by Ramin Mazaheri for The Saker Blog
There I was, back on the “Job Creators Red-Eye” from Silicon Valley to New York City, reading The New York Times. I was reading it the way God intended – in an actual newspaper.
But when I logged onto my computer, I noticed The Times has a new feature: they now are writing footnotes to articles, putting them on the right side of the screen in a red font.
This funny interview with the comedian Ricky Gervais featured 11 such “sidenotes”, as I guess they should be called. Here’s an example from that article about comedy: “4 – Trans-exclusionary radical feminist.”
These sidenotes are clearly intended as a way to give the reader extra but broadly important information. I am waiting for the introduction of “sub-sidenotes” – in order to find out what “trans-exclusionary” means.
But what about those of us who read actual, crinkling, wrinkling, staining newspapers? Think of all this great information we are being trans-excluded from?
So, as a service to old-fashioned readers I am including some of these sidenotes we have missed. These are all taken from the March 22, 2019, newspaper.
This was the leed paragraph on the top story, so that’s a good place to start.
President Trump declared on Thursday that the United States should recognize Israel’s authority over the long disputed Golan Heights, delivering a valuable election-eve gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but jettisoning decades of American policy in the Middle East.
Sidenote: The New York Times, like all good American journalists, follows the ‘inverted pyramid style’ of news writing, in which the most important fact comes first, with lesser facts following in order of importance. This is why the impact of this historic decision first deals with Israel and their elections, and strictly US concerns second.
Interesting to see how the sausage is made, no? I guess it’s really “Israel’s paper of record”, then? I’m all for giving Golan Heights to the Israelis – fundamentalist Christianity won’t be proven correct until the Jews retake Israel.
Here’s an interesting sidetone from a below-the-fold front page article. This article focused on the one man who controls many of the dams on the Missouri River. America runs on great-man capitalism, as America should, and so the article does not raise the idea of democratically broadening his unilateral decision-making power over millions. However it does include a single quote from Faith Spotted Eagle, a 70-year-old tribal elder and activist from the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, who even remembers being kicked off her land to make room for a dam many decades ago. To sum up both experiences, she said:
‘It’s all loss, loss, loss,’ she said.
Sidenote – The Times is aware that Americans are tired of hearing Native Americans complain, but The Times is just reporting the facts, and now in an inclusionary manner in keeping with diversity in order to overturn pernicious stereotypes.
They went all that way just to get that one, single quote from her, but that’s the PC liberal media for you. Because Indians in the US are best seen and not heard, The New York Times made sure to include two photos of the old Indian: in the first she is literally hugging a tree – typical pagan Indian behavior. Trees know loss, loss, loss, too – it’s called “autumn”! Move on!
I’m glad The Times quickly left yet another ever-wailing aboriginal behind in order to devote a full section to the plight of the endangered plover. Apparently that’s a bird. Imagine if “Sioux” was also the name of an endangered bird… we’d want more column inches to protect the “Sioux”, but not the “Sioux”? Environmentalism is complicated….
I thought this was in interesting factoid at the end of their Editorial Board’s daily column, which penned their thoughts on the New Zealand mosque massacre: America Deserves a Leader as Good as Jacinda Ardern.
Sidenote – We apologize to our readers who eagerly read this column expecting that it would quickly segue into Trump-bashing. After 854 consecutive columns of arduously reframing every news item into anti-Trump discourse, we decided to try something new. It will not happen again.
I should hope not!
Vote Biden! Like all old Democrats who fear change, young people and ever losing control.
That’s what all us 1%ers said at the most recent Bilderburg Meeting. You certainly can’t trust any of these new, young Democrats. Those whippersnappers need to realize that America has not changed, and that it will not change… not if Biden gets elected. From, Joe Biden Weighing Unique Steps to Reassure Voters Concerned About His Age.
Also under discussion is a possible pledge to serve only one term and framing Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign as a one-time rescue mission for a beleaguered country, according to multiple party officials.
