A Shot in the Arm for IHT Morale.

When was the last time you can remember a NYT editorial using the work of IHT journalists? Not in a long time.

All good, and good for the brand equity for the IHT (which seems to be being diminshed by the planned wiping from the NYT Company's asset sheet of www.iht.com at a time when frankly I'd have thought they could hardly afford to do such a thing. Have they thought this one through?)

What I find interesting about this editorial are the mixed messages.

The IHT isn't referenced as being owned by the NYT; in the paper NYT and IHT journalists aren't distinguished from one another, in the newsroom it's all talk about intergration and the IHT merely being the global edition of the NYT.

Yet here we have, in terms of brand value, a clear distinction drawn between the IHT and the NYT.

Confused? You should be.

EDITORIAL
Corruption in Bulgaria and Romania
Sunday, November 16, 2008
When the European Commission decided in September 2006 to admit Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union, nobody pretended they were really ready.
The thinking was that EU membership would keep them safely out of Russia's orbit. There were also hopes that joining the European political mainstream would accelerate their efforts to rein in organized crime and corruption. The latter was a fairly astounding miscalculation.
What actually happened, as Doreen Carvajal and Stephen Castle have reported in detail in the IHT, was that the prospect of billions in EU subsidies only encouraged the criminals to diversify from smuggling and extortion and to burrow into the political and judicial systems - the better to siphon off EU money.
Today, Bulgaria is rated by Transparency International as the most corrupt nation in the 27-nation EU. The country could lose almost half a billion euros in aid that was frozen in July because of fears that it was vulnerable. Romania is also a cause of serious concern.
This state of affairs is devastating at all levels. The Bulgarian and Romanian people badly need the EU's development aid. And the shocking reports of corruption are hardening the resistance of other Europeans to further expanding the EU, thus lessening the chances of Turkey or Ukraine to ever join.
Perhaps most grievously, the spread of corruption through all levels of government and society, as in Russia and some other Balkan countries, makes it far more difficult to eradicate everywhere.
The IHT articles chronicled how those who tried to expose or combat the criminals in Bulgaria were regularly threatened, maimed or killed, and how these crimes routinely go unsolved. The result, the reporters were told, was that people have come to accept corruption as an unavoidable fact of life and have become apathetic about fighting it.
The wrong conclusion would be to close the EU door forever. The right one would be to ensure that those who pass through it are ready and get all the support they need to be full and healthy members.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/16/opinion/edbulgaria.php

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More Chinese Water Torture - NYT Technology Coverage

I've blogged many times on the cumulative affect of media criticism of the NYT, not so much in the consumer market, but in the trade market. If young wired media buyers don't buy the NYT brand on a subject as important as technology, why would they think the NYT's readers do?

To the power of people two years behind the curve?


Tuesday, Oct 21
NYT Writes Wired Article, Two Years Later
The New York Times isn't known for the timeliness of its technology coverage, but today's article about how bot networks are a danger to the Internet comes almost two years after Wired covered the same problem — much more thoroughly — in its November, 2006 issue.

Attack of the Bots (Wired) — "The latest threat to the Net: autonomous software programs that combine forces to perpetrate mayhem, fraud, and espionage on a global scale."

A Robot Network Seeks to Enlist Your Computer (NYT) — "An automated program lurking on the Internet has remotely taken over the PC and turned it into a 'zombie.' That computer and other zombie machines are then assembled into systems called 'botnets' — home and business PCs that are hooked together into a vast chain of cyber-robots that do the bidding of automated programs to send the majority of e-mail spam, to illegally seek financial information and to install malicious software on still more PCs."

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To the Power of the Times - NYT Trade Campaign

On the subject of the NYTMG being pro-active in hard times, I don't think I posted on their new trade campaign.


I'll just make two comments.


If you're the marketing director of the NYTMG and this is your first trade campaign in a decade, you're taking your consumer base for granted. And that's not good, whoever you are.

The FT dominated the international senior business decision making market for as long as I worked in it, and they never took their foot off the pedal with trade campaigns, even if could have done so given their earnings and dominance of the market and market research numbers. Ditto The Economist.

