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<DIV>All the news that's fudged to print<BR><BR>The New York Times sacrificed
its top editor for the wrong reasons, says<BR>Harper's publisher JOHN MacARTHUR.
If you think Jayson Blair was loose with<BR>the facts, look at how the Times
covered Iraq<BR><BR>By JOHN MacARTHUR<BR><BR>UPDATED AT 6:45 PM EDT Friday, Jun.
6, 2003<BR><BR>Yesterday's forced resignation of New York Times executive editor
Howell<BR>Raines might lead a casual observer to conclude that the wayward
reporter<BR>Jayson Blair (under Mr. Raines's lax supervision) had committed
serial rape<BR>on the Grey Lady of West 43rd Street, rather than serial acts
of<BR>journalistic fraud. In reality, this metaphoric beheading by the
company's<BR>board of directors furthers a preposterous image of victimization
that<BR>covers up far more serious transgressions by the "paper of
record."<BR><BR>Notwithstanding Mr. Blair's "crime," such a histrionic mea culpa
recalls the<BR>criminal who pleads to a lesser offence in order to escape
prosecution for a<BR>more serious one. Whatever's driving the paper's nervous
breakdown, I'm sure<BR>of this: The Times has lately been a perpetrator of fraud
more than its<BR>victim.<BR><BR>Take the case of staff reporter Judith Miller,
who covers the atomic<BR>bomb/chemical-weapons-fear beat, and hasn't heard a
scare story about Iraq<BR>that she didn't believe, especially if leaked by her
White House friends. On<BR>Sept. 8, 2002, Ms. Miller and her colleague Michael
Gordon helped co-launch<BR>the Bush II sales campaign for Saddam-change with a
front page story about<BR>unsuccessful Iraqi efforts to purchase 81-mm aluminum
tubes, allegedly<BR>destined for a revived nuclear weapons
program.<BR><BR>Pitched to a 9/11-spooked public and a gullible, cowardly U.S.
congress, the<BR>aluminum tubes plant was a big component of the "weapons of
mass<BR>destruction" canard, which resulted in hasty House and Senate
war<BR>authorization on Oct. 11.<BR><BR>continued</DIV>
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