No Pravda in the NY Times, No Izvestia in the NYTimes

The old joke, not so funny, about the two leading newspapers in the former Soviet Union (USSR) has reached the United States. Pravda means truth in Russian and Izvestia means news in that language. Pravda was the organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Izvestia was the organ of the USSR government. The joke ran as follows: there’s no Izvestia in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestia.

Well, the so-called newspaper of record, the NY Times has now reached the august level of those two documents of misinformation. Despite the television media reporting massive demonstrations in New York City, San Francisco and other American cities in favor of Hamas and against Israel, including cries of Death to America, not a word of these outrages appeared in today’s issue of the NY Times (April 15, 2024). Perhaps the Times’ staff was too busy paying their income taxes today. However, masquerading as the newspaper of record bears with it a certain responsibility. Sadly, that newspaper is no longer worthy of that title. Various journalists have bemoaned the apparent terminal decline of the journalism profession. Regrettably it is true. Pretty faces and good feelings have replaced hard news. Yet, an informed citizenry suffers as it is denied information which now travels at warp speed. Understandably, print newspaper copy cannot respond as rapidly as the internet version of newspapers, but electronic media can and is updated innumerable times per day as events unfold.

It is now time for the journalism profession to stand up and fulfill their professional responsibility, which is to report all the news truthfully, in full and without editorializing. Editorial pages are not news pages and they should be kept separately. It’s time to resuscitate the forgotten and no longer used motto of the NY Times: “All the news that’s fit to print.”

Let’s hope that journalists respond to the imperatives of their profession.

Garry S. Sklar

Las Vegas, NV

April 15, 2024