As Nicole Coulter pointed out yesterday the mainstream media has been feeding rumors for the last several days that Santorum was “quitting the race” and leaving Florida immediately after Thursday night’s debate despite Rick having made it clear that he was continuing to campaign until the night prior to the elections and was nowhere near quitting.
Unfortunately his special-needs daughter, Bella, had been rushed to the hospital and Santorum has rushed there as well. Although he’s canceled his appearances at several events for today, his eldest daughter Elizabeth and members of the famous Duggar family will represent him at various events. He also appeared today on “Meet the Press” and will be holding two tele-town hall meetings later today.
The quitting rumor which is being spread to discourage his supporters from sticking to him, is not the only obvious lie being thrown about Santorum across cyberspace and media channels.
During the debate Thursday night Santorum made a very strong case detailing why Romney, the author of RomneyCare, will have great difficulty taking on Obama on ObamaCare if he is the ultimate nominee. Santorum explained that in order to successfully challenge Obama one must provide a clear contrast to Obama’s policies, and reminded the audience that he had never supported individual mandates. You can watch their exchange over here.
Over the weekend media headlines announced that Santorum too had endorsed individual mandates during his career. The only problem though, was that they all linked to one source which was based on a third party with no direct quotes from Santorum.Well, guess what? Consistent Rick has opposed ObamaCare in concept way back in 1994 and continues to oppose it in 2012. The Daily Caller’s article has found a video dated October 31, 1994 in which Rick Santorum while running for Senate in the purple state of PA had clearly denounced any and every form of individual mandates. Here are some excerpts from The Daily Caller’s article and you can watch the video over here.
Running for the U.S. Senate in 1994, however, Santorum actually said just the opposite of that, as a video from CSPAN shows. The Oct. 31, 1994 video has Santorum saying government shouldn’t “dictate” anything on health care.
“I think what the role of the federal government is to provide opportunity for everyone to get what they want, to live their dreams and not to dictate what everybody should have,” he said.
And he explained why, which is even when certain things are mandated by the federal government, they often don’t work and added it simply is “not the American way of doing things.”
“You can’t force every American to do something they don’t want to do,” Santorum explained. “You can force people to be in Social Security, yet I think it’s only about 96 percent of Americans that are in Social Security. There are lots of mandates we put on people and they don’t obey. That’s wrong. That’s not the American way of doing things. The American way of doing things is getting people to live their dreams to make their choices.”
Governor Palin has publicly joined, with a post on her Facebook page, the increasing numbers of Congress members who are demanding Eric Holder's resignation.
When one watches the media indifferently ignore Operation Fast and Furious which has put guns into the hands of criminals in an attempt to cover up for "The One," and one contrasts their behavior with their horror and hatred toward the Bush administration for allowing investigators to throw suspected/confirmed terrorists against a sophisticated wall designed to create a loud boomerang upon contact, their hypocrisy is simply mind-boggling.
It’s tempting to get distracted with the horse race aspect of electoral politics during a primary season. But as pundits talk about “who’s up and who’s down” in the 24 hour news cycle, we must keep our eye on the ball with the Obama administration. They rely on distraction to skirt responsibility, but we’re going to hold them accountable for their corruption and incompetence.
When the stories about Operation Fast and Furious first broke, it sounded too crazy even for this administration.
Why would any government official with an ounce of common sense think it’s a good idea to facilitate the smuggling of thousands of guns into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels? That’s what Operation Fast and Furious did.
You might think Eric Holder’s Department of Justice was setting up a sting operation in which our federal agents would swoop down and arrest the bad guys the minute the guns traded hands. But that’s not what happened. Eric Holder’s DOJ had American gun dealers sell weapons to “straw purchasers” tied to drug cartels without actually following the movement of the guns as they were then sold to Mexican drug lords. They apparently thought this so-called “gun-walking” operation would help them chart the path of gun smuggling, but they didn’t have a plan to actually control the weapons’ movements as the guns were allowed to “walk” into Mexico. All Holder’s DOJ did was arm violent criminals. What manner of fools do we have working in this administration? What’s next? Supplying nuclear weapons components to the Iranians so we can track their activities?
Fast and Furious isn’t just your typical government incompetence. This is a deadly tragedy. U.S. border agent Brian Terry was gunned down with weapons connected to Holder’s debacle. At least 200 Mexican citizens were also killed by criminals using Fast and Furious weapons. We can only imagine how many more people will be murdered by criminals our government armed.
