#221 - LA and NY Slimes

Several years ago I subscribed to the LA Times. I can safely promise you that is was far less for their theoretical journalistic integrity as for their coupons. I hadn't voluntarily read a Times editorial piece since I was a relatively idealistic young man at the outset of my first marriage.

It wasn't long (some might say not soon enough) before I realized that the cost of receiving this overcoat for deceased trout was somewhat greater than the perceived benefits of using their precious coupons. In fact, we only ever received the Sunday edition, and promptly recycled everything but the coupons, which sadly didn't get used quite as frequently as the Times sales staff would have had me believe.

Truth be told, I haven't as an adult read any major paper published anywhere in the United States unless one or more of the following conditions existed:

1. I was in an office waiting room or airport
2. I was bored out of my skull and there was literally nothing else, including Bassin', to read

As an emerging conservative, I quickly formed an opinion that these major papers were far less interested in telling a truthful account of any given newsworthy event than they were in forming (even forcing) public opinion. It wasn't anything I had smarts enough to articulate as a youngster, but I felt it instinctively. I felt it was a mark of the incredible stupidity of any given paper's reporters that I found myself trusting humor columnists to give me a more accurate picture of national stories. Even the ones I disagreed with.

Hence, I find it absolutely anti-climactic to learn that two of the country's largest bird-cage liners, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, find themselves being taken down - consistently - by Michelle Malkin and Patterico, respectively (if not quite respectfully).

Read their analyses. Add my "amen" to their thoughts.

Another year, another quest for published (and verifiable) truth.