The NY Times’ Palin Bias
February 7, 2010
by Amy Siskind
|There was a seemingly positive article in The New York Times on Friday called Palin, Visible and Vocal, Is Positioned for Variety of Roles. As I read the first part of the article, I thought, hmm, maybe the NYT can come around to finally giving some balanced coverage to one of the most visible female politicians of our time.
There article starts off innocently enough, making the point that most of us have realized: That Sarah Palin has a huge national following – and numerous prospects for her future in public life:
Her growing cast of advisers and support system could be working in the service of any number of goals: a presidential run, a de facto role as the leader of the Tea Party movement, a lucrative career as a roving media entity — or all of the above. Ms. Palin represents a new breed of unelected public figures operating in an environment in which politics, news media and celebrity are fused as never before. Whether she ever runs for anything else, Ms. Palin has already achieved a status that has become an end in itself: access to an electronic bully pulpit, a staff to guide her, an enormous income and none of the bother or accountability of having to govern or campaign for office.
NYT Photo Selection
But shortly thereafter, the reporter on this story, Mark Leibovich, breaks down into old predictable patterns – what we have learned to expect from reporters at the NYT since their biased coverage of another powerful woman, Hillary Clinton, when she ran for office.
First off – look at the picture selected of Palin (seen here). Honestly, is that photo appropriate for the nature of the story? Or is it meant to make her look silly and not serious?
Here’s the ever so predictable attempted of a female politician – she is difficult to get along with (my emphasis added):
As she jumps more into the national political swamp, Ms. Palin is proving as divisive in Republican circles as she was within the fractious McCain campaign.
Oh I see Mark. Because she is strong and a woman she is “divisive” in Republican circles. While Romney, Huckabee and the rest of the gang are playing hopscotch.
Here’s another woman takedown (my emphasis added):
When asked by The New York Times for others to speak to about Ms. Palin, her spokeswoman, Ms. Stapleton, mentioned the Republican media adviser Mary Matalin (who has been in sporadic contact with Ms. Palin’s camp) and Dana Perino, the former White House press secretary for George W. Bush (who seemed barely to know her).
If that’s the case Mr. Leibovich , then why mention it in the article??? Could it more likely be that Dana did not want her words misconstrued by a clearly biased newspaper and reporter?
And one more – living up to the elitist label:
Ms. Palin, who declined to comment for this article, is scarcely seen around her hometown these days, said residents of the so-called Duct Tape Capital of the World.
Yes, Palin does mention that in Going Rogue. But somehow Mr. Leibovich’s looking down his nose on small town America just makes me sick.
Thanks for reminding me why I canceled my subscription Mr. Leibovich!
Amy,
I hope you send this article to the NYT’s and every other newspaper in the country. You might consider sending it to the leaders of the Tea Party Movement. It’s time to do a “slap down” of any and all misogyny before it becomes the all consuming beast it was during the dem primary and the GE.
If we learned anything from the 2008 presidential election, we should know that it is imperative to implement an all out offensive strategy against this kind of behavior. It’s the only way to show the male run media AND the male run political parties, that women (and the men who love them) are serious as a heart attack and that our anger and disgust with this behvior will be backed up with decisive action. I have absolutely no doubt that the menz who don’t like strong, viable women candidates running for office are going to pull out all the stops and be even more aggressive than they were in 2008.
Time to put on the armor and prepare for battle.
It’s time for us to redefine “polarizing” and the other words continuously used to degrade female pols:
http://syd4.blogspot.com/2010/.....nists.html
(BTW, I saw that photo yesterday and automatically skipped over the article.)
OMG! Went to the NYT link to Greta Van Susteren and LOOK at the photo they chose for her:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/.....ne=nyt-per
Their bias is UNBELIEVABLE!
Very true, these men do not process english or care about others and so talking to them is a waste of your time. Find out what they do care about, usually either money or power and hurt them hard everytime they reapeat their offensive behavior.
Unfortunately it is still very popular among my easily manipulated liberal friends, to hate this woman. When I ask these people why, they can only give me the most super fiscial reasons, like “shes so provincial.” I have learned much about her excellant record of public service in Alaska, that when contrasted against Obama’s service to the likes of Tony Rezko, shows the kind of leadership America needs. I urge anyone who likes Sarah Palin, to look into her record, such as taxation of Natural Gas companies in her state of Alaska compared to nearly all other states were these companies get away with paying nearly nothing. I would also recommend studying the exemplary fishing regulations that Alaska not only has but enforses. As some of you know Sarah Palin once ran a private fishing business in Alaska. One more thing tom arm any of you who which to debate Obots, on the subject of O’Telepromter vs. Governor Palin, she appointed a pro-choice judge to Alaska’s supreme court, and the numerous and ridiculous lies that were repoted about her in the MSM have been proven false reference: Factcheck.org “Sliming Palin.”
You see if race baitor Soledad O’Brian of CNN lies to her viewers and tells them that Sarah Palin cut funding for special needs children by 68%, when the fact is that she tripled the states funding, that doesn’t make it the truth. That just proves Soledad O’Brian to have zero credability along with CNN.