When an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives blew the whistle on this operation, the DOJ leaked sensitive information about him to the press. This week, the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, who was ousted in the wake of the scandal, admitted to being the leaker.
And where is President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder in all of this? When did he first know about the operation? In his testimony to the House Oversight Committee on May 3, 2011, Holder stated, “I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” But the DOJ’s own documents prove that Holder had been receiving briefings on Fast and Furious for nearly a year before that date. In other words, our government’s top law enforcement official, Eric Holder, lied to the American public. He finally admitted this week to the Senate Judiciary Committee, “In my testimony before the House committee [on May 3], I did say a few weeks. I probably could have said a couple of months. What I said about a few weeks was inaccurate based on what happened.”
When the nation’s highest law enforcement official lies to the American people, he must go.
And if he claims that he didn’t lie, then how else do we explain this situation? He’s either lying or he’s so grossly incompetent and lazy that he didn’t read important life and death briefings from his deputy attorney general and didn’t know about this deadly operation run by people under him. So, which is it? Incompetent, lazy, or lying? No matter which explanation fits, he needs to go.
Holder conceded this week, “I have ultimate responsibility for what happens in the department.” He can prove it by resigning. And if he refuses to resign, then President Obama – with whom the bucks ultimately stop – can prove that he respects honesty, transparency, and accountability in his administration by firing Holder.
I stand with the members of Congress who are calling for Holder’s resignation. I stand with the family members of Brian Terry who are demanding transparency and accountability. Mr. President, where do you stand?
- Sarah Palin
P.S. It can be argued that some elements of this scandal give the appearance of perhaps being intended to be used to infringe on our Second Amendment rights. I invite our President to correct concerned Americans if they’re wrong on this.
The pressing question now plaguing Obama of course, is how to end this controversy without hurting his upcoming reelection!
When a liberal loon goes on attack spree against Sarah Palin, even if one doesn’t support her for the presidency, were is the outrage? This is an embarrassment for the conservative movement.
Rob Port, an Alaskan Blogger, posted his email exchange with the narcissistic Joe McGinniss who attempted to twist events to fit his theme.
Here’s an excerpt of the article written by Janet Maslin of The New York Times who highlights some of the many discrepancies and contradictions throughout his book:
Mr. McGinniss explains that he was shocked, just shocked, at the angry response his presence in Wasilla provoked. But “The Rogue” makes the Palins’ widely publicized anger understandable, even to readers who might have defended his right to set up shop in their neighborhood and soak up the local color. Although most of “The Rogue” is dated, petty and easily available to anyone with Internet access, Mr. McGinniss used his time in Alaska to chase caustic, unsubstantiated gossip about the Palins, often from unnamed sources like “one resident” and “a friend.”
And these stories need not be consistent. “The Rogue” suggests that Todd Palin and the young Sarah Heath took drugs. It also says that she lacked boyfriends and was a racist. And it includes this: “A friend says, ‘Sarah and her sisters had a fetish for black guys for a while.’ ” Mr. McGinniss did in 2011 make a phone call to the former N.B.A. basketball player Glen Rice, who is black, and prompted him to acknowledge having fond memories of Sarah Heath. While Mr. Rice avoids specifics and uses the words “respectful” and “a sweetheart,” Mr. McGinniss eggs him on with the kind of flagrantly leading question he seems to have habitually asked. In Mr. Rice’s case: “So you never had the feeling she felt bad about having s-- with a black guy?”
He even finds a species of Alaska yenta willing to remark on the condition of the Palins’ toilet, and he too (many of these gossips are men) has a place in “The Rogue.” A journalist as seasoned as Mr. McGinniss surely knows what these details will do to his credibility regarding the book’s more serious claims.
Two governors, two records, two polar opposite treatments.
One has been characterized by the media and the establishment as a great conservative and successful Governor who has been credited for everything positive that occurred in his state, from new jobs to low tax rates, with nary a mention of any of his failures or flaws. Many conservative websites also chose to ignore the left-leaning actions the individual has taken and crowned him as “the conservative candidate who can win” without a care to his past record.
The other governor was constantly falsely depicted by both parties plus the media as lacking positive policy, while ignoring her impressive gubernatorial record and her state’s economic boom during her governorship because of impressive steps she’s taken.
