We were talking about this issue 2 days ago in "New York Times assailed for Alice Walker interview endorsing ‘anti-Semitic’ conspiracy theorist." My position was:
I'm looking at the NYT piece now and see that it's a spare, easy-to-read Q&A about what books are "on your nightstand." These are the books Alice Walker is reading, with her own words about why. It's not the format of this style of interview to quarrel with the interviewee's book choices. It's raw material, and we the readers are challenged to read critically. The NYT archive is full of these "By the Book" interviews, and the interviewees are given the room to explain their own choices and that's that. If you take that to be the NYT endorsing the books, you're an idiot.So I'm happy with the position expressed by Takenaga. I wish more of the NYT reflected the same confidence in the reader's intelligence and ability to sift and discern.
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"I wish more of the NYT reflected the same confidence in the reader's intelligence about ability to sift and discern."
Yes, and I bet that most of your readers/commenters largely agree, but the NYT knows that at least its commenters largely disagree. Sometimes the gnashing of garments and rending of teeth is the best part of the show there in the land of shows when the articles utter unmentionables or challenge the leftist dogma. Maybe they have more confidence in their non-commenting readers.
Must be all decades of sifting and winnowing around here, which is much more challenging than mere sifting and discerning.
Or their competing interests can follow NYT precedents and form a close association between NYT and a known diversitist (e.g. anti-Semitic, racist). They can force NYT to renounce their relationship with the author and repudiate their support of anti-Semitism. First, Walker, then NYT. That would be the politically congruent thing to do.
If it wasn't for double standards, the NYT and much of the rest of the left wouldn't have any standards at all.
Their readers are not intelligent and discerning.
I don't care that they didn't question this author about her choice of reading material. My problem is that they would break format and question any author who had "The Art of the Deal" or "12 Rules For Life".
I loved Alice Walker's The Color Purple, and growing up I loved the Spielberg film version. Only as I got older did its glaring flaws become more obvious (e.g. Celie inventing elastic-waist pants or the fact that her children can't speak English despite being raised by English-speaking American missionaries, etc.).
In any event, I am not particularly bothered by Walker's endorsement of David Icke. The guy is a fringe, kooky character good for a laugh every now and then. Plus, belief in conspiracy theories are rife within the black community. Among large numbers of black, it is simply taken as a given that crack cocaine and AIDS were invented by white governments to kill blacks.
Surprising, since the NYT and its readers are BIG on censorship. For the right -or should i say Left - reasons.
Today, the game is to label something you don't like "Hate speech" or "anti-this or anti-that". Then you can censor and feel noble about it.
I could get upset, except 95% of the USA doesn't care about anything except football and $$.
Of course, we're one step away from the UK, where a policeman will "visit you" for expressing "wrong-think" in public or on the net.
I wish more of the NYT reflected the same confidence in the reader's intelligence about ability to sift and discern.
Most NYT readers don't have those abilities, which is why the Kavanaugh hearings were such a farce.
@rcocean:
Of course, we're one step away from the UK, where a policeman will "visit you" for expressing "wrong-think" in public or on the net.
Luckily I do not think we are quite in that danger, thinks to robust First Amendment jurisprudence. Ironically, what the left is practicing is simply another form of McCarthyism. Under McCarthyism, people were not legally punished for supposed Communist Party affiliations but were blacklisted and blocked from employment. That is precisely the SJW strategy. They cannot get legal restrictions on speech so their method is deplatforming and getting people fired.
Good to know that a rightie could have The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on their bedside table and it would go unremarked.
@Gahrie:
Most NYT readers don't have those abilities, which is why the Kavanaugh hearings were such a farce.
I do not necessarily agree with that. Some of the best critiques of the NYT are within the NYT comments section. The trick is to read "All" comments as opposed to the "NYT picks."
@Michael:
Good to know that a rightie could have The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on their bedside table and it would go unremarked.
Anytime you get out on the fringes of the political left or right, you are going to bump up against anti-Semitism. Hannah Arendt made a similar observation in her seminal work The Origins of Totalitarianism. This also allows each side more in the center to play guilt by association. Farrakhan for those on the left, and David Duke for those on the right. Regardless of the side it comes from, the tactic is the same: discredit someone by accusing them of crimethink.