It isn't so much that hard times aren't detering the NYTMG from running a trade campaign now (sorry, yet), it's that good times did. So when the bad times come and you need to advertise, you look weak and out of brand character.

Media buyers smell this sort of thing.

Secondly, what's the spend on this campaign? We don't know. And Denise doesn't know if it will continue into 2009.

I'm going to take a pint of best bitter bet it won't, outside of in-paper/site executions.











Hard times don't deter 'New York Times'
Newspaper launches trade ad campaign, expands online coverage of business
By Marie Griffin
Story posted: October 13, 2008 - 6:01 am EDT
OAS_RICH('Middle1');

At the end of last month, The New York Times launched its first national trade advertising campaign in more than a decade, even as the stock market was tumbling and a financial bailout plan was being hotly debated in Washington.
The media plan was finalized before a string of failures among financial institutions started to shake the nation in mid-September, so the crisis could have justified a reduction, delay or cancellation of the trade campaign, said Denise Warren, senior VP-chief advertising officer of the New York Times Media Group. “We decided not to pull back,” she said. “We said, "This is really the time to send a message of strength and stability to our advertisers and the advertising community.' ” The campaign targets “the whole food chain” of advertising decision-makers, Warren said, from media planners and buyers to CMOs at major companies. The print and online effort includes such vehicles as Advertising Age, AdWeek,WWD and MediaBuyerPlanner.com.
The trade campaign is scheduled to run through the end of the year. “We're still planning budgets for 2009, so I can't say if it will continue,” Warren said. The budget for the campaign was not disclosed. The concept behind the creative is “to the power of the Times,” executed as if it were a mathematical formula in which (nyt) takes the place of a numeral (such as a superscript 2, indicating squared). In the first creative wave, three words are spotlighted: influence, innovation and ROI.
“We really wanted something that was distinctive and flexible . We're very happy with the concepts, the creative and the execution,” Warren said. “There are many other executions that have not yet been seen. You can imagine, for example, "technology to the power of the Times.'

” The trade campaign debuted less than a week after The New York Times made two announcements about its Web site, NYTimes.com. One was the public beta launch of TimesPeople, a social networking feature that allows registered users to share and view each other's thoughts and recommendations on New York Times content. The other was a significant expansion and deeper segmentation of its online business coverage.

On Sept. 23, The New York Times rolled out a redesigned “Technology” section with subsections on enterprise technology, the Internet, venture capital and start-ups, and company-specific news. The Bits blog, backed by an expanded staff, and content from the IDG News Service are more prominently featured. The same day, a new “Economy” section and Green Inc., a blog on energy and the environment, debuted.

Over the coming months, NYTimes.com plans to expand sections on small business, personal technology and Your Money; to deepen coverage within its DealBook franchise; and to continue to add new tools and multimedia features. Frannie Danzinger, VP-media at b-to-b marketing agency HSR Business to Business, said she has delved deeply into the metrics for The New York Times for her clients. “It's very clear to me that the Times truly is a business newspaper, even though that isn't necessarily the general perception,” she said. “The [deeper] vertical segmentation will be helpful because marketers really are honing in on smaller segments within a larger universe. Green is one of the topics they are expanding, and it's really top of mind in business today.”The TimesPeople feature, which is free, includes a toolbar that appears at the top of users' pages on NYTimes.com. The toolbar links to profile pages, which display the public actions of the user and other network members who have opted in. The public activities included in TimesPeople are readers' comments, recommendations, reviews and ratings. Danzinger said social media tools are “extremely important, but they can't become a commodity. If they're everywhere, it takes away from the value social media provides.” As for TimesPeople, Danzinger said, “They're a little late to the game, so they might have an uphill battle.” Vivian Schiller, senior VP-general manager of NYTimes.com, noted that Cisco Systems is the launch partner for TimesPeople. “The long-term business model for monetizing social media is not fully formed, to say the least,” she said. “We want to get the technology right, to get the features and functionality right, and to build an audience now while we're sorting out the business model.”

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New York Times Credibility Stress.