Although the distortions of these two Governors may appear for many as the straight facts, that’s because of the loads of misinformation that have been spread about them have washed over the facts. It is known however, that one can’t fool the people all of the time. Indeed, the time of falsehood has begun to fade away while the truth has started to emerge.
At the debate this past Monday, Rick Perry was challenged over his leftist-leaning positions including the Texas DREAM Act which he supported and signed, his executive order for the Gardasil vaccinations, and his relationship with Merck which is the maker of Gardasil.
Although some conservative sites continued to ignore or twist the topics in defense of Perry’s actions, the facts have now become available to millions of conservatives and Americans who’ve either watched the debate or saw it the next day on any of the major news sites.
Perry supporters have defended Perry’s support of the Texas DREAM act which gave illegals subsidies for education by comparing Perry’s actions to Reagan who had provided amnesty to millions of illegals yet is still considered a conservative by all.
Isn’t there a consensus amongst conservatives that Reagan’s act of amnesty was a trial which has failed since the borders have remained open despite promises of the left that it will be sealed shut? Once it has already become clear and obvious to all conservatives the flaws of amnesty why would Perry want to try it once again especially in light of the fact that Perry opposes a wall along the border?
Perry has also been crowned as a successful job creator and economy builder although the deficit has doubled under his watch and jobs only increased with 1% while having increased 4% under Bush’s leadership.
During the debate, Perry boasted of his state’s economic success didn’t go unanswered. He was taken to task by a fellow Texan, Ron Paul who reminded him of the increased taxes Texans currently face while the Texas deficit has doubled. Perry’s attempt to employ the overused excuse, that the large volume of people moving into Texas is proof of his greatness, no longer did the trick. The others were quick to point out that his response was off mark since although Texas is a great state it’s despite that Rick Perry is its governor, not because of it.
The conservative state legislature overturned his Gardasil executive order despite his hysterical protests and name callings. Which other state legislature would stop their governor from mandating his will onto the people? Not too many.
Perry and his supporters defend his failed attempt to force upon the people via executive order Gardasil by holding an apology flag in one hand, while playing the compassionate card in the other.
His false statement of having received only five grand from Merck was disproven within 24 hours with the correct sum which amounts to $29,500. Not quite the same, Mr. Crony Capitalist.
Additionally, the facts that he chose to mandate the vaccine instead of leaving it as an open option for parents (as in Alaska) and that he took the route of executive order rather than a vote in the legislature should be extremely troubling to conservatives.
Mandates and executive orders, although totally legal, signal a desire for power. I’ve actually pointed this out in the past regarding Romney and his defense of health care mandates which he defended as constitutional because of the tenth amendment. If a Governor seeks to strip citizens of their freedom of choice with the only defense for their decision being the tenth amendment, it spells trouble. It is an admittance that the politician is power hungry, and is only limited because of the law of the land and/or state. Which conservative wants such an individual to take control of the country? Are we looking to further stretch the limits of government or minimize the presence of government in our daily lives?
As the Perry lies begin to crumble, so do the lies surrounding Governor Palin, though the emerging light is of a completely different nature. Despite the distortions the media has hurdled about Palin, the truth has begun to emerge with more and more individuals discovering the unbelievable achievements of Palin.
The media has replayed for the last three years the newspaper sound bite out of a six hour Couric interview of which only half an hour’s worth of bits and pieces were made public so that the average individual should walk away with a negative impression of Palin. With the same goal in mind, they pretended that Palin had said she could see Russia from her home despite the fact that not Palin, but Tina Fey, had said that foolish statement. Palin’s quitting the governorship has likewise been overused against her while totally ignoring not only the sensible explanations which forced her to take the step, but the incredible lengthy list of accomplishments she had achieved when still in office.
No mention has been made of the sound economic policies she’d enforced despite opposition from both parties, including the slashing of earmarks, the establishment of a rainy day fund, and the reduction of future debt. The mainstream media and establishment have been chewing the unelectable meme for months while ignoring her previous victories when she won against all odds against a popular incumbent Governor and a popular former governor without the backing of her own Party, unlike Perry who initially ran in an open primary and needed the endorsement of Palin in 2010 in order to keep his seat. (As for the cries of many who question how Palin could have endorsed Perry if he’s such a crony capitalist who’s involved in shady dealings, when one has to choose between a complete RINO such as Kay Bailey Hutchison and a semi-RINO Rick Perry, then Perry is obviously the better choice of the two. If the presidential primary would be a choice between those two, the Palin would’ve endorsed Perry for president. However, that is not the case!)
