1970s instructional material, all typed on a time-traveling Selectric Composer®.
* What are the best practices in our business for accuracy and accountability, and which ones should we adapt or emulate?
Oh, I don't know. How about that best practice of using only the Feature Always Central To Stories, known lovingly by its acronym—FACTS?
* Should we join the small number of papers that send out random questionnaires after publication, to ask our story subjects what they thought of our accuracy and the civility of their encounter with us?
Oh, for rolling on the floor laughing out loud after slipping on a banana peel. Why should The Authority™ stoop so low as to "adapt" the practices of any lesser beings in Msmland? Those subjects of your "stories" should be honored, thrilled and thank Gaia for her merciful noblesse and abundant tree bark that TNOR (That Notorious Old Rag) might take even the slightest notice of their comparably meager existence! So what if you quote them wrong or entirely out of context? Their names—at least those you spelt correctly—appeared in the
Slimes. Who could possibly ask for anything more?
* Should we print the writer's e-mail address at the bottom of each story?
What would be the point? It's not like they'd pay any more attention to it than all the snail variety of hate mail they constantly receive. And that from just the non-leftists they invariably malign in their so-called "stories." Or better yet, give them each a cloaked Hotmail account so hesheit can have nearly the same level of anonymity as your sources.
Does our practice have to be identical throughout the staff?
No. There's no reason to start being fair now in anything affecting the way your reporters operate. People might get the unfortunate impression that you're trying to emulate "Faux" News.
Can it differ by department? By writer?
By story? Such as only when you
report propagandize for loserals, but not when you do so against conservatives? Maybe just limit it to the Crossword Puzzle Department. That should keep you all accountable.
* Should we consider an electronic spot-check for plagiarism?
You better consult with Raines & Blair, Ltd. about debugging the code first, before you download and install the beta version of that program. It's probably chock full or viruses that'll make your whole system crash and burn as well.
* Should we be responding systematically to outside critics who attack our believability for political or commercial reasons of their own?
You mean besides calling them "racists," "extremists," or "members of the religious right" in your "stories"?
What is an effective vehicle for doing this?
Well, for one, how about referring to those RINO heroes of yours as "Leftist tools" instead of "moderate Republicans"? It'd be a start.
A column by the editor or editors on how we work?
A whole column isn't necessary. Just a few sentences—e.g., "Every single day we chant this Pledge of Allegiance to the Double Standard:
- "I pledge allegiance to the double standard of the Spew Pork Rinds of Nytcoville, Lalaland; and to the propaganda value for which it stands. No fact, except buried on Page Z-321 under the fold, ever decipherable, without labels having the most negative connotations for all—all conservatives, that is."
The membership of the committee is listed below.
Hotmail addys not included.
Our introductory meeting will take place on November 11.
At which were heard many a "Hi, I'm Leff Tyst, and I'm a
Slimes reporter propagandist." "Hi, Leff."
We expect to meet for a few weeks, but not in marathon sessions like those of the 2003 Siegal Committee.
It did get tiresome after about the seven
hundredth "Oh, yeah! Well, Republicans are even eviler than how you characterized them. They're more evil than
[insert evil-sounding person (e.g., Hitler) or object (e.g., fascism) here]." Rinse. Repeat.
We're trying to blend many kinds of expertise.
Yeah, not just liberal propagandists, but a few propagandizing liberals this time, too.
We'll be grateful to everyone in the newsroom who has an idea to add to the list above, or who is willing to share thinking with the committee members.
"So we'll know who and where you are. Mmmhmmhmwhahahahahaha."
Many thanks.
Al
MEMBERSHIP OF THE COMMITTEE
David Barstow, Metro
Dana Canedy, National
Rebecca Corbett, Washington
Steve Crowley, Washington Pictures
Kevin Flynn, Metro
Steve Holmes, Washington
Christine Kay, Investigations
Charles Knittle, Metro
Patrick LaForge, Metro
Mike Leahy, Managing Editor's Office
Eric Schmitt, Washington
Terry Schwadron, Newsroom Technology
Al Siegal, Chairman
Phil Taubman, Washington
Duff Wilson, Sports
Diane Cardwell, Metro
Fred Andrews (Rapporteur) [that's *barf* frUNch *barf* for "very unlucky person who gets to sit around recording all those 'I hate Bush more than you' 'No you don't because I hate Bush a lot more' 'Well, I hate Bush a whole bunch more....' for hours on end during each meeting"]
In any case, no one has shared their thinking with them yet because no propagandist at the
Slimes is likely ever going to figure out how that thinking thingy works. However, they all thoroughly understand the value of free fish.
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