Sidenote: The Times does not believe that a 4-year Biden presidency – which is totally unprecedented – would resemble Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s 4th term in Algeria, nor Ronald Reagan’s 2nd term. Instead, it would most resemble another president who is also not burdened by re-election concerns: Emmanuel Macron, whose ‘rescue mission’ is to save France from Frenchness. Biden is from Delaware, which is unfairly called America’s tax haven. The Times believes that Biden could legalize extreme tax evasion – even more than he already has – in just four years, rendering a second term unnecessary. The Times will be granting excessively positive coverage of the Biden campaign.
Being rich, I don’t have a problem with paying for drugs – I have problem doing too many drugs. My kids too, or so I have been told. Frankly, I think this editorial headline is clickbait-y and impertinent, and Americans should stop being so ungrateful because this is the greatest nation in the history of man. From: Why Should Americans Be Grateful for $137 Insulin? Germans Get It for $55.
Part of insulin’s price rise in the United States is because of the middlemen who buy the drugs on behalf of insurers and hospitals and negotiate discounts off the list price for their clients. So Lilly often doesn’t make the full $275 a vial (though, since rebates are secret, we don’t know how much less).
Sidenote: Middlemen – contrary to universal and historical belief – do not needlessly inflate prices. The fact that these “discounts” are absolutely not passed on the consumer, but are instead swallowed up by their huge markups and profiteering was not a fact our editors deemed worthy to relate. The larger point The Times wants to make is: pharmaceutical companies are not making as very, very, very much as you think, thanks to the precious middlemen who fight so hard for your economic rights – please stop pressuring either of them to lower pharmaceutical prices.
I like to see what the average person is thinking, so I always check the Letters to The Editor page.
Headline: Eating Eggs, Without Fear
A reader says they have been a part of her diet for more than 30 years.
Sidenote: Nobody fears eggs, but we’d like people to start. The Times believes that if Americans are not constantly fearing terrorism, urban violence and the economic catastrophe caused by a dip in the stock market, then they would demand more serious journalism. This would also reduce our profit margins. But, due to the journalism practice of fair balance, we have printed this letter from a reader who claims to have resented our egg-mongering campaign. This campaign will continue, and we are tracking this reader closely to broadcast her looming egg-related demise following three decades of societally irresponsible egg-abuse.
At this point in my paper I held my nose and went back to the coach section to talk to my colleague, Fazlollah. This guy is one of those new types of immigrants who won’t change his name and assimilate properly. Not only is he never going to get ahead in America with a scary name like that, but he deserves his lowly status for making people in First Class feel foolish about being unwilling to learn how to pronounce his name halfway properly.
“Have you seen these new side note-things Lefty?” I call him that because it’s easier that Foozlollillah.
“Yes, I have,” he said. “Makes the newspaper seem more academic. Like how new political books are seemingly 1/3rd footnotes nowadays. This seems like daily hack journalists trying to smarten up their appearance, and with information which wasn’t even considered useful enough to be in the actual article. This attempted smartening seems rather in keeping with the push towards ‘rule by technocrats’ in the West… but journalists aren’t supposed to be technocrats.”
I immediately regretted talking to Lefty, because I didn’t realize that my pills hadn’t kicked in yet.
“Lefty, they’re just sidenotes. Why don’t you take it easy for a change?”
I went back to my paper.
The Times doesn’t mind if celebrities get involved in certain causes – gay rights, the endangered plover, propping up the Democratic Party – but they quite correctly draw the line at any sort of economic cause. From a story which concerns applying New York’s minimum wage to tipped workers, which would make waitresses less vulnerable to sexual harassment, titled,Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler and Other Stars Stand Up for Waitresses. The Response: No, Thanks.
But it has also created an unexpected divide: Waitresses and other servers are resisting the proposal, saying they can make more money from tips and do not need celebrities to help protect them from harassment. Harassment is a real concern, they say, but so is the need to earn a living.
Sidenote: The Times found many waitresses whose need to make a living is so dire that they will let you goose their behind if it guarantees a tip increase of at least 5%, but that is as far as many were willing to go, stating that they were waitresses and not prostitutes. The Times believes this is yet another case of workers being too demanding of bosses. It is the considered opinion of the Editorial Board that unequal wages and sexual harassment is not a problem for women in the low-wage restaurant industry. However, we encourage the reader to keep following our relentless and progressive coverage of the fight against unequal wages and sexual harassment for women in Hollywood’s elite.