With the spread of The Undefeated, Governor Palin’s Facebook notes, her books and recent speeches, many individuals have been stunned at the transformation of the Palin they’ve been told about and the truth about her knowledge, record, experience, and ideology.
Despite the media lies and attacks, the truth will prevail with even some in the media having as of late occasionally made the shocking discovery of the truth surrounding Palin. The liberal New York Times ran an article recently which raved Governor Palin for here anti-cronyism, anti-establishment anti-big corporations record. He expressed open surprise at her success in working with members of both parties which were ready to take on the corruption as well as her appeal to many independent voters. CNN‘s Don Lemon and James Delingpole of The Daily Telegraph have also joined the ranks that’ve become aware of Palin’s outstanding record and her articulate and common-sense directive for the future.
Although the media and beltway crowd have written Governor Palin off as irrelevant for the last three and a half years, a CNN poll released prior to the fourth debate found that not-yet-candidate Palin came in third, almost tied with Romney. Rick Perry, who’s got the backing of the conservative media and the establishment, got a grand total of 30% of the party’s support, while Palin who hasn’t announced a presidential campaign and has been slammed by the media, the left, and the establishment, received 15% of the party’s support. Imagine what that figure will be like after her campaign is launched and millions more are exposed to the true record of Governor Palin.
The media will largely continue to spread their lies in order to promote their agenda, but the truth has begun and will continue to overcome in regard to both Palin and Perry. While Perry’s and his supporters’ bluff are being blown away with the truth about him splashed across many sites, the lies surrounding Palin are disintegrating into dust the truth shining out for all to see.
Celebrity-hungry, fame-seeker, and money-minded. This is the description the media and the establishment typically use to portray Governor Palin.
Here’s a question for the media: How can one explain the actions of someone whose only focus is self, self, and self, but opted to sell a private plane handed to her as part of the package of being Governor? How does the money-hungry image match with a Governor who chose to forgo the taxpayer funded private chef with the result that she would continue to do her own cooking?
How can a Governor who supposedly dreams of dollars fight special interests, powerful oil companies, and corrupted individuals with the knowledge that doing so will ensure they won’t contribute a dime to her campaign or include her in back-room shady dealings as per their usual customs with the previous Governor Frank Murkowski and most politicians? After all, the power they’ve amassed was largely thanks to their constant efforts in keeping the political machine properly oiled.
Why would a Governor out to promote and benefit oneself lead the most transparent administration in world history?
Why would someone who has dollar signs reflected in her eyes refuse to accept a pay raise of $25,000 recommended by an Alaskan state commission? Which money-minded individual has ever left a six figure position without an equivalent or greater monetary job in the waiting? There was no way Palin could’ve known that she’d sell millions of copies of the books she hadn’t yet written at the time and which were later proclaimed by all that they would sit and gather dust in the basement of bookstores. Certainly no-one could have foretold that this supposedly brainless woman would produce a documentary watched by millions, become a sought-after speaker, and a Fox News contributor.
Besides, many politicians including Perry have authored books and gone on book tours, or embarked in other private endeavors to earn additional money while continuing to officially serve the people and receiving their weekly taxpayer-funded check. If Palin were truly greedy she could have thus similarly continued being governor and receiving her paycheck while raking it in from her books and other endeavors.
An announcement from Palin that she’s running for president is the ultimate debunker of the celebrity-seeking money-craving myth. If she has left the public service in order to make a fortune off her name, as the Palin-haters claim, then why would she once again run for public office after seeing such stunning success in the private sector? After the TLC documentary Hollywood has jumped to have Palin join their world where she’d have the opportunity to make tens of millions, become a true celebrity, and have the media fawning and falling all over her. Choosing to face a tough campaign, more media scrutiny, and then serve the country in these difficult times for a paltry $400,000 comparative to making millions with a Hollywood career simply doesn’t match the image of Palin as portrayed by the media.
The only answer that can thus properly explain the incongruity of the facts vs. the fabrication is the hypocrisy and hatred from the left, media, and establishment. They simply choose to ignore facts that don’t match their lies. While the correct course of action for the media, left, and establishment would be to quit making things up they will in all probability not change their current agenda and continue to invent fabrications and distort the facts.