In times like these, people have got to believe in your brand. A NYT subscription is easy to cut from one's personal budget (and lest we forget, the NYT Co. does still earn about 30% of its revenue from circulation) and you surely want info you can believe in.

I fear an awful consumer tipping point (again that phrase) for consumer confidence in the NYT.

JB, JM, and now this: a NYT writer distorting a survey’s findings to fit his theme, contrary to The Times’s standards of integrity. (Oh yeah, I liked a correction in the IHT yesterday that got the number of a loan wrong - it was US$500 million, not US$5oo billion as previously reported. Please. Coffees on me.)









October 21, 2008



Corrections
Editors’ Note
An article in the Itineraries pages last Tuesday reported about the increasing stress on business travelers, and cited the findings of “Stress in America,” an annual survey of the American Psychological Association. That survey found that economic factors were the leading causes of stress levels in 2008, but it did not say, as the article did, that “the crisis on Wall Street was the No. 1 cause of anxiety,” nor did participants in the survey say they felt most vulnerable to stress “in the office and on a business trip.”
The survey included data from Sept. 19 to Sept. 23, 2008, a period of volatility on Wall Street, but none of the questions in the association’s survey referred to Wall Street or any economic crises. Participants were not asked how business travel affected their stress levels or where they felt most vulnerable to stress. The author of the article distorted the survey’s findings to fit his theme, contrary to The Times’s standards of integrity.
The article also quoted incorrectly from a comment by Nancy Molitor, a psychologist in Wilmette, Ill., who told the author that, “In my 20 years of practice I’ve never seen such anxiety among my patients,” not “among my banking and business patients.” While Dr. Molitor does have patients in banking and business, she did not single them out as being more anxious than her other patients. (Go to Article)

OK, those are the facts, no big deal you might think. You read the correction, if you spot it, appreciate their frank and timely response and move on.

But here's the damage.

Gawker reporting, love 'em or hate 'em, and the comments from Gawker I like to post because I think they do often reflect undercurrents about the NYT's brand perception (and my fear of this tipping point), follow below, but it's interesting to note how many of the comments from Gawker readers fit into Slate's criticisms of the NYT's back of the book feature people coming up with false trends. Gawker is Gawker but Slate is in fact owned by the WP.

And both, I am sure, are read by young, impressionable media buyers and planners within agencies. Chinese water torture...

I pick up a range of opinion that Thursday and Sunday NYT's are full of soft-news rubbish. That's 2 out of 7 days of that 30% circulation revenue.

The NYT people I speak to just don't seem to have any sense of this weakness within their brand perception. We're the NYT, Krugman has a Nobel Prize for God's sake, we're invincible. A must read, a must advertising buy.

There is no such thing as a must read and a must advertising buy when you're dealing with people who don't read much and buy advertising.

The Times ran a special editors' note this morning accusing one of its freelancers of twisting the truth "to fit his theme, contrary to the Times' standards of integrity." The writer, Paul Burnham Finney, apparently distorted an American Psychological Association survey to reflect his article's thesis that business travel and the Wall Street meltdown are stressing people out more than anything else. In fact, the survey showed the economy generally is stressing people out. Also, he rewrote a therapist's quote to also be more specific in the same way, the paper said. Having developed something of a history running false stories, the Times seems to have been eager to get out in front of this one, running its correction barely one week after the original article came out — quite a speedy timeframe for deciding one of your contributors is a liar.

GAWKER COMMENTS (BTW, you can skip the first rather crude comment if you like but I'll bet you a pound to a penny he's an IHT reader living in France.)

drunkexpatwriter 7:00 AM
You know, this could almost become an underground game/meme. People could try to get freelance gigs at the Times and then intentionally insert obviously false/misleading information into the stories to see what level of bullshit gets through.
The point of the game would be to see who could become possible for the most ridiculous correction in the Times.
Like, seriously, I'd love to be the dude who writes a story that eventually ends up leading to this type of correction:
"An article appearing in last Sunday's Times Magazine about Hollywood celebrities contained information that was skewed by our contributor, Bart Calendar, to fit his theme. While Paris Hilton did indeed make a sex tape, she has never said "I'd rather suck a Doberman's cock than lick Alan Arkin's asshole." Instead, she said "I'm thinking about getting a Doberman and appearing in a movie with Alan Rickman." In addition, Lindsay Lohan has battled drug addiction in the past, but did not say "I love shooting heroin with Milley Cyrus." Rather, the actress commented that "I'm going to be the heroine in a new movie they are shooting with Miley Cyrus." Furthermore, representatives of Tom Cruise insist that he never said "I'm a Catholic cockaholic and terrified of tasting tuna, suck my balls you bitches."
The Times regrets these errors.

