Even the New York Times' own consultant admits the leftist newspaper should be stripped of a Pulitzer Prize it was handed for publishing propaganda for genocidal Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Pressured by Ukrainian-Americans and others appalled by Stalin's deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933, among other atrocities, the paper asked Columbia University history professor Mark von Hagen to examine the coverage of its left-wing stooge Walter Duranty.
'Liberal Values'
Von Hagen noted that Duranty's dispatches were "dull and largely uncritical recitation of Soviet sources."
"That lack of balance and uncritical acceptance of the Soviet self-justification for its cruel and wasteful regime was a disservice to the American readers of The New York Times and the liberal values they subscribe to and to the historical experience of the peoples of the Russian and Soviet empires and their struggle for a better life," the prof wrote.
Executive editor Bill Keller made this curious and syntactically challenged statement:
"It's absolutely true that the work Duranty did, at least as much of it as I've read, was credulous, uncritical parroting of propaganda.
Yet, "As someone who spent time in the Soviet Union while it still existed, the notion of airbrushing history kind of gives me the creeps."
Oh, for once the Times objects to the "airbrushing of history." Considering the paper's support of the attempt to starve Terri Schiavo to death, we're surprised it doesn't refer to the Soviet massacre as just another so-called "right to die" case.
Editor's note:
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