The last thing our 1% deserves, when we are relaxing from creating jobs with a fine meal, is to deal with waitresses who won’t kiss our behinds for tip money, nor let us goose their behinds. What is this, Iran?! Giving waitresses economic security would turn them into rude French waiters, who have greater economic security than their American counterparts, and this is why Macron needs to hurry up and finish turning France into the US, UK and Germany before he gets lynched by the Yellow Vests.
These new sidenotes seem like a good thing, but maybe The New York Times is revealing a bit too much? Who knew they were pro-goosing?
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.
This is probably the funniest thing, I have read, written by Ramin Mazaheri. Unfortunately we now live in a world, where old people like me, who used to believe most of what was written in the press, and the news we saw on TV, was mostly true. Now that we know that an enormous amount of this news, not only is simply not true, it is now becoming extremely dangerous, especially to intelligent young people. They know something is very very wrong, and yet do not know how to escape it. It is so sad, that so many young people are taking the final solution, because they cannot take it any more. They still think the press, the tv, and the internet are telling them the truth, whilst I know, the most successful of you in terms of monetary reward, and this includes the vast majority of politicians, are a bunch of treasonous outright liars. Almost none of them are doing anything good for the future of the human race. Some are at best stupid. Many are just plain evil.
Your time is nearly up, because a massively increasing number of people, know that most of you are a bunch of corrupt liars. You had better start trying to tell the truth, even if it may get you fired.
Nearly 20 years ago, a very wise, and nice man, of the highest moral virtues, told me, that there is going to be a RECKONING
He is religious. I am not, but I do agree with him.
My best advice to young people, is to turn you lot off, work hard at what needs doing, developing your own skills, and don’t become a victim.
“No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”
Tony
Now I wanna read a 500 page book with this character and fazlollah driving him crazy.
Ramin, to your “Yes, I have,” he said. “Makes the newspaper seem more academic. Like how new political books are seemingly 1/3rd footnotes nowadays.”
I say: I like your friend, who I guess has technical background? He went straight to the essence of the subject. The only thing he missed was that those “sidenotes” have one purpose intended: “to give the reader the impression of objectivity”.
On the other hand, when I was doing my engineering studies, one of our profs, who happened to be a faculty dean stressed one point “you need to protect your “a$$” by referencing other established sources and government norms first of all.
Excellent article, though
Well, documentation is important in a serious work of nonfiction.
I say that as a professional nonfiction editor.
You can’t just go around making allegations—in either a newspaper or a book.
However, a nonfiction book is a work of scholarship that takes months or, more likely, years to write and will be in print for years or decades more. It will become part of a chain of scholarship referred to by others working in the same field. Notes provide not only document quoted material and sources but also provide an opportunity for a writer to provide more information about a particular side issue or interseting details, etc., than can be accommodated elegantly in his or her main text and argument.
A newspaper is a completely different kettle of fish.
It comes out on a daily or weekly basis and then is immediately superseded by another edition.
That is why solid journalistic standards to ensure reliability and veracity and sticking to what can be sourced and proven are so important.
The daily nature of news and newspapers is the reason that these standards are important.
You can’t just say that, for example, someone said that X occurred. Those are rumors, not news. You have to directly quote a person and give his/her name.
You must provide the who/what/when/where/why, and if you don’t have these you have to be very careful to report something as actual news and not rumor or fantasty. Much of the Russiagate stuff was not news but was fantasy.
Adding notes to a newspaper story adds nothing to the actual credibility of a story.
The five W’s are supposed to be IN THE STORY.
FNs are an affectation that distracts readers from the line of argument of the story and takes in the credulous who don’t understand that they are being dumbed down by this distracting affectation, not wised up.
Hopefully readers will wise up about this, but I am not, actually, optimistic about this . . .
Katherine
Hahaha.
Great read!
Make Ramin’s Annotation of the Times a regular feature!
Reminds me of Mad mag’s sendup of mainstream “outlets” in the very good and very old days of Mad mag.
I still remember laughing my head off at their takedown of Time mag and their review of a movie whose title they shortened to “And.” (shortening titles in a way that was treated as cool but actually was a ridiculous affectation was a typical Time trope)
Anyhow, keep up the good and funny work. And also the serious work.