drunkexpatwriter You know, this could almost become an underground...
4 replies by drunkexpatwriter, zaropa, drunkexpatwriter ...

AlexanderKerensky 7:55 AM
@drunkexpatwriter: That would, indeed, be the best correction ever.
Now the trouble is getting a gig with the Times after saying that.

AlexanderKerensky @ drunkexpatwriter : That would, indeed, be the best...

drunkexpatwriter 8:09 AM
@AlexanderKerensky: Do you think they really check credentials?

drunkexpatwriter @ AlexanderKerensky : Do you think they really check...

zaropa 9:28 AM
@AlexanderKerensky: You dont need a gig at the Times after that, you just go to Fox news.

zaropa @ AlexanderKerensky : You dont need a gig at the Times...

drunkexpatwriter 9:55 AM
@zaropa: But where is the challenge in doing that to Fox News?
Plus, you can't frame a video correction and keep it on your wall.

drunkexpatwriter @ zaropa : But where is the challenge in doing that to...


7:03 AM
veganrampage2 7:03 AM
I find the truth stressful enough.

veganrampage2 I find the truth stressful enough.


7:45 AM
PRIsNotJournalism 7:45 AM
Does that mean he doesn't get paid?

PRIsNotJournalism Does that mean he doesn't get paid?


9:05 AM
plasticene 9:05 AM
Does anyone believe the Times anymore?

plasticene Does anyone believe the Times anymore?


9:34 AM
Aaron Altman 9:34 AM
The ultimate stressor? Commercials for the Times "Weekender" subs.

Aaron Altman The ultimate stressor? Commercials for the Times...


10:45 AM 1 reply
themediatrix 10:45 AM
They have an entire section of articles twisted to fit the suppositions of the reporters. It's called the health section. Terms like "obesity crisis," and "lifestyle choices," and "the study reveals an association between..."
There is a sad lack of science literacy among Times reporters, and as a result, the health and medical writing is all based on givens, and conventional wisdom. They don't understand statistics, and continue to repeat information that is untrue without ever questioning their assumptions.
And I hate that stupid Tara Parker Pope, who can't manage to write anything original. WTF.

themediatrix They have an entire section of articles twisted to fit...
1 reply by themediatrix

themediatrix 11:36 AM
@themediatrix: FOR EXAMPLE, from today:
"One of the best ways to prevent cavities in children is to treat their molars with a dental sealant that protects the teeth..." Really? One of the best? According to...?
Sure, let's not worry about sourcing that "fact," everyone knows it's true, right? Plus, it sets up your whole column for today, right Tara. Actually, one of the best ways of preventing cavities is to keep kids from eating processed carbs and processed sugar, while pumping them full of raw milk [source: weston price]. But hey, it's better to say this other thing so that you can get that blog post pumped out, right?
[well.blogs.nytimes.com]

themediatrix @ themediatrix : FOR EXAMPLE, from today: "One of the...


10:50 AM 1 reply
HK_Guy 10:50 AM
I smell a rat, in the shape of an editor. Editors constantly badger freelancers to torture their quotes to fit some a priori theme in the editor's head. Since freelancers are under such stress to get stories in so they can get paid and go on to the next gig, they eventually succumb. So the freelancer takes the fall for the editor.

HK_Guy I smell a rat, in the shape of an editor. Editors...
1 reply by Seeräuber Jenny

Seeräuber Jenny 12:29 PM
@HK_Guy:
That is a possibility. Perhaps we'll hear more.

