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Times Watch for 04/11/03
The Times Gets A Mulligan for Martha
Yesterday’s rain-out of the first round of the Masters golf tournament gave Howell Raines’ Times a clear fairway to wage its public relations campaign against Augusta National golf club and its all-male membership. Free not to waste its precious partisan ink on chip shots and sand traps, the Times put three reporters and a columnist on Augusta’s “real” story: Promoting feminist Martha Burk’s protest of Augusta National’s all-male membership policy.
Selena Roberts' column from Atlanta was par for the course, hitting on Augusta National’s “sexism” that she claims “is as acceptable as ogling at a strip joint.” Reporters Clifton Brown and Bill Pennington tee off on the issue as well.
But Roberts is at least paid to have opinions. Kate Zernike’s worshipful profile of Burk purports to be reporting. Headlined “Burk Fights the Battle She’s Given,” the article’s subhead continues the theme of Burk as happy warrior: “Thrust Into the Fray and Relishing It.”
In this instance, the Times headline is not misleading.
“In 20 years,” Zernike fawns, “[Burk] has gone from bored Texas housewife to software entrepreneur to feminist activist. She has represented the United States at international conferences on women and has a long history of fighting for feminist causes, from the Equal Rights Amendment to the rights of women in Afghanistan.” Imagine the Times talking about an accomplished conservative woman such as Phyllis Schlafly in a like manner.
Halfway through Zernike’s nearly 2,000 word piece is the only criticism of Burk she can muster: “She has been accused of wasting what even critics call her considerable talents on a trifle. And opponents say she trivialized the war in Iraq by suggesting that if female soldiers are fighting for democracy there they should be allowed to belong to a golf club here. With her twangy sound bites, Burk can occasionally sound flippant.”
Then back to hagiography: “Burk's strength has been to remain on message but to mix in enough humor to appeal to different audiences. Earlier in the evening, she appeared on the Comedy Central cable network on ‘The Daily Show,’ which is most popular among men 18-24. She gets in her line about this being about power. Then the host, Jon Stewart, asks about a backlash. ‘Well, the K.K.K. has come out in their support now,’ she says, brown eyes twinkling. ‘When the K.K.K. is on your side, you know you've lost the battle!’ The audience whoops and cheers.”
Burk, who knows who her friends are, tips her cap to the media for pushing the Augusta issue: "This one happened to set off a natural fascination not of our own making. It fell into a very robust media infrastructure, and I think we would be making a very bad judgment not to take advantage of it.” A large slice of that “robust media infrastructure” is located at West 43rd Street in Manhattan, an indisputable fact that goes politely unmentioned.
A real report on Burk would have included details like the one National Review’s Joel Mowbray uncovered: “Burk heeded the call of the State Department [in February] to represent the United States as part of a delegation to a conference on women’s issues in Tallin, Estonia. In her short time there—on the taxpayer dime—she saw fit to slam President Bush, criticize the United States generally, and bemoan the “pornophication” of society.”
The Times never brings up Burk’s radical views and shies away from restating her most strident comments, such as: "Augusta National should not be shocked by the KKK's endorsement. They have behaved in a manner that attracts this type of support." (The KKK never endorsed Augusta.)
The New York Times coverage of celebratory Baghdad yesterday upon the collapse of the Hussein regime was notably muted. Today the Times is positioned where it’s more comfortable, describing the “looting” and vengeful score-settling now taking place in Baghdad. Headlines like “Chaos Spreads in Baghdad With Widespread Looting, Arson and a Suicide Attack” and “Allies Widen Hold on Iraq; Civil Strife on Rise” dominate.
Like most media outlets, the Times today spends expends much ink lamenting Iraqi “looting” in its headlines -- but as the stories themselves show, it’s often Saddam’s palaces and government buildings being emptied. Surely, civilians clawing back a dictator’s ill-gotten gains is not just like a mob shattering store windows.
Of course, Baghdad hasn’t been transformed overnight into Dubuque, despite the fall of Saddam, and it’s the media’s job to report the bad things happening on the ground. But when it comes to the Times, it sometimes seems Allied forces literally can’t win. If there’s Iraqi resistance, then the war effort is bogged down—but if resistance collapses quickly we get headlines like this on the front page of today’s “A Nation at War” section: “Kirkuk’s Swift Collapse Leaves A City in Chaos.” A similar lament headlines the story overleaf: “Iraqi Troops Quickly Exit, Leaving Kirkuk in Turmoil.” As if things had been just fine and dandy in Kirkuk when Saddam’s thugs were in control.
E-mail Times Watch Director, Clay Waters, with Times Watch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org