Accuracy in Media compares the state-controlled Ukrainian media with the American propaganda organ otherwise known as the New York Times:

On November 26, the Ukrainian state-controlled media suddenly did an historic about-face. Journalists acknowledged they had broadcast propaganda and lies about the election favorable to the government-approved candidate. They apologized and pledged full independence.

Unlike the Ukrainian journalists, The New York Times has not fully apologized, even though it sponsored some of the worst lies about Ukraine ever published. The reporting was done by the Stalinist apologist Walter Duranty, The New York Times’ Moscow correspondent during the 1920s and 1930s. Duranty denied millions of Ukrainians were being killed by the Moscow-instigated Great Famine during the years 1932-33…

The New York Times admitted the reporting was some of the worst to ever appear in its pages. Executive editor Bill Keller told the Washington Post that the 1931 articles were “awful,” “a parroting of propaganda” and “clearly not prize-worthy.” But in a bizarre twist, Keller disagreed with the idea of the prize being revoked. “As someone who spent time in the Soviet Union while it still existed,” he said, “the notion of airbrushing history kind of gives me the creeps.” Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. then warned the Pulitzer Board against using such a “Stalinist practice” by revoking the prize.

We’ve long argued that the Times should return the prize, even if the committee won’t revoke it. Why retain and display the prize after its recipient has been exposed by scholars as an apologist for a genocidal murderer? Keeping the prize is what’s truly “creepy.” The New York Times should learn a lesson from the Ukrainian media. It’s never too late to tell the truth.

comments (0)   trackbacks (7)