Seeräuber Jenny @ HK_Guy : That is a possibility. Perhaps we'll hear...


12:28 PM 1 reply
Seeräuber Jenny 12:28 PM
So the moral of the story is that it's better to just make sh-t up as they do every Thursday and Sunday?
At least the freelancer didn't claim to see Pol Pot masquerading as a Native American who was raised by a ghetto foster mother while engaged in the act of personally carrying aluminum tubes that could be used for weapons of mass destruction.

Seeräuber Jenny So the moral of the story is that it's better to just...
1 reply by HK_Guy

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TV Guide Sold for a Buck (Advertising Age)

TV Guide Sold for a Buck
SEC Filing: Buyer Got $9.5 Million Loan From Macrovision to Do Deal
By Nat Ives Published: October 15, 2008 NEW YORK (AdAge.com)
How much is TV Guide magazine worth in a morphing media business and molten credit markets? Try $1.
That's how much the private equity fund OpenGate Capital has agreed to pay Macrovision for the unprofitable magazine and all its liabilities. The cover price, by way of comparison, is $2.99.
Take this magazine -- please.
To sweeten the deal even further, Macrovision is loaning OpenGate up to $9.5 million to help get going -- at a very friendly 3% interest. "I'd borrow from Macrovision any time," one investment banker said of the terms. The terms were not disclosed when Macrovision said Monday it had struck a deal with OpenGate, but emerged in a Macrovision filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.
For Macrovision, the deal clears from its books a money-losing print magazine and its 3 million subscribers who need to be serviced.
Money pit
It acquired the title when it bought Gemstar-TV Guide for its digital assets last January. But the magazine lost about $20.3 million in 2007, according to Gemstar's 10-K filing for the year ended December 2007. Gemstar said in that 10-K: "We currently anticipate continuing, but declining, losses for the next two to three years." OpenGate believes it can turn the title's liabilities into profits. "The reason we acquired this business is simple," OpenGate managing partner Andrew Nikou told AdAge.com yesterday. "It needed additional investment. We're investing in this company to take it to the next stage." Macrovision is selling cable's TV Guide Channel separately.

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The IHT Brand Paradox: When you want to be edgy, modern, audacious but your brand holds most of its value in its history

