The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy

From Publishers Weekly
Although the New York Times is often attacked by conservative critics, this meticulous dissection of its foreign policy reporting comes from two international law experts who have more in common with Noam Chomsky than Rush Limbaugh. Friel (Dogs of War: The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page) and Falk (Unlocking the Middle East) use substantial research to argue that the Times has long "ignor[ed] international law when it applies to US foreign policy" and that the paper has willfully "failed to make a serious effort to expose government deception and misconduct." Presenting insightful chapters on coverage of the 1954 Geneva Accords on Vietnam, the Reagan administration's policy toward Nicaragua, the short-lived coup against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and more, the authors detail how the Times presented official U.S. government policy instead of what the authors would consider a real investigation (and how publication of the Pentagon Papers was the exception to the rule). Regarding more recent incidents, Friel and Falk provocatively argue that the Times's front-page coverage of Iraq's supposed possession of WMDs may have been the result of Iraqi National Congress head Ahmed Chalabi "being paid by the US government to plant stories in the Times." This argument, combined with the other more historical examples, should bring much attention to this skillful work. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Despite its vaunted reputation as the nation's newspaper of record, the New York Times has failed to provide the kind of objective, thoughtful coverage the nation needs, according to journalism critic Friel and journalism professor Falk. The authors are scathing in their criticism of the New York Times in particular and, by extension, the U.S. press in general for failing to provide a more global perspective on the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. Through meticulous research, the authors show how the Times has ignored international law issues and helped to promote the unilateral perspectives of the Bush administration and the American public. They excoriate the "liberal hawks" of the editorial page, who assiduously position themselves between the Left and the Right in an effort to simulate balance. Friel and Falk advocate incorporating the basic standards of international law into American foreign policy and into the editorial policies of leading news organizations. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Read the book The New York Times doesn't want you to see!

Noam Chomsky
[S]hould be read and pondered carefully, and taken as a call for action by concerned citizens.

Vanessa Bush, Booklist, 1 November 2004
The authors are scathing in their criticism of The New York Times.... Meticulous research.

John Guiffo, Village Voice, 1 December 2004
Makes the valuable observation that international law should be the starting point for all editorial examinations of US foreign policy.

Book Description
A scathing and thoroughly researched examination of the editorial practices of the world’s most consulted newspaper. In this meticulously researched study—the first part of a two-volume work—Howard Friel and Richard Falk demonstrate how the newspaper of record in the United States has consistently, over the last 50 years, misreported the facts related to the wars waged by the United States. From Vietnam in the 1960s to Nicaragua in the 1980s and Iraq today, the authors accuse the New York Times of serial distortions. They claim that such coverage now threatens not only world legal order but constitutional democracy in the United States. Falk and Friel show that, despite numerous US threats to invade Iraq, and despite the fact that an invasion of one country by another implicates fundamental aspects of the UN Charter and international law, the New York Times editorial page never mentioned the words “UN Charter” or “international law” in any of its 70 editorials on Iraq from September 11, 2001, to March 20, 2003. The authors also show that the editorial page supported the Bush administration’s WMD claims against Iraq, and that its magazine, op-ed and news pages performed just as poorly. In conclusion the authors suggest an alternative editorial policy of “strict scrutiny” that incorporates the UN Charter and the US Constitution in the Times coverage of the use and threat of force by the United States and the protection of civil and human rights at home and abroad.

About the Author
Howard Friel is founder and president of Differentiated Information, Inc., an information services, and is the author of Dogs of War: The Wall Street Journal and the Right-Wing Campaign Against International Law. Richard Falk is the Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University. His most recent books include Unlocking the Middle East and The Great Terror War.


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If you were one who, during the Vietnam War, said that the true motto of the New York Times should be "All the news that fits," this book is your vindication. Friel (Hegemony of Realist Ideology) and Falk (Unlocking the Middle East) have produced a meticulously researched and damning indictment of biases in the venerable paper's reportage related to U.S. military operations in Iraq and Vietnam and proxy incursions into Venezuela and Nicaragua. As the authors state in their introduction, "It is our judgment that the United States government has repeatedly violated international law with respect to its war-making over the past half-century." For each of these questionable entanglements, the paper has engaged in a "persistent refusal to consider international law arguments opposing recourse to war and [a] disturbing editorial policy" that precluded-and continues to preclude-considering various ramifications of our foreign policy. Despite its depth of research, this book is accessible to general as well as academic readers. Indeed, the current state of affairs expands the importance of the book far beyond the domain of journalists.-Ari Sigal, Catawba Valley Community Coll., Hickory, NC Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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