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Journalism is support to accurately inform, agenda-free. Advocacy shouldn't be tolerated. Taking sides veers far from good reporting. Too often it's featured on Times pages.
Calling Houla "a tipping point" comes dangerously close to advocating war. Blaming Assad for insurgent killings draws it closer.
No publication has more global influence than The Times. Government officials follow its articles, commentaries and editorials. Agendas they advocate affect policies. Promoting war makes it more likely.
The Times strayed far from June 13, 1971. It became the first broadsheet to begin publishing the top secret Pentagon Papers. At the time, publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger said, "What was revealed, had to be revealed....people had the right to know."
In a 1996 article, The Times said:
The Pentagon Papers "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public, but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance."
Did misreporting about nonexistent Iraq WMDs matter less? Were lies about Gaddafi acceptable? Was getting the Afghanistan wrong good journalism?
Are rule of law principles unimportant? Is sanitized news without truth and full disclosure proper on Times' pages? Obvious questions go answered.
Another headline read "Romney Calls for Action on Syria, but His Party Is Divided," saying:
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