By Selwyn Duke

The New York Times really could be the poster rag for the decline of the mainstream media.  Its new motto should be "All the news that fits our agenda," as rarely a week passes where my low opinion of it isn’t affirmed.  This time the paper issued its offense against Truth on the Lord’s day, with a piece titled "Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles." 

The article smears our military by playing upon the "crazy vet" myth, leaving readers with the impression that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are committing an inordinate number of murders.  They point to a figure of 121 killings since 2001.

Like much the Times writes, however, it’s fiction.  As others have already determined, if you factor in all the relevant elements, the rate of murder by veterans is only about one-fifth that of the same civilian demographic.

In other words, there’s no story here.

Yet, despite writing 7000 words about the non-issue, the two affirmative-action journalists who penned the pablum, Deborah Sontag and Lizette Alvarez, never bothered to run such a comparison.  But, hey, if they had, they’d have been left with nothing to write about.

In these cases, it’s hard to discern if the journalistic fraud is a function of corruption or stupidity.  Or it could be that particularly potent combination, corruption and stupidity.   But some things are for certain.

First, this accords perfectly with two of the Times’ favorite narratives: The fruits of President Bush’s policies are always rotten and the military breeds violent men.  Remember, this is the paper that gave us interminable coverage of the relatively minor Abu Ghraib story while giving little ink to the truly weighty oil-for-food scandal.  Second, it’s a sexy story with a powerful human interest angle, perfect fodder for a typical Times scribe; in other words, someone completely bereft of ideas and insight.

But this is truly tragic.  The media have a sacred trust, in that they are tasked with bringing citizens the Truth, something necessary if we are to embrace the correct policies.  After all, good decisions aren’t born of misinformation.

It’s a shame what has happened to the Times.  It’s the only paper I know that smells the same whether or not you wrap a fish in it.

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