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Times Watch for March 12, 2004

Jayson Blair Accuses the Times of
"Anti-Conservative" Bias

     Fabricating reporter Jayson Blair went on Fox News' O'Reilly Factor Wednesday night for a mostly friendly interview with host Bill O'Reilly, who was more interested in the paper's newsroom culture than Blair's admitted lying and fabricating. O'Reilly peppered Blair with questions on the New York Times at large, especially regarding the paper's liberal social agenda.

     Following are some bits of what Blair told O'Reilly--keeping in mind, of course, that Blair is hardly the most trustworthy messenger on this issue, or anything else.

     Blair claimed: "Well, one of the problems--and I don't necessarily agree with this notion--with Howell's reign at the Times was he--you know, I believe that the New York Times newsroom does have a social change agenda, and it's very liberal, it's certainly anti-conservative. You could make the argument that it's a pro-liberal, anti-conservative social change agenda, and Howell didn't just push it, but he made it obvious. It's normally more subtle and more hidden and masked and cloaked."

     Later, O’Reilly asked Blair a hypothetical: "If you walk into the newsroom and you said, ‘That O'Reilly Factor is my favorite program, I love that O'Reilly guy….what would happen to you if you were a ‘New York Times’ reporter?"

     Blair: "I'd be laughed out of the newsroom. I mean, people would brand me as a neo-con, and, you know, they'd stop talking to me. They would--"
     O’Reilly: "Really?"
     Blair: "It would hurt my stories. People would say that I, you know, there are a handful of people who have conservative--"
     O’Reilly: "That's what I thought."
     Blair: "John Tierney."
     O’Reilly: "Yeah, they got a couple of tokens, [Times columnist William] Safire and these guys."
     Blair: "Right. But they're outcasts."

• Jayson Blair | Liberal Bias | Bill O'Reilly

Bush-Backing Spanish PM to "Get the Blame" for Terror?

     Bad timing at the Times: Elaine Sciolino's hostile profile of Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar appeared in Thursday's paper, the very morning of a terrorist attack on four commuter trains in Madrid that killed 200 people.

     Sciolino's stories on the terror attacks manages to work in an anti-Aznar point similar to the one she made yesterday, claiming Aznar "dragged his country into" the Iraq war: "Prime Minister José María Aznar asked Spaniards to join mass rallies on Friday. But with the terrorists still unnamed and unfound, and with the possibility that Al Qaeda or another Islamic militant organization could be behind the attacks, some said the demonstrations could shift from anti-ETA to anti-Aznar. Ninety percent of Spaniards opposed Mr. Aznar's decision to back the United States in the war against Iraq, and some say that if Arab groups are responsible for the attack, Mr. Aznar will get the blame."

For the rest of Sciolino's story from Madrid, click here.

• Elaine Sciolino | Spain | Terrorism

Gall Over Youths In Guantanamo

     Carlotta Gall talks to a trio of Afghan youths recently released from Guantanamo Bay for "3 Afghan Youths Question U.S. Captivity." It's not a new story: London's liberal Guardian newspaper talked to the same three youths some days ago. Yet while the Guardian took a counterintuitive look at the boys' treatment (evident in the headline: "Cuba? It was great, say boys freed from US prison camp") and let the boys themselves refute liberal ideas of mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees, Gall ignored the boys' positive views of America and focused on concerns about their captivity.

     Gall writes for Friday's edition: "Young as they are, the three were recently released from the United States detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after being held more than a year on suspicion of belonging to the Taliban. Never charged, given merely a spoken apology from American officers, they were freed in January and returned home, where they told stories of study and fun and games. But their detention leaves unanswered the question of why three juveniles, none of whom were captured on a battlefield or were carrying weapons, were held for so long without explanation at the Bagram air base, near Kabul, and then at Guantánamo Bay."

     One of the detainees, a boy named Asadullah, told the Guardian's James Astill: “I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great….Americans are great people, better than anyone else….if I could be anywhere, I would be in America. I would like to be a doctor, an engineer--or an American soldier….I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great."

     Another young detainee also confided to Astill. "Tracked down to his remote village in south-eastern Afghanistan, Naqibullah has memories of Guantanamo that are almost identical to Asadullah's. Prison life was good, he said shyly, nervous to be receiving a foreigner to his family's mud-fortress home. The food in the camp was delicious, the teaching was excellent, and his warders were kind. 'Americans are good people, they were always friendly, I don't have anything against them,' he said. 'If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America.'"

     Though Gall talks to the same two boys, the closest she comes to such a pro-American angle is this: "Aside from homesickness, the boys did not suffer at Guantánamo. They were kept apart from the adult prisoners, learned to read and write in their own language, Pashto, and studied English, math and astronomy. They played board games and soccer. Once they even went with their guards for a picnic on the beach and snorkeled, Asadullah said. But the Red Cross has expressed concern that Bagram and Guantánamo are inappropriate places to hold juveniles."

For the rest of Gall's story on young Guantanamo detainees, click here.

• Afghanistan | Carlotta Gall | Guantanamo Bay | Terrorism

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org