Male politicians are rarely called “divisive” or “polarizing.” Instead, male politicians “stick to their guns” “stand strong” or “promote their values.”
When you think about it, calling women polarizing or divisive is pretty clever. Women are kept in line in our culture by shunning and marginalizing them. Good girls know their place, they don’t rock the boat or step out of line. They must always make sure they’re pleasing people, not standing up for anything or being divisive.
I think female politicians need to embrace the “divisive” label. I don’t know if anything would have helped Martha Coakley to win, but I think if she had fully embraced her divisiveness and stayed strong on opposing the health care bill, it would have helped. Being divisive is not a bad thing. It’s actually a sexist buzzword.
yttik,
Absolutely. Anything a woman does that threatens the power paradigm (and this is a good thing, of course) is characterized as negative and yet if a man does the same thing he is praised, complemented, and, of course, promoted, elected, or crowned.
I 100% agree with you that women need to be able to stand alone. I do it myself. We have to know we are right and want to change enough that we can take the taunts because that is all they are. Oh, wait, I forgot about the threats, demotions, firings, and other subtle and not-so-subtle ways of getting us to behave. We have to be very very strong and very principled and very confident. Not so easy in this world but it must be done.
Martha Coakley would have won if she had done what I said in an earlier post: DISTANCE herself from Mr. Obama and the Democrats currently in Washington, SPEAK OUT AGAINST the health care sham bill, and talk about balancing the budget and getting people jobs. SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE. It is almost as if she wanted to lose….
Hillary Clinton could have won too, if she had been willing to walk alone. In Denver, when she was on the stage and they were breaking 100 plus years of tradition of counting delegate votes and skipping states that would have put Hillary on top — even though enough votes had been bought that Mr. Obama would squeak by by a mere 7 delegate votes — if she had just walked to a live mike, picked it up, and started talking. I still remember, and always will, sitting in my chair praying so hard and crying such that I could not see, “do it Hillary, do it Hillary,” trying to give her my strength to walk and say the truth. ALL she had to do was tell the American public what the Democrats had done and we would have stood behind her. We would have stood behind her. But she didn’t do it. And she lost and America lost and …..
The truth is the most powerful thing in the world, and people are killed for speaking it. We need some heroes people, some heroes and some heroines.
I wanted to scream when I heard a friend of mine who was all about how “polarizing” Clinton and Palin were (she practically had a fainting fit over Palin) … who then complained about how unfair it is that men find capable women to be turn-offs. She’s perfectly happy to watch another woman dangle off that gallows but when it shows up in her bin on eHarmony, it’s an injustice. *sigh*
Each woman has made the conscious, deliberate decision to remain sitting inthe shit of patriarchy because it’s just so much fun to watch that other bitch up to her neck in shit. It’s a trade-off women are happy to make. And there’s always a “that other bitch” someplace.
Why does Andrea Mitchell have to mock Palin by writing and her own hand and holding it up to the camera? Shame on her.
I agree with the poster above about all the liberal women who slavishly join in the gleeful and sexist mockery of Gov. Palin. It’s beyond comprehension. Thanks for this site and blog.
I just received an email from the “Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee” which invites recipients to mock Sarah Palin by super-imposing words of their own choosing over her actual speech. Seriously. They’re having a contest to see who comes up with the best mockery of Palin.
I sent an email back – unsubscribing – and telling them how disgusted I am with their misogynistic tactics.
It looks like the 2008 playbook is back in action.
pacific-cali
If I did participate in that super-imposing activity I would write:
1. Abandon the Democratic Party
2. Keep all my money
3. Vote out Democrats in November 2010
I bet that list wouldn’t make their top 10.
I second Optixmom.
I am ashamed of these obama-loving women-hating liberal, progressive, and Democratic women. ASHAMED. I consider myself a radical feminist along the lines of Andrea Dworkin and have been for 20 some years (actually, I have been my whole life I just didn’t know the proper name until I went to college) and Sarah Palin is more feminist than all of them put together.
But heres the rub….Sarah ain’t going anywhere, ‘cept the White House. And she can laugh the true laughter that comes from knowing just how dumb and evil they are and just how sweet victory–true victory–is.
Sarah Palin for ANYTHING in the White House 2012!!
janis,
yes. it is sad. as if because it isn’t me right now I can pretend it will never be me. even thought it is. right now.
that is the thing about misogyny–it is us women every minute every second being raped, mutilated, photographed, filmed, mocked, and murdered. it is every single one of use every minute of every day. and while I may not be able to vote for every woman, I can damn sure support her. and I do and I will. every minute of every day of my entire life.
and when Sarah is in the White House it will be all women, everywhere, being raised up, up, up…..and it is about damn time. it is about damn time for sure.
Just want to alert oyu that you seem to have an anti-women troll over on Facebook. In this thread.
He is over the top.
Just sayin’
SYD
received an email from democratic fundraisers using the picture of Palin as above in the article. nothing substantive just Palin scare to raise money.
SYD the pages tab on my site and as I learn on may other users site is gone. hard for me to get to the new agenda facebook site.
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