Sarah Palin has understandably mainly focused the last few years exposing Obama’s terrible policies and his lack of leadership, and hasn’t spent much time on her own experience and qualities except when refuting the media or when relevant to the national discussion. During the campaign, the Palin team will have the opportunity to debunk these and all other ridiculous lies regarding her and her record that are circulating on the internet and believed by many.
The biggest challenge likely awaiting Palin and her campaign staff may be the educating of voters as to who the real Palin and the real Obama are, and that the true solutions to get the economy moving once again were actually implemented successfully in Alaska during her governorship. Unfortunately, since a large percentage of voters tune into elections with barely half an ear it’ll be necessary to shrink her resume to bite-size portions — not empty slogans, but short enough so that it will stick in the minds of millions who vote based on emotion rather than logic and brains. Needless to say, every Palin message released will also be spread via O4P, C4P, and her millions of supporters thereby increasing the number of recipients and amplifying its effectiveness.
The battle between truth and falsehood is about to begin. Let the truth prevail!
The Crown Heights riots in New York of August 1991 which was instigated by Al Sharpton was reported in the New York Times and the rest of the media pretty much the same way they cover the news today; a refusal to report anything negative against the left.
For most of you following the media’s bias the following no longer comes as a surprise.
Twenty years after the riots former Times reporter Ari Goldman wrote a personal narrative in The Jewish Week about the cover-up and distortions of the New York Times at that time.
Twenty years ago next week, on the night of Aug. 19, 1991 — the night that Gavin Cato and Yankel Rosenbaum were killed — my editor called me at home to tell me that riots had broken out on the streets of Crown Heights. “We’re covered for tonight but I want you to start your day there tomorrow,” he said.
Over the next three days, working 12 hours shifts and only going home to sleep, I saw and heard many terrible things. I saw police cars set on fire, stores being looted and people bloodied by Billy clubs, rocks and bottles. One woman told me that she barricaded herself into her apartment and put the mattresses on the windows so her children would not be hurt by flying glass.
Over those three days I also saw journalism go terribly wrong. The city’s newspapers, so dedicated to telling both sides of the story in the name of objectivity and balance, often missed what was really going on. Journalists initially framed the story as a “racial” conflict and failed to see the anti-Semitism inherent in the riots. As the 20th anniversary of the riots approaches, I find myself re-examining my own role in the coverage and trying to extract some lessons for myself and my profession.
At the time, I was a religion writer at The New York Times and was well connected in the Lubavitch community, the predominant Jewish group in Crown Heights. I was one of probably a dozen Times reporters and photographers on the streets over the course of the riots. We were a diverse group, representing many religions and racial backgrounds.
My job was to file memos to the main “rewrite” reporters back in the Times office in Manhattan about what I saw and heard. We had no laptops or cellphones in those days so the other reporters and I went to payphones and dictated our memos to a waiting band of stenographers in the home office. The photographers handed their film off to couriers on motorcycles who took the film to the Times.
Yet, when I picked up the paper, the article I read was not the story I had reported. I saw headlines that described the riots in terms solely of race. “Two Deaths Ignite Racial Clash in Tense Brooklyn Neighborhood,” the Times headline said. And, worse, I read an opening paragraph, what journalists call a “lead,” that was simply untrue:
“Hasidim and blacks clashed in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn through the day and into the night yesterday.”
In all my reporting during the riots I never saw — or heard of — any violence by Jews against blacks. But the Times was dedicated to this version of events: blacks and Jews clashing amid racial tensions. To show Jewish culpability in the riots, the paper even ran a picture — laughable even at the time — of a chasidic man brandishing an open umbrella before a police officer in riot gear. The caption read: “A police officer scuffling with a Hasidic man yesterday on President Street.”
I was outraged but I held my tongue. I was a loyal Times employee and deferred to my editors. I figured that other reporters on the streets were witnessing parts of the story I was not seeing.
But then I reached my breaking point. On Aug. 21, as I stood in a group of chasidic men in front of the Lubavitch headquarters, a group of demonstrators were coming down Eastern Parkway. “Heil Hitler,” they chanted. “Death to the Jews.”
Police in riot gear stood nearby but did nothing.
