The New York Times recent editorial (Saturday, April 16th) "A Protest on Video" was laughable. If you're not clear why, read our spoof:
A PROTEST ON VIDEO
The New York police have, on the whole, done a good job dealing with crowds -- and if they haven't we'd never tell you. But that doesn't mean that we'll do our usual kiss ass now that the country knows tapes were doctored by someone in the criminal justice system (we could assign a reporter to attempt to figure out who, but we don't really care). No, now we will speak out and announce our outrage to the world.
What happened was outrageous. We know because the GOP convention took place in NYC and NYC is our home. So we saw all the abuses in real time and the false arrests. We laughed about that in real time. They made for funny anecdotes at a party for John McCain.
So we knew exactly what was going on. And if those arrested had been prosecuted wrongly but without any screw ups, we'd be the last to piss in anyone's Post Toasties. But gosh, golly darn, there's a video out there that was doctored and we'll be darned if we'll be shamed into another editorial apology buried inside the paper just because we keep lying and omitting even after the public has caught on.
Thanks to the videotape, the elaborate testimony against Dennis Kyne shows that police officers don't always get it right. We have a suggestion: learn to lie better!
Having covered for your asses all during the GOP convention we can't help but feel a little betrayed now since you apparently couldn't use a free pass to ride the train all the way to false conviction on trumped up charges!
The Bloomberg adminstration says the police handled the protestors with model restraint; there have been no charges of brutality, no videos of nightstick raised in anger.
Right?
The motor cycle cops charging at peaceful protestors hasn't been discussed anywhere but Democracy Now!, right? We can get away with this lie, right? No one's really talking about the asbestos some were exposed to either, right? And the fact that they were, shall we say, 'overbooked' for hours and hours isn't mainstream knowledge, is it?
Okay then. We believe the police did an outstanding job. And we should know, we are housed in NYC. When we see something wrong, we report on it. Is some pushy developer going to spoil your high priced view? Drop us a line, we'll jump their asses from here to Helltown. Too many homeless on the street bringing you down? Drop us a line and we'll suggest Bloomerberg ship them out pronto if he wants to win the coming election.
Because we take brave stands. It wasn't easy for us to make the decision to provide GOP delegates with tickets to Broadway shows. We knew a lot of people would say, "New York Times has sold out her integrity." We've heard that so many times, because we've sold out so many times, that it really doesn't bother us.
And we'd like to thank all the delegates and Karl Rove for the wonderful thank you notes. Wasn't it cute how we killed the 'Bully Boy has a wire in the debate' story? And don't you love it when we pimp out Elisabeth Bumiller as a genuine reporter? We'd do it more often but she's gotten finicky in her old age. "Please don't put me back out on the streets tonight," she'll whine, "I think I have a cold."
So here's the deal police, district attorney's office and any other official sources that we'd smooch all day but I just washed my hair! (Ha ha, I think I'm Bette Davis!) Get your railroading right and we'll just cluck over this one case. We'll act like it was an isolated incident.
No one needs to know otherwise. It's not like we really told what you did at the convention, is it? No! We've never told our readers that peaceful protestors were caught up in nettings and not given any orders to disperse or, that when orders were given, no time was given as you immediately swept in with the netting.
We wouldn't be saying anything now but you've botched this one so badly that everyone had to notice. Look, we live to cover for official sources. We are the establishment and then some!
But you got to work with us on this. How to build a better criminal justice system? Build better liars! Send your guys on over and we'll let Billy Safire coach them on that, he's in semi-retirement, he's got nothing else to do.
(For those interested in real reporting on the GOP convention, we'd suggest you start with
"The New York Times tries to return the scene of their omission last fall (the RNC protests) and they still get it half-assed" which contains links to some of Democracy Now!'s real time reporting as well as perspective on what the Times didn't tell you.)