Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted [Hardcover]

Bob Kohn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 14, 2003

For over a hundred years, the New York Times has purported to present straight news and hard facts.  But, as Bob Kohn shows with absolute clarity, the founders' original vision has been hijacked, and today, instead of straight news, readers are given mere editorial under the pretense of objective journalism.  Kohn shows point by point the methods by which the Times' mission has been subverted by the present management-routinely slanting the presentation of the facts in leads, headlines, and placement; utilizing polls, labels, and loaded language to convey particular views, not genuine news; and staffing the newsroom with hacks who manipulate information to further a leftist agenda.  Kohn shows how such fraudulence directly corrupts hundreds of news agencies across the world; and by revealing all their methods of manipulation, he teaches readers how to decipher the slants in even the subtlest of cases, providing an entertaining and enlightening lesson in fraud-busting.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bob Kohn is an attorney and seasoned executive with experience in both the entertainment and high-tech industries. He is currently the vice chairman of the board of Borland Software Corp. and chairman of Laugh.com, a comedy record label. A former associate attorney at a prominent Beverly Hills entertainment law firm, Kohn served as associate editor of the Entertainment Law Reporter. Kohn also co-authored with his father the legal treatise, Kohn on Music Licensing, hailed by USA Today as the "bible of legal issues in the music world."

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; 1St Edition edition (August 14, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785261044
• ISBN-13: 978-0785261049
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,752,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

148 of 161 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Indispensable and Thoroughly Researched Book, August 8, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted (Hardcover)

The full subtitle of JOURNALISTIC FRAUD is "How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted." This is not, as one might expect, a 312-page treatise concerning the Jayson Blair fiasco and how it brought disgrace upon the New York Times, though certainly Bob Kohn could easily have done such a treatment. As Kohn notes near the end of JOURNALISTIC FRAUD, the Blair scandal actually deflects attention from the real scandal at the Times, which is its practice of passing opinion as straight news. What JOURNALISTIC FRAUD is, however, is a thorough, point-by-point analysis of the journalistic mechanisms by which the so-called, self-styled "Newspaper of Record" (a term that, incidentally, is a marketing ploy, nothing more) permits its editorial viewpoint to distort its news coverage.

A couple of decades ago a major weekly magazine used to proudly advertise that within its pages, "Fact is presented as fact, and opinion is signed as opinion." It wasn't true then and it isn't true now, but the magazine in question was at least savvy enough to know that the appearance of fairness and objectivity is important. This standard was the rock upon which the Times built its reputation. The Times's editorial page has always leaned, if not fallen, leftward. Fair enough. That is the function, the reason for existence, of the editorial page of any newspaper: to present the viewpoint of the editors. Once upon a time, however, an effort was made to keep the editorial pink ink from seeping through to the rest of the Times. Kohn notes that Arthur Hays Sulzberger, who shepherded the Times to the reputation of respectability that it is currently squandering, wrote in the 1950s that "...no matter how we view the world, our responsibility lies in reporting accurately that which happens."

As Kohn demonstrates, to devastating effect, those days are long gone. Under the captaincy of Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger, Jr., the grandson of Arthur Hays and the current publisher of the New York Times, the ship he commands does not merely float on the Red Sea. It's taking on water, and he's standing amid ships, bailing it onto the deck.

A few years ago I spent several weeks dissecting the Times for my poor, long-suffering New York-born wife, reading their headlines and stories and pointing out the slant and how it was done. I wish that Kohn had written JOURNALISTIC FRAUD back then; he does the same thing I did, and does it much better than I ever could. Kohn examines what journalists refer to as the five Ws and the H --- Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How --- and uses examples culled directly from the Times's pages to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt how the Times slants and distorts its reporting to project a left-wing viewpoint.

The indictment of bias here is based not upon a random story here and there but on a demonstrably repeated and systemic pattern of distorting the reporting of its news in an effort to project its editorial viewpoint and to influence the nation's agenda accordingly. This isn't a matter of an off-key note or two. As Kohn demonstrates and documents in JOURNALISTIC FRAUD, this is a symphony that has been playing to the cheap seats for years.

Kohn does more than simply and irrefutably present and prove his case, however. He establishes why this distortion, this disguise of editorial opinion of straight news, is significant. Kohn conclusively shows that on Junior Sulzberger's watch, the Times has systematically and deliberately been blurring the line between fact and opinion.

When one picks up a periodical such as The Nation on the Left or National Review on the Right, one knows what one is getting: opinion in the form of essays, commentary, and broadsides from a particular point of view. When one turns on their radio and listens to Rush Limbaugh or Alan Combs, one does not get news --- one gets opinion. The same is true of a newspaper's editorial page. When the news articles begin taking their tone, content and style from the editorial page, however, it is no longer a news story; it becomes propaganda. And given that most of the gentry tend to skim headlines and lead paragraphs, at most, it becomes extremely easy to insidiously sway public opinion.

