Tragedy, Unreported

Often, when someone makes a significant statement, we want to know: “Where did you hear that?” “Who said that?” We want to know if the source is reputable and the information trustworthy.

The New York Times, sometimes called America’s “newspaper of record,” seems to hold such a reputation. Whether this is deserved is another question, because the Times has been guilty of egregiously false and misleading reporting --- and non-reporting --- which has influenced disastrous foreign policy decisions that have hurt people around the world.

For example, many Americans know that the Nazis killed around 6 million Jews during World War II. But how many Americans know about the number of Ukrainians deliberately starved to death in the 1930’s due to the policies of Joseph Stalin and his Communist comrades? New York Times reporter Walter Duranty knew about this starvation, and even privately estimated the number of dead at 10 million, but wrote in 1933: “Any report of a famine… is… an exaggeration or malignant propaganda. There is no actual starvation…” Reporters Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about the massive scale and horrors of the famine, but they were not believed because Duranty, after all, wrote for the Times. Duranty’s reporting influenced President Roosevelt, who in 1933 formally recognized Stalin’s government. In 2003, the United Nations adopted a joint statement, signed by twenty-five countries, including Russia, stating: “The Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine… took from seven million to ten million innocent lives…”

In 1957, before Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries took over Cuba in 1959, New York Times reporter Herbert Matthews met with Castro and wrote: “He has strong ideas of liberty, democracy, social justice, the need to restore the Constitution, to hold elections… [His] program… amounts to a new deal for Cuba, radical, democratic, and therefore anti-Communist.” Relying on this information, the U.S. government declined to help those forces opposing Castro. In 1961, the unelected dictator Castro said “I am a Marxist-Leninist and shall be until the end of my life.” This past year, Cubans who requested permission to publicly protest in favor of democracy were denied permission by Castro’s most recent successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said “A demonstration ceases to be peaceful as soon as people aim to… confront socialism.” (See “In Cuba, Protest Amid Threat of Prison, Exile” Wall Street Journal Nov. 9, 2021, page A9)

During the war in Vietnam, New York Times reporter David Halberstam, an opponent of the war, reported on events that portrayed the U.S. and the South Vietnamese government as the bad guys, while not reporting news unfavorable to the Communists. At least this was the opinion of Newsday reporter Marguerite Higgins, who accused him of sitting in Saigon reporting “news” that was fed to him by Communists instead of looking for news in the villages in the countryside. There, Halberstam might have heard about a Communist soldier nicknamed “Apache,” who upon capturing a U.S Marine would cut off his eyelids, gouge out his fingernails, castrate him and let him bleed to death. We didn’t hear about incidents like this. Instead, Halberstam harshly criticized South Vietnam’s president Ngo Dinh Diem, who was quite successfully fighting the Communist forces. He rejoiced when Diem was assassinated with the help of the Kennedy administration. Lyndon Johnson didn’t share his joy. He said: “…we killed him. We all got together and got a g--d--- bunch of thugs and assassinated him. Now, we've really had no political stability [in South Vietnam] since then." Communist leader Ho Chi Minh was shocked, and said, “I can scarcely believe the Americans could be so stupid.”

The most recent foray of the Times into misleading journalism is the 1619 Project, which portrays the United States as “systemically racist” since our founding. We are led to believe that racism is the most important issue of our day.

This reporting is also false. The most important issue in our country is the legalized killing of unborn people. It is the untold story, the suppressed story. If it was important to the Times, there would be pictures; it would be reported on day after day, with a daily body count. Instead, little known reporters from around the country are telling the truth, but like Gareth Jones and Muggeridge, they don’t work for the Times, or other supposedly reputable news outlets, and their work is attacked as “disinformation.” Your station is providing a venue in which these stories can come to light, the voices of these defenseless unborn people heard, and the heartbreaking remorse of many post-abortive women, known.

Please support your station through your prayers, by telling others, by offering to put our program guides in your parish’s information rack, by offering to volunteer, and through a financial contribution if possible.

Viva Christo Rey!