Suddenly rocks and bottles started to fly toward us and a chasidic man just a few feet away from me was hit in the throat and fell to the ground. Some ran to help the injured man but most of us ran for cover. I ran for a payphone and, my hands shaking with rage, dialed my editor. I spoke in a way that I never had before or since when talking to a boss.
“You don’t know what’s happening here!” I yelled. “I am on the streets getting attacked. Someone next to me just got hit. I am writing memos and what comes out in the paper? ‘Hasidim and blacks clashed’? That’s not what is happening here. Jews are being attacked! You’ve got this story all wrong. All wrong.”
I didn’t blame the “rewrite” reporter. I blamed the editors. It was clear that they had settled on a “frame” for the story. The way they saw it, there were two narratives here: the white narrative and the black narrative. And both had equal weight.
After my outburst things got a little better. The next day’s report began like this: “Black youths hurling rocks and bottles scuffled with the police in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn last night, even as Mayor David N. Dinkins tried to personally calm the racially troubled neighborhood after two nights of violence.”
“They did not know each other,” the article said. “They had no reason to know… They died unaware….” In the eyes of the Times, the deaths were morally equivalent and had equal weight.
The Times editorial page followed suit. “The violence following an auto accident in Crown Heights reminds all New Yorkers that the city’s race relations remains dangerously strained,” the editorial said. It concluded by praising Mayor Dinkins, giving him credit “for a hard night’s work” and doing “the job that New Yorkers elected him to do.”
The one who first broke the frame and spoke the truth was the fearless poet of the New York newspaper business in those days, Jimmy Breslin, then a columnist for Newsday. He was one of numerous reporters, photographers and television journalists who were beaten or otherwise injured during the riots. In Breslin’s case, he was dragged from a taxi by a group of rampaging young men, pummeled and stripped of his clothes. That night, he vowed to tell the truth of his humiliation, although he anticipated the resistance. “And someone up in the higher echelons of journalism, some moron starts talking about balanced coverage,” he said.
The other person who spoke the truth was the brilliant former executive editor of the Times, A.M. Rosenthal, who by 1991 had become a columnist for the paper. Rosenthal was one of the first journalists at the Times to call the riots what they were. “Pogrom in Brooklyn,” was the headline of his column on Sept. 3, 1991, just two weeks after the riots ended.
“The press,” Rosenthal wrote, “treats it all as some kind of cultural clash between a poverty-ridden people fed up with life and a powerful, prosperous and unfortunately peculiar bunch of stuck-up neighbors — very sad of course, but certainly understandable. No — it is an anti-Semitic pogrom and the words should not be left unsaid.”
It pains me to recall that not many people at the Times took Rosenthal seriously at the time. He had gone from being the editor of a great “liberal” newspaper to being a “conservative” columnist who seemed to return to the same issues over and over again: the security of Israel, anti-Semitism, the persecution of Christians in China and the war on drugs.
But Rosenthal was right about Crown Heights. In 1993, two years after the Crown Heights riots, an exhaustive state investigation sharply criticized Mayor Dinkins for not understanding the severity of the crisis. It also faulted his police commissioner, Lee Brown, for mismanaging the police during the riots.
The critical state report was widely covered in the press. “For the Mayor,” the Times headline said, “A Harsh Light.”
But another report, this one on how the press covered Crown Heights, got little publicity. It was written in 1999 by Carol B. Conaway, then an assistant professor at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and published in an academic journal called Polity. Her article is called “Crown Heights: Politics and Press Coverage of the Race War That Wasn’t.”
“Journalists and their audience alike rely on ‘frames’ when writing about and understanding newsworthy events because they provide cues for understanding others’ experiences,” Conaway wrote. But, she added, sometimes the frames are wrong.
She continued: “The New York Post, a tabloid, shifted away from the race frame to focus on black anti-Semitism within a few days of the initial rampages, while the New York Times persisted with the racial frame for at least two years.
“Yet,” she added, “one cannot understand the events [that unfolded in Crown Heights] without getting beyond the binaries of black versus white encouraged by the use of the race frame, and understanding the more complex dynamics of the conflict.”
As someone who saw the conflict unfold I can attest to this first-hand. I am telling my story in print for the first time because it is important that we journalists examine our mistakes and learn from them. Fitting stories into frames — whether about blacks and Jews, liberals or conservatives, Arabs and Israelis, Catholics and Protestants or Muslims and Jews — is wrong and even dangerous. Life is more complicated than that. And so is journalism.
