'N.Y. Times' vs. 'Wash Post' in Editorial 'Leak' Battle

[ProSense]

Oooh, it's the accountability war!

'N.Y. Times' vs. 'Wash Post' in Editorial 'Leak' Battle

By E&P Staff

Published: April 16, 2006 9:00 AM ET

NEW YORK It’s war. No, not Sunni vs. Shia in Iraq, but The New York Times editorial page vs. its Washington Post counterpart.

Perhaps it’s all in good fun, but it was startling to find a Times’ editorial on Sunday titled “The Bad Leak” exactly one week after a controversial Post editorial called “A Good Leak.” The leak—involving former White House aide“Scooter” Libby—was the same, but the point of view about 180 degrees different.

Just a week ago, the hawkish Post had defended Libby’s leak of intelligence information to reporters as being in the public interest; Ambassador Joseph Wilson had it coming; President Bush had good reason to think Iraq tried to get uranium in Niger a few years ago; and now the president’s critics were unfairly criticizing him for the leak, among other things.

In a bit of embarrassment, the Post, on the very day the editorial appeared, had pretty much proved in its news pages that the leak was really meant to punish Wilson, and most of the information in the leak was obviously, and knowingly, false.

Now comes the Times editorial—siding with the Post news team against its editorial page.

President Bush, the Times opens, “says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he ‘wanted people to see the truth' about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist. This would be a noble sentiment if it actually bore any relationship to Mr. Bush's actions in this case, or his overall record.

more...

http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002344806&imw=Y

[spooky3]

1. k&r

[longship]

2. R & K

:kick:ed

[calimary]

3. I'll kick this, too!

"Editor & Publisher" usually has it straight.

[qanda]

4. Interesting

The Washington Post is more useless than the paper it is written on, at least I can line the bird's cage with the paper-- Well, if I ever bothered to purchase another Washington Post.

[saltpoint]

5. Yes. K & R.

[happydreams]

6. The newspaper wars.

:crazy:

[myrna minx]

7. This should be interesting.

:popcorn:

[Supersedeas]

8. at least now...there is some discussion of view outside the WH version

[Voltaire99]

9. Amusingly, fewer and fewer care about the MSM, let alone its...

...internicine tiffs.

And, happily, as the fortunes of each establishment paper sour, even that number will dwindle.

A richly deserved fate for lickspittles!

[oc2002]

10. WP has gone down hill for the most part, it is not going to be

..a significant paper in a decade.

The NYT is one of the few papers that has increased its circulation, but most are in decline.