Creating a gentle revolution in Champagne
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop
Friday, October 3, 2008
SINGAPORE: Cécile Bonnefond doesn't look like a revolutionary, but this 54-year-old Frenchwoman sounds a little like one when she describes some of the ways in which she has marketed Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, the Champagne house of which she became chief executive in 2001.
There was the collaboration with Emilio Pucci, who dressed a 9,000-bottle limited series in his flamboyantly colored prints. The interior designer Andrée Putman made a Champagne box that doubles as an ice bucket, decorated with her signature checkerboard pattern. Karim Rashid, a designer from Egypt, created the Globalight, an orb-shaped lamp that is also an Isotherm bottle carrier.
Innovation of any kind is tricky when the company you are running dates to 1772, and it can seem superfluous when your sales are rising even in tough economic times.
Yet Bonnefond, who has managed some of the best-known brands in Europe at companies like Groupe Danone and Grand Metropolitan (now Diageo), sees innovation as necessary to preserving Veuve Clicquot's place in a changing world.
"I see my job as really managing a paradox," Bonnefond said on a recent business trip to Singapore. "With Veuve Clicquot, you have history, but we also want to be the most edgy, modern, audacious, 'in' name in Champagne."
Audacity is part of Veuve Clicquot's heritage. In 1814, Barbe Nicole Ponsardin, the original Veuve, or Widow, Clicquot, defied Napoleon's nautical blockade of Russia by secretly shipping 10,550 bottles of Champagne to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad). By the 1860s, the czarist court and aristocracy were drinking 700,000 bottles per year, or 75 percent of Clicquot's production.
With the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, sales of Champagne to Russia abruptly halted. It wasn't until recently, with the rising wealth in Russia, that sales have picked up to the point where Bonnefond can say that "for the first time, this year, we've finally sold more bottles in Russia than Madame Clicquot."
Despite the emerging global economic slowdown, Bonnefond said the company had record sales in 2007 and was "only feeling a small pinch" this year, an accomplishment she attributes to " a very loyal core consumer group."
Marlous Kuiper, head of alcoholic beverages research at Euromonitor International, said Veuve Clicquot had outpaced growth in the global Champagne market in recent years, sometimes by as much as five percentage points.
Veuve Clicquot comes under the umbrella of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, along with the Champagne brands Moët & Chandon, Dom Perignon, Krug, Mercier and Ruinart. Although LVMH does not release a breakdown of production or sales among its wine and spirit brands, the division had total net sales of €3.2 billion, or about $4.4 billion, in 2007, up 7 percent over the previous year, with 62.2 million bottles of Champagne sold in 2007, a 3.8 percent increase over 2006.
According to the latest LVHM results report, Veuve Clicquot and Moët & Chandon have had so far this year a "good performance." Bonnefond said, "I have to make my shareholders happy and they are very happy."
A native of Paris and a graduate of the European Business School with a degree in marketing, Bonnefond joined Danone's marketing division in 1979 before moving to Kellogg's in 1984 as marketing manager for France. Over the next 10 years, she held growing responsibilities across Europe in sales, marketing and general management. In 1995, she joined Grand Metropolitan as chairman and chief executive of a new unit overseeing the activities of Grand Met food brands including Brossard baked goods, Häagen-Dazs ice cream, Green Giant frozen foods and Old El Paso Mexican products.
When Grand Met sold its bakery business to Sara Lee in 1997, she joined that company as chief executive of the bakery division in France and Italy.
At Veuve Clicquot, Bonnefond has shown some of the qualities that helped the original owner propel the company, including a knack for seizing the moment. Soon after she joined, she introduced a Veuve Clicquot Rosé nonvintage Champagne. "Knowing that 90 percent of the rosé Champagne drunk in the world was nonvintage, there was a feeling that we were missing a business opportunity," she said.
Bonnefond chose Japan as a test market for the first limited production of the new Champagne. The response was so enthusiastic that the company did not have enough bottles to test it in Hong Kong and Belgium as planned. After increasing production, she took nonvintage rosé international in 2006. Today the product represents around 10 percent of the company's overall sales.
Bonnefond has also moved into other product extensions. There's the Clicquot gift carton that unfolds into an insulated Champagne bucket, a neoprene jacket to keep the bottle cool, and an ice bucket in the bold orange of the brand.
She said that she was not recruited to Veuve Clicquot to "bring in a revolution" but that she was "accelerating" business.
"We've just pushed the boundaries further," Bonnefond said.

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Question of the day: What have handbags got to do with newspapers?

I know. Do you?

Handbag heaven
By Leah Greengarten
Thursday, October 2, 2008
ANTIBES, France: As dawn breaks a golden brown over the French Riveria, Caroline Calabria, owner of the Vintage Art Gallery, is often one of the first arrivals at a local market.
She combs the jumbled stalls for vintage handbags because, she says, "People in this area are renowned travelers, so I can find bags from Argentina to Africa and anything in between."
Calabria's shop, just a year old, is sandwiched between a hairdresser and a little French restaurant on the cobbled pedestrian street of Rue Thuret. But during the summer high season, it displays 600 or more bags - this season mostly clutches, but it all depends on what she finds.
Calabria says she always has loved handbags. At first, "I brought vintage handbags for myself and then after years of collecting and lots of bags, I had this idea to open my own store." She moved from Paris to Antibes five years ago - "to increase the collection, so I could be closer to the markets."
There is a small collection of vintage clothing at the store entrance. Miranda Richardson, a Londoner, bought a parrot-colored 1960s frock this summer and says she "loves it so much and wore it all the time on holidays in Ibiza."
But the rest of the three-room shop is just handbags. There is every color of the rainbow and all the dark hues of the ocean, as well as the smell of old leather.
"Crocodile bags have been really popular this summer," says Calabria - they range from €150 to €500, or $210 to $705.
As for designers, it has been "Chanel and Louis Vuitton," she said. "I sold a '70s vintage sports bag by Louis Vuitton this morning for €1,200."
Richardson's mother, Madeline Richardson of Grasse, France, bought a handbag at the shop earlier this year. "I really love my crocodile clutch bag," she said. "It's elegant and classic and it was good value for money, too."
With no Web site, no telephone number and just a brown paper bag with the word "vintage" hanging on the front of the store, Calabria says that kind of word-of-mouth has been her most powerful marketing tool.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/02/style/rantibes.php

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McCain aide: NYT not legit news source

One of the problems newspapers face is that they are regarded by many within their target demographic as being partisan.

