The WORD Blog

Murdoch’s So-Called Apology: Was He Snickering, Chortling As It Was Being Drafted?
The text of his apology is below, that is, tacked below the original narrative for this column which was planned as the last post on the controversy.  I assume that by this date that anyone following this cartoon tempest has read or reviewed his statement that has brought this loud New York Moment to a close, and the SOB did it in grand form. I was surprised by the sudden deus ex machina. I assume it caught the Reverend Al Sharpton and the other active participants by surprise, especially the persuasiveness of the comment: The buck stops with me.

Did Time's story say anything about the Post's history of overt racism directed at the black communities of New York?

(more…)

[ Breaking News, February 24, 11:24 p.m.: Several news organizations have reported that Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corporation that owns the New York Post, has issued "an apology." This is a significant moment in a high stakes game of the Politics of Journalism. As well as Race Politics.

The organizers have obviously scored a hit but of what significance? I need time to process.

Selected: URLs: CNN. Rueters. NY Post. ]

(more…)

One of the New York Post’s cherished editorial traditions, denigrating and mocking African Americans, finally earned that publication the ignominy that it most rightfully deserved, though I wish the comeuppance had resulted from an undeniable slander rather than the one seized by the organizers of the demonstration in front of 1211 Avenue of the Americas.

Shortly after Rupert Murdoch bought the Post, its Australian and British and American editors and reporters relished its “news stories” spiting African Americans. I recall one vile tongue-in-cheek about Stepin Fetchit who was dead at the time but none the less was described in a Post article as a gifted African American actor whom the black community should be proud.

This picture of Stepin Fetchit groveling in a typically degenerate manner was not the one used by the Post but matches the essence of that missing picture.

(more…)