So why is this a major deal? Why not simply file this under 'SFW' and read another newspaper? Why not simply boycott it, as legions of rabbis in New York and Los Angeles recently exhorted their congregations to do as a result of the Times anti-Israel news coverage? The reason, as Kohn notes, is that the New York Times News Service has over 650 member newspapers who, to borrow a term from radio broadcasters, rip and print New York Times news stories and "analysis" (spelled in the Times lexicon as e-d-i-t-o-r-i-a-l) as if it is gospel.

This sheep-like behavior is not limited to the print media. Television anchormen, from well-groomed Canadian high-school dropouts to failed morning talk show hosts, take their daily marching orders from the Times. The result, regardless, is the same. The journalistic well is poisoned at the source and trucked all over the country. Millions of people drink this water in some way every single morning, and form opinions from it.

Junior Sulzberger has been widely quoted (though not in the Times) as having told his father in the early 1970s that if an American soldier came face to face with a North Vietnamese soldier he (Junior) "...would want to see the American guy get shot. It's the other guy's country." One could chalk up this unfortunate statement to the exuberance, the impetuousness of youth. However, it appears from the state and slant of the Times that Sulzberger has not set aside all of the follies of childhood.

Yet Kohn sees the possibility of redemption. He sets forth in JOURNALISTIC FRAUD a scenario whereby the Times could regain its respectability and once again become the newspaper that was respected for its objectivity, as opposed to being fit for fodder for late night television monologues. For this, and for so many other reasons, JOURNALISTIC FRAUD is indispensable for anyone who reads, and cares, about the news and how it is reported.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

55 of 59 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Media Expose' Ever, August 26, 2003

By 

Edward K. Jones (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted (Hardcover)

Mr. Kohn hits the nail on the head about the New York Times. Being from the Midwest, I never realized that the Times had such far-reaching influence. With over 650 media outlets that subscribe to their news wire service, their news bias is picked up and run in the majority of daily newspapers throughout the U.S., including my daily newspaper. It is frightening to see how, over the years, they have expanded their editorializing from the editorial and commentary pages to the front page -- which should be used exclusively for reporting, not editorializing. His succinct and popular writing style makes this a quick and enjoyable read.

88 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening as well as entertaining, October 3, 2003

By 

Matthew Spady "800rsd" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted (Hardcover)

The New York Times must loath readers like Bob Kohn. He doesn't read just the headlines and the leads, he reads entire articles. Not only does he read the entire article, he analyzes what he has read. His analysis has led him to a conclusion similar to that of many faithful Times readers: the newspaper of record is editorializing under the guise of hard news. But, where most of us make the observation and grumble, Mr. Kohn has written a book, and a convincing one at that. The bonus is that a conscientious reader can use Kohn's analysis when reading any newspaper, whether far left, far right or moderate. Kohn is very clear about several points right up front -- and reiterates them throughout: 1) he is a dedicated NYT reader, 2) he has no objection to the NYT, or any newspaper, editorializing on the Op-Ed pages or in articles that are clearly marked "analysis" but heartily objects to editorializing in articles that purport to be hard news and 3) he believes -- and makes a good case to back his belief -- that the NYT has strayed far from its founding principles to "give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect or interests involved."

As the first step in his analysis, Kohn takes the reader through the basics of hard news writing and objectivity. Then, using quotes from NYT articles, he demonstrates how a writer can introduce subjectivity (i.e., opinion) through manipulation of the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of a hard news article. From there, he explores various other techniques, including misleading headlines, distorted leads, burying information at the end of an article or "below the fold" and polls -- always using NYT quotes as illustration. He is convincing. Actually, he is very convincing.

One of the most fascinating parallels he draws is between NYT coverage of the present Bush administration with that of the Nixon administration and Watergate, when the NYT admirably stuck to the facts without embellishment. Granted, the facts were damning in themselves and needed no embellishment, but that is exactly Kohn's point: let the facts to the damning, not the ideological beliefs of the writer or publisher.

Back in the '80s, I read a very popular book, "Hidden Persuaders", analyzed techniques (and tricks) the advertising industry uses to sell products. Although some of the book seemed to be a bit over-the-top and, at times, reaching to make a point, after reading it, I have never viewed an advertisement quite the same way. "Journalistic Fraud" packs the same wallop: on occasion, Kohn goes over the top and appears to be more conservative than the moderate he claims to be, but having read it, I will never read a newspaper article (in the NYT or elsewhere) with quite the same innocence. That is good.