If we compare the NYT with an Ipod for a second, both products have brand stature. However owning an Ipod - although it says lots of things about you - doesn't carry any political baggage.

If a large segment of the target demographic of Ipods wouldn't buy them because it thought owning an Ipod would signal them either as believers in and clone followers of elitist, establishment MSM or as liberal, anti-Republican people, then Apple would eliminate a sizable part of its target audience.

This wouldn't be smart.

However, whether you agree with either of those characterisations of the NYT or not, the fact is that many people do, and therefore don't buy it.


Witness this article below from Politico:

McCain aide: NYT not legit news source
By MIKE ALLEN 9/22/08 12:25 PM EDT
Steve Schmidt, a McCain campaign senior adviser, declared on a conference call with reporters Monday that The New York Times is "not ... a journalistic organization.”
His lengthy broadside, prompted by an article Monday documenting ties between the campaign and lobbying for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was the latest in a series of grievances with the Gray Lady that that aides to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have aired publicly.
“Whatever The New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization,” Schmidt said. “It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day impugns the McCain campaign, attacks Sen. McCain, attacks Gov. [Sarah] Palin. It excuse Sen. Obama. …
“Everything that is read in The New York Times that attacks this campaign should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective — that it is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside its journalistic integrity and tradition, to advocate for the defeat of one candidate — in this case, John McCain — and to advocate for the election of the other candidate, Barack Obama.”
Bill Keller, the newspaper's executive editor, said in a statement of response: "The New York Times is committed to covering the candidates fully, fairly and aggressively. It's our job to ask hard questions, fact-check their statements and their advertising, examine their programs, positions, biographies and advisors. Candidates and their campaign operatives are not always comfortable with that level of scrutiny, but it's what our readers expect and deserve."
Bill Burton, the Obama campaign's national press secretary, called Schmidt's accusation laughable, and said the Times had published more than 40 "probing stories ... over the course of the campaign about Barack Obama, his life, his religion, his childhood, his politics, his time in the state Senate, his time in the U.S. Senate, his family, his religion, his friends, his fundraising and all other manner of associations."
Burton attached a list of 42 citations, pasted below.
On Monday, the paper published an article on page A18 tying a McCain campaign manager, Rick Davis, to lobbying group set up by troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
When CNN’s Dana Bash asked about the article, Schmidt unloaded.
“Let me first say: We are First Amendment absolutists on this campaign,” Schmidt said. “The press, and anybody who wishes to cover this race from the blogosphere perspective or from a media perspective, … of course is constitutionally protected with regard to writing … whatever they want to write. But let’s be clear and be honest with each other about something fundamental to this race.”
Schmidt said that the Obama campaign has been “abetted” by a compliant media that gives more scrutiny to the Republican than to the Democrat.
Then, naming the Times, he said: “There is no level of public vetting with Sen. Obama’s record, his background, his past statements. There’s no level of outrage directed at his deceitful ads. This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in tank for the Democratic candidate, which is their prerogative to be. But let’s not be dishonest and call it something other than what it is.”
Burton's list of Times articles probing Obama:
1. In Law School, Obama Found Political Voice [New York Times, 1/28/07] 2. So Far, Obama Can’t Take Black Vote For Granted [New York Times, 2/2/07] 3. Obama Had Slaveowning Kin [New York Times, 3/3/07] 4. Disinvitation by Obama Is Criticized [New York Times, 3/6/07] 5. Obama, in Brief Investing Foray In '05, Took Same Path as Donors [New York Times, 3/7/07] 6. Obama Says His Investments Presented No Conflicts of Interest [New York Times, 3/8/07] 7. Charisma and a Search for Self In Obama's Hawaii Childhood [New York Times, 3/17/07] 8. Clinton Camp Challenges Obama on Iraq. [New York Times, 3/22/07] 9. After 2000 Loss, Obama Built Donor Network From Roots Up [New York Times, 4/3/07] 10. A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith [New York Times, 4/30/07] 11. An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment in Illinois [New York Times, 6/14/07] 12. In Illinois, Obama Proved Pragmatic and Shrewd. [New York Times, 7/30/07] 13. In 2000, a Streetwise Veteran Schooled a Bold Young Obama. [New York Times, 9/9/07] 14. Loyal Network Backs Obama After His Help. [New York Times, 10/1/07] 15. Obama’s Account of New York Years Often Differs From What Others Say. [New York Times, 10/30/07] 16. It’s Not Just ‘Ayes’ and ‘Nays’: Obama’s Votes in Illinois Echo. [New York Times, 12/20/07] 17. Nuclear Leaks and Response Tested Obama in Senate [New York Times, 2/3/08] 18. Daschle Uses Senate Ties To Blaze Path for Obama [New York Times, 2/5/08] 19. Old Friends Say Drugs Played Bit Part in Obama’s Young Life [New York Times, 2/9/08] 20. Seeking Unity, Obama Feels Pull of Racial Divide [New York Times, 2/12/08] 21. Obama Walks a Difficult Path as He Courts Jewish Voters [New York Times, 3/1/08] Obama in Senate: Star Power, Minor Role [New York Times, 3/9/08] 22. A Free-Spirited Wanderer Who Set Obama’s Path [New York Times, 3/14/08] 23.cPastor Defends His Predecessor at Obama’s Chicago Church [New York Times, 3/17/08] 24. Obama’s Narrator [New York Times, 4/1/07] 25. Wright Remains a Concern for Some Democrats [New York Times, 5/1/08] 26. A Strained Wright-Obama Bond Finally Snaps [New York Times, 5/1/08] 27. A Pulpit-and-Pews Gulf on Obama’s Ex-Pastor [New York Times, 5/2/08] 28. A Fiery Theology Under Fire [New York Times, 5/4/08] 29. Obama Secret Service Agent Tied To Sex Joke [New York Times, 5/15/08] 30. The Story of Obama, Written by Obama [New York Times, 5/18/08] 31. Following Months of Criticism, Obama Quits His Church [New York Times, 6/1/08] 32. Many Blacks Find Joy in Unexpected Breakthrough [New York Times, 6/5/08] 33. Where Whites Draw The Line [New York Times, 6/8/08]
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13733.html



