Ethics and Freedom

When The New York Times published a story about a secret government program to find terrorists by monitoring financial transactions, conservatives responded as if the paper had given Osama bin Laden the keys to a missile silo. The story, asserted President Bush, "does great harm to the United States of America." Vice President Dick Cheney said the Times and other newspapers "have made the job of...

When President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and several members of Congress recently fired broadsides at The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and, to a degree, The Wall Street Journal for publishing detailed accounts of a somewhat secret counterterrorism program, it was the mightiest political salvo at the press since Maryland's Spiro T. Agnew threatened the big three television networks...

Sometimes lies should be called what they are. "Since publishing a highly controversial story about a secret U.S. program that monitors financial transactions as a tool to fight terrorism, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller... has admitted that the liberal press is not 'neutral' in this war on terror. "Indeed, the track record proves the New York Times and Bill Keller are not 'neutral'...

Mike, if you're still reading the paper, the United States hasn't found the weapons of mass destruction that were the reason the country went to war in Iraq. I would have called and told you the news personally, but you were so angry at The Bee, you hung up before giving me your last name and phone number. The last thing you said was that you were canceling your subscription. Mike was one of...

Let me come forward and speak up for The New York Times. No, I'm not saying I necessarily would have published its story on a program to track terror financing, a story that has put the paper again at the center of a furious storm. But I know from experience that it's almost impossible to put yourself into an editor's shoes, to know all the factors that went into such a decision. Sometimes...

For those who enjoy a summer blockbuster, the dust-up between the Bush Administration and The New York Times has been a real clash of the Titans, a bare-knuckle brawl between the press and the White House. We haven't seen the likes of this since Spiro Agnew labeled the press "nattering nabobs of negativism" back in the Nixon Administration. It's a controversy that defies easy answers or a safe...

There is little doubt that there is a serious problem with the content of the print and broadcast media in India today. Apart from the fact that more and more time and space of the media is devoted to carrying commercial advertisements, much of the remaining content too has become trivial, inane, and debasing, essentially containing violence, sex and gossip meant to titillate and serve the baser...

Last week the U.S. House of Representatives, on a party line vote, passed an innocuous-sounding resolution that "expects the cooperation of all news media organizations in protecting the lives of Americans and the capability of the government to identify, disrupt, and capture terrorists by not disclosing classified intelligence programs such as the Terrorist Financing Tracking Program." The...

Happy Independence Day. In between grilling, lawn mowing and fireworks watching, take a few minutes to secure your right to know what your government is doing, a cornerstone of our freedom. The best way I can think of doing so in today's America is to go out and buy a copy of the New York Times. Or subscribe. But one way or another, pay for it, regularly. Right now, more than any other...

We all know cartoonists can get into big trouble for drawing the Prophet Muhammad, but cartoonists around the world regularly get in big trouble for drawing all kinds of things. One cartoonist in Iran is in prison for drawing a cockroach. Mana Neyestani drew a child talking to a cockroach; in the cartoon, a boy says the word "cockroach" in different ways, and the cockroach replies, "What?" in the...