Virtue Magazine

Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted
By Bob Kohn
Published in 2003 by WND Books
321 pages
$25.99

Back in 2001, former CBS news reporter and producer Bernard Goldberg wrote Bias, a book that provided a scathing critique of the liberal slant in the national news media. Goldberg’s book caused a huge splash in political and media circles, and became an immediate bestseller. Conservatives welcomed and trumpeted Bias, as it basically confirmed what they already knew but what liberals refused to admit.

While Bias deserved the attention it received, in truth it was sorely lacking in several areas. One doesn’t need to read much of the book to realize that Goldberg’s strength lies in television, not writing. Moreover, while the book certainly was interesting and eye-opening, Goldberg never really provided a thorough analysis of the news media. Instead, his book dealt with bias itself only in very general terms, and usually only in regards to CBS, television executives, and news anchors.

Enter Bob Kohn’s Journalistic Fraud. Published in 2003, Kohn’s book provides a careful, detailed, and irrefutable expose of the bias and dishonesty of the “newspaper of record”—The New York Times.

While Journalistic Fraud has received very little attention in comparison to Goldberg’s book, it is, in fact, a much better book than Bias. Kohn seems to have much more of a background in writing, and on a technical level his book is much more enjoyable to read. His book is crisp and clear in its presentation, his research and documentation is exhaustive (the author is a lifelong reader of the New York Times, and it shows), and since he has limited himself to one target, the Times, his book is truly devastating. A blurb on the back of the book claims that “Once you’ve read this book, you’ll never read the Times—or any newspaper—the same way again.” Blurbs on the back of books can sometimes be exaggeration or hyperbole, but this one is completely true.

Kohn demolishes The New York Times’ reputation (or what’s left of it, anyway) point-by-point, paragraph-by-paragraph, lead-by-lead, article-by-article, and headline-by-headline. He shows why the Times can no longer be trusted; how it passes off editorials as straight-news stories; how it slants the presentation of facts in the headlines and leads of stories; how it uses polls, labels and language to “hoodwink readers,” and how it manipulates news stories and readers to try to advance the paper’s far-left agenda.

Kohn writes that as early as the 1890’s, the Times “was widely considered to be an organ of the Democratic party.” But after purchasing the paper in 1896, Adolph S. Ochs issued what was one of the only statements to ever appear in the paper under his name:

“It will be the aim of the Times . . .,” he said, “to give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interests involved.”

Och’s son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger took over the paper in 1935, and repeated Och’s sentiments, stating that “no matter how we view the world, our responsibility lies in reporting accurately that which happens.” However, according to Kohn, sometime in the 1950’s or 60’s the Times began to abandon what had been a long tradition of impartiality.

“It was a Times reporter in Havana who reported that Fidel Castro’s Cuba was ‘free, honest, and democratic’ as thousands suffered and died in Castro’s political prisons,” Kohn notes.

Kohn charges that under Howell Raines (a man who wrote in his autobiography that “Reagan couldn’t tie his shoelaces if his life depended on it”), the bias at the Times grew so bad that a “minor revolt” started up among the paper’s “rank and file news reporters.” Worried that Raines’ use of the front page to shamelessly advance editorial views was reflecting poorly upon the reputation of everyone involved, some of these reporters “even began talking to other members of the press about their disenchantment.”

Kohn also briefly discusses the Jayson Blair scandal, along with several issues related to news media bias in general. He then launches into his unique but damning critique of the Times’ day-to-day reporting, providing a “Style Guide For Liberal Bias.” He addresses, in order: distorting the lead, distorting the headline, distorting the facts, distorting with opinion, distorting with labels, distorting with loaded language, distorting with crusades, distorting with polls, and distorting with placement. With each category, Kohn provides numerous examples, citing and picking apart actual news stories that appeared in the New York Times.

Before delving into these, Kohn first explains the form of writing known as the “inverted pyramid.” (Used almost exclusively in news stories, the inverted pyramid begins an article with the climax, and then adds on any other details later in the article, usually descending in the order of importance.) He also speaks about the six questions involved in writing a lead (the first sentence or paragraph of a news story), and explains the importance of the lead and what should and should not be in the lead. Kohn is at his best when describing, illustrating and explaining the importance of these principles of journalism. As someone who is interested in journalism as a career, I found this part exceptionally interesting and most importantly, easy to understand.

It soon becomes clear why Kohn feels it is important to talk about these principles. For example, in his section “Slanting the lead,” Kohn writes:

“When the president of the United States accomplishes an objective, such as signing a bill into law, the journalist has a choice: he may write a lead that constitutes ‘a plain statement of fact,’ expressing several of the five Ws and perhaps the H [Who, What, When, Where, Why, How?], or he may write an introduction that is ‘partial to the editorial views of the publisher.’

“If the president is a Republican and a plain statement of the facts would make him look good, the path is clear: convey to the reader the impression of the story we want the reader to have. For example, when a Republican president signs a bill into law, one effective tactic is to arrange the lead in such a way as to convey the impression that the president was responsible for the problems leading up to the need for legislation.”

Kohn then refers to a New York Times article published on July, 31, 2002 with the headline “BUSH SIGNS BILL AIMED AT FRAUD IN CORPORATIONS.”

Writes Kohn: “If you read the headline . . . you might expect the lead to read like this:

‘WASHINGTON, July XX—President Bush today signed a sweeping corporate-fraud bill that . . .’

“Thus begins a ‘a plain statement of fact’ about what the president did that day . . . but the notion that ‘a plain statement of fact is the best introduction to a news story’ is not consistent with the mission of the modern newspaper, which is to influence public opinion. To properly influence the reader, you must spin the story before you report the news.”

Kohn illustrates this when he quotes and comments on the actual New York Times news lead that appeared under the “BUSH SIGNS BILL . . “ headline:

“WASHINGTON, July 30—In a sign of how profoundly the nation’s business scandals and volatile stock market have rocked his administration, President Bush signed a sweeping corporate fraud bill today . . .”

And so it goes throughout much of the book. Kohn goes through dozens, if not hundreds of actual New York Times news stories, editorials, and headlines. Time and time again he points out both obvious and not-so-obvious methods that Times reporters and editors use to slant “straight” news stories.

If there is one downside to Journalistic Fraud, it is, ironically enough, the same thing that makes it a must-read. Kohn’s point-by-point analysis is so thorough and methodical that some may find that the book begins to get boring. I zipped through the first two/thirds of the book in no time, but it took me a lot longer to get through the last third, perhaps due to this reason.

It is a tribute to the effectiveness of this book, however, that one can read only half of it and still come away with a solid knowledge of the Times’ dishonesty, and the tricks that the paper uses to promote its editorial opinions in news stories.

Like the blurb on the back of the book says: Once you’ve read this book, you’ll never read the Times—or any newspaper—the same way again.