A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

International Herald Tribune
IHT
New York Times
NYT

Vacation /Business Trip Furnished Apartment in Paris

Petraeus's comments to the Financial Times newspaper

Two points:

a) This is a pretty big news story, given to the FT, not the IHT, nor the NYT. Doesn't say much for the IHT's stature in the minds of Pentagon handlers when wanting to speak to the world.

b) The current exec. editor of the IHT is known for his anti blogger comments, calling them people who riff of the MSM.

In this case (see below) the IHT relied on Reuters to pick it up, and used their piece.

That's called riffing off (by the IHT) those who riff (in this case Reuters) off the MSM (in this case the FT).


U.S. troops may quit Baghdad "by July"
LONDON: U.S. combat troops could be pulled out of Baghdad within 10 months because of declining violence in the Iraqi capital, General David Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq, said in an interview published on Thursday.
Petraeus's comments to the Financial Times newspaper came as the United States and Iraq seek to finalise a security pact that will govern the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.
There are about 145,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Petraeus was referring in his interview to the roughly 16,000 stationed in Baghdad, the paper said.
Asked whether it was feasible that U.S. combat forces could leave Baghdad by July, Petraeus said: "Conditions permitting, yeah.
"The number of attacks in Baghdad lately has been ... I think it's probably less than five (a day) on average, and that's a city of seven million people," he added.
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/09/04/africa/OUKWD-UK-IRAQ-PETRAEUS.php