From the WSJ: ...some of the articles at issue appeared to confirm certain German stereotypes about Trump voters, asking “was this possible because of an ideological bias?”
The Der Spiegel writer got away with his tales for so long because he wrote what the subscribers wanted to read. I'm sure NYT readers are just as discerning.
These are the books Alice Walker is reading, with her own words about why.
That Alice Walker reads nutjob conspiracy mongers doesn't surprise me.
What bothers me is that the NYT sees itself justified in not calling out a famous black author, and then uses some reader comment about how the NYT's readership is made up of Wile E. Coyote "Sooper-Geniuses" as further justification. Yeah, right. Black lady reads about Jewish Lizard Aliens running everything, & no problemo. Conservative white guy reads one of Shelby Foote's histories of the Civil War & it's gonnna be raaaaaaaaaaaaaaacist!!!! until the cows come home.
I am happy to see this response. We won’t see it next time they interview a man who made a gay joke when he was 11 though.
Ann looses me totally on this. I do not think anything I read on this suggested that the NYTs was "endorsing" the vicious nonsense Alice Walker reads. What is at issue is that the Times thinks Alice Walker's reading list is worthy of publicizing WITHOUT comment. Why? Since they do not delve into her choices, the implication is that SHE HERSELF AND HER BOOK CHOICES are by themselves worth our knowing about. But why her? And why not explain what her book choices are about? Walker is a black female author who is thereby newsworthy and admirable in the NYTs' world. But this book choice reveals Walker to be a pathetically ignorant and warped cult follower. So I ask, why does the NYTs think it's worth it for us to hear what an ignorant warped cult folower's book choices are? The Times may not explicitly endorse those choices, but it clearly sees no need to warn anyone about them either. In this case, I find that a terrible dereliction. As to the assumption about the sophistication of the NYTs readers, I have looked through enough comments on Paul Krugman's unhinged climate change columns to know that their sophistication leaves a lot to be desired.
"We trust them to sift through something that someone says in an interview, whether it’s the president or a musician or a person accused of sexual harassment, and to judge for themselves: Do I agree with this person?"
Except they would never do that for an antisemitic right-winger who just happens to like the Protocols.
"the interviewees are given the room to explain their own choices and that's that. If you take that to be the NYT endorsing the books, you're an idiot."
No, we don't take the NYT to be endorsing "the books," but we are taking the NYT to be endorsing the notion that lefty black antisemites who express their liking of lunatic antisemites are part of polite company and deserve a hearing.
"I wish more of the NYT reflected the same confidence in the reader's intelligence and ability to sift and discern."
We are not dealing with matters of intelligence and ability.
But if a few progs discern something wrong with vile antisemites, I am pleased.
By the way, also, I pay a lot of attention to the rising tide of anti-Semitism on the left from people like Walker. I've read plenty about the Protocols, and the various myths about my people. However, the name David Icke meant nothing to me. I suspect it meant nothing to most of the Times's oh-so sophisticated readers either. Hence, by not identifying him in any way in their glowing fluff about what Alice Walker reads, they were in fact depending not on their readers' sophistication, or even on their actual interest in the books listed, but on their ignorance - or worse, indifference. I am glad I read the criticisms of the story first and not the story. They, not the Times, dealt with the matter responsibly.
BY the way also, Rob, I am guilty pleasures fan of Hee Haw, too. Nice job.
YoungHegelian, you nail it better than I did and with fewer words. Shelby Foote. Great guy. He was good enough for Ken Burns. Ah, those days are long gone.
The comment in this post's headline was made by the Book Review editor, Pamela Paul, not Lara Takenaga; Takenaga was the one interviewing Paul.
This part of that interview left me scratching my head, considering that quote re "discerning" readers:
"[Takenaga] Given The Times’s large platform, are there any beliefs that we shouldn’t allow people to espouse?
[Paul] If people espouse beliefs that anyone at The Times finds to be dangerous or immoral, it’s important for readers to be aware that they hold those beliefs. The public deserves to know. That’s news."
If that's the case, shouldn't readers have been informed of Icke's anti-Semitism?
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