The New York Times-Then and Now

Hat tip Miggie


The below presentation by a young lady named Anna Blech lasts 12+ minutes. It is based on an award-winning research project she did and is well worth the time to view it. In this presentation, Blech critically describes the reporting of the New York Times during the on-going murders of Jews during World War II. Contrary to some beliefs that the world was completely unaware of the killings until the death camps were liberated, Blech shows New York Times articles describing reports of mass killings of Jews during the early 1940s. The problem was the stories were buried on back pages in tiny spaces. Due to reporting like this, many in the US public did not know what was happening overseas in regards to the Jews.

According to Blech, this was due to the influence of the Times' owner and publisher, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, a Classical Reform Jew himself, who did not identify with European Jews and did not consider Jews as a race. According to Blech, Sulzberger also wanted to downplay the perception that the Times was a Jewish paper.





The elder Sulzberger became publisher of  the Times ownership by way of being married to the daughter of the owner, Adolph Ochs, who also wanted to lower the paper's perceived Jewish profile due to his interest in Jews becoming assimilated into American society. Sulzberger was publisher from 1935-1961. He was succeeded by a son-in-law and two years later by his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, nicknamed "Punch", who held that position until 1992, when he turned it over to his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. the present publisher and chairman.

While Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Sr. had served in World War II as a Marine and in Korea as a Marine reserve, the younger Sulzberger was of a different generation and mindset. According to a profile by Michael Widlanski in his 2012 book, "Battle for our minds", the younger Sulzberger was a hippy-type Vietnam war protester, who was reportedly twice arrested at anti-war protests. After his father bailed him out of jail, he reportedly asked his son what he would want to happen if an American soldier came upon a North Vietnamese soldier. Whom would he want to see get shot? The younger son reportedly told his father he would prefer to see  the American shot because he was in the other's country. While the elder Sulzberger ("Punch") was liked by the Times' staff, the son was derisively nicknamed "Pinch" (p 121).

He has hardly lost his liberalism since then. He has been a fierce opponent of George W Bush and his "War on Terror". Reporting, not surprisingly, has tilted pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, and has downplayed the idea of Islamic terrorism as a worldwide threat. Today, the younger Sulzberger presides over a once-great newspaper that has become little more than a propaganda arm of liberal Democratic politics. He has accumulated a collection of left-wing columnists like Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, and others who have zero objectivity-only their personal political agendas.

The road from America's flagship newspaper to propaganda rag has been long and hard.