publius+forum Warner+Todd+Huston Media+Bias New+York+Ti

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

So, What Should we Call The Media, Anyway?

July 22, 2008 by 8 Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

Many of us have taken to calling the media establishment the “MSM,” or “Mainstream Media.” But is that a fair and properly descriptive monicker to bestow upon them? A New York Times Blogger pondered that very question on July 21 in a “The Caucus” blog entry — one that was a barely disguised effort to highlight and advertise the opinion of one Markos Moulitsas of the DailyKos.

Still, regardless of the origin of the question, it is an interesting point to ponder. With the failing of newspapers country wide, with the ever falling audience that the big three TV networks are seeing for their news product, and with the corresponding rise of the Internet as a news source, is the old media still properly to be called “mainstream”? Does it still represent the most common way that America gets its news, thereby deserving of the term “mainstream”?

Continue reading “So, What Should we Call The Media, Anyway?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Islam - Islamofascism - Israel - Media Bias - News - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

News Blackout – New York Times Ignores Momentous Pro-Jewish Court Case Win in France

July 14, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

French media loses big court case proving Palestinian propaganda false, New York Times ignores shocking story… Why?

France TV 2 has lost a major court case in France that makes the lie to a major piece of Palestinian propaganda. In 2000 an incident occurred in the Palestinian areas that has since been used as propaganda for the Palestinian cause all across the world and the New York Times has repeatedly been a willing host for this propaganda. Now, however, it has been proven that France 2 perpetrated a lie that has given succor to terrorism. And where is the New York Times with this momentous news that proves Israeli innocence? Nowhere to be seen.

In 2000 the Palestinians began what they called the second intifada against Israel, a kick in the teeth to the Israelis seeking only peace. During the early stages of this attack France 2 TV, a state run television station, aired what it claimed was a video of a child and his father being shot and killed by Israeli security forces.

Palestinian sources claimed that what France 2 TV showed the French public and the world was the death of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura and his father, killed by Israeli security forces. The shock of this small boy being mercilessly shot down by Jews drew condemnation like a lightening rod. Supporters of Palestine the world over were outraged, posters appeared, protests were whipped up, postage stamps with the image of this child’s supposed last minutes on Earth were even created in Egypt and Tunisia. The “death” of Muhammad al-Dura rallied support to Palestinians against the Jews. And for the last 8 years the New York Times has been right there with the “news” pushing the story for all its worth.

Continue reading “News Blackout – New York Times Ignores Momentous Pro-Jewish Court Case Win in France”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Health - Media Bias - Morals/Sex - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Media Get it Wrong: 1 in 4 Teens do NOT Have STDs

June 9, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Could science and statistics be beyond the media’s ability to understand and report upon them? One might be excused to think so by the hash the MSM made of the supposed claim that in the U.S. one in four teenaged girls have a sexually transmitted disease. On March 11, the CDC issued a press release announcing a study that made the claim, but did not release the full study so that anyone interested might see the whole story. Regardless of the further facts that serves to sharply decreases that one in four number, the media rushed to sensationalize the shocking claim that 25 percent of our young girls have STDs.

Making it political, The New York Times rushed the story to their front page in order to attack the Bush Administration’s so-called “abstinence-only programs” with a slam by the president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards. The Times quotes Richards as saying, “The national policy of promoting abstinence-only programs is a $1.5 billion failure and teenage girls are paying the real price.” But, unfortunately for this claim, lower rates of sexual activity has, indeed, brought down the number of STDs in the U.S. So, contrary to the breathless exclamations by Planned Parenthood and The New York Times, abstinence-only programs cannot be fingered as a negative in disease rates.

But the Times wasn’t the only one. Just about every major newssource on TV and print media went on a feeding frenzy with the “one in four” claim. Only, further review of the CDC’s report seems to show that the “one in four” claim is not really the case.

Continue reading “Media Get it Wrong: 1 in 4 Teens do NOT Have STDs”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - Military - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Memorial Day… A Great Time For Stories About How Bad Our Troops Are

May 27, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

On the weekend when America finds her citizens taking just a little time out of their cluttered and busy lives to pause and memorialize the sacrifice of those who have served and protected us all, the media always sees fit to make their observance of Memorial Day the issuance of stories about how bad our solders are, how bad they have it, or how bad they deserve to be treated. This year is no different, at least for the New York Times News Service, as we find a story about how a soldier was caught stealing money from a stash of U.S. cash found in one of Saddam Hussein’s captured palaces and how this theft ruined the soldier’s life.

This report has it all as far as the news media are concerned. It has a soldier that turned bad. It has the presumed injustice of the military and the war. It also has the excuse making where that soldier turned thief was somehow driven to his thievery because he came from a poor Kentucky town. It also has the “benefit” of being a tale used to denigrate our military on Memorial Day. In the warped estimation of the MSM it has every aspect of how bad it is for our military all rolled up in one. Yes, this is the perfect story as far as the MSM are concerned.

The whole admittedly messy and sad story revolves around the bad choices made by Pvt. Earl Coffey who served in Baghdad in April of 2003. The Army sniper was one of the first men to enter one of the many palaces owned by the Hussein family, in this case the palace of son Uday. There Coffey and a fellow soldier found a safe with a large amount of U.S. dollars in it, from which according to Coffey they took some $500,000.

Continue reading “Memorial Day… A Great Time For Stories About How Bad Our Troops Are”

00Publius Contributor - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Technology - Warner Todd Huston

Is Hard Work An ‘Asian Value,’ No Longer America’s? Hardly!

May 5, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

I always find it amazing when writers in the mainstream press seem to have so little knowledge of America and its history. Of course, I suppose that being blissfully ignorant of US history does help paper over their betrayal, substituting the feeling that they can maintain allegiance to American “ideals” as they attempt to advocate for the sort of socialist/communist vision that they want America to become, quite despite its true character and principles. Heck, if you don’t know you are betraying your own country, you can’t be ashamed of yourself for it, right? In any case, here we have another prime example of such a betrayal by The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman from his May 4 piece where he has decided that America is finished, done, kaput. And guess what? It’s all George W. Bush’s fault — shocking, I know.

Freidman imagines that he has found the pulse of the people and he has found that they are aching for nation building. Not nation building in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in the USA. He says we have little to show for our efforts in Iraq, that “we’re just not that strong anymore.” He also claims that we have no “leverage” in Iran.

Heck, he should know. After all he and his paper have been attempting to foster these very situations for 8 years. If what Friedman is saying is true, then he and his anti-American paper deserve hearty congratulations for their success at nation destroying — ours.

Continue reading “Is Hard Work An ‘Asian Value,’ No Longer America’s? Hardly!”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Education - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

New York Times Attacking Textbook Makers, Veiled Attack on Capitalism

April 29, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

College textbooks are overpriced and something should be done. Why, Congress should even step in! That is the message that The New York Times wants us to understand and I can’t say it is, in and of itself, entirely the wrong message — save the whole bit about Congress stepping in, of course. But, as is typical of The New York Times, their story is only a small part of the whole story. In their exuberance to shake a finger at book manufacturers and in their hurry to blame capitalism the Times missed the bigger story.

The Times reports that “College students and their families are rightly outraged about the bankrupting costs of textbooks that have nearly tripled since the 1980s.” They also report that a bill is pending in Congress that would “require publishers to sell