Katherine
“..unequal wages and sexual harassment is not a problem for women in the low-wage restaurant industry. However, we encourage the reader to keep following our relentless and progressive coverage of the fight against unequal wages and sexual harassment for women in Hollywood’s elite”
Thank you for calling out the hypocrisy of the Me Too movement!
in 2017, the top 10 highest earning Hollywood actresses had a combined yearly income of $175M while the top 10 actors received $488M…So Nathalie Portman offered this pearl of wisdom: “in most professions, women make 80 cents to the dollar, while in Hollywood, we are making 30 cents to the dollar.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/11/heres-how-much-more-actors-earn-than-actresses.html.
Poor dear. Perhaps she would rather work in an industry where the men are earning $10/h so she can earn $8/h.
“Thank you for calling out the hypocrisy of the Me Too movement! ”
I agree that there is something out of whack here.
At the same time I guess it is normal and at least honest to fight for one’s *own* rights and on one’s own territory.
What annoys me more about the stars’ complaints is that by definition do trade on their bodies to get to the top. I mean, that is the name of the game. Their profession is dependent on our looking at t hem. Because the entertainment industry is part of the skin trade: a high-style and high-glam and high-talent part of of it, but still. There are many who are extremely talented but don’t make it because they look wrong. Duck’s disease (short legs). Bad figures. Etc. Many others have to kowtow to various powerful people in various ways to fight their way up the ladder. Part of the “success” act is to make it look sort of effortless. One of the most pathetic spectacles is to see starlets or whatever whom I have never heard of posing and pouting and shoving their pelvises toward the camera in well-dressed lewdness on various “red carpets” (yeah, I like to look at the dresses—I’m kinda normal that way). Most of them are forgettable and will be forgotten. Meanwhile they act like cheap trash to attract . . . maybe a big producer’s eye???
To get these rewards you must be prepared to risk a lot and not whinge about it if you are one of the lucky ones who “makes it.” That is kind of bad taste, IMHO. Of course it doesn’t work for most of them who try. If the whinging stars chose a different profession, or gave up their star status to work for the rights of waitresses and others it might make more sense and be more consistent. I mean, I don’t know that I would really want to rub shoulders with Meryl Streep while working in the soup kitchen. Her job is, basically, to be looked at, watched as she acts. But if she really decided to change careers—give something up—to help and champion others, OK . .
But what “rights” is she fighting for? An actor’s salary is usually linked to his/her box office draw. Since it appears there is a bigger audience for male action movies, male actors are consequently better paid. The fashion industry is the opposite, women models are better paid because women’s fashion and cosmetics industry is bigger than men’s.
It’s different in the goods and services industry as the pay only should depend on the quality of the goods& services being provided, not with the person doing the job. This is where it makes sense to fight for equal pay.
As for the “Me too” movement, I believe it is very different when a woman gets unwanted sexual attention from a co-worker or a client, while she is in the process executing her job, then when a starlet agrees to prostitute herself to a movie mogul in return for a role…
“As for the “Me too” movement, I believe it is very different when a woman gets unwanted sexual attention from a co-worker or a client, while she is in the process executing her job, then when a starlet agrees to prostitute herself to a movie mogul in return for a role…”
Of course I totally agree, and my commentn about something “out whack here” is that even though I don’t think anyh woman should have to put up with being pinched and groped in order to get a job, any job, in the “skin trades” that is part of the known picture, and the financial rewards for the “winners” are p hennomenal.
Not sure whether this is a side issue or not.
But the spectacle of the rich and successful complaining and acting like victims is always off-putting, regardless of what they are complaining about. Another variant on ‘poor little rich girl.”
The issue of sexual harassment on the job and elsewhere is real. But the #MeToo thing seems to have have an unspoken agenda of “getting Trump” by tarring him with Harvey Weinstein.
But when it comes to putting up with bad behavior in order to get ahead, nothing beats Hillary Clinton, who accepted public humiliation to stay in the political game alongside him and ride on his coattails. Truly an awful couple. It might really have been better if Clinton had been impeached and Gore had become president then. Although the Lewinsky thing probably was not an impeachable offense, any more than Trump’s peccadillos.
Katherine
You’re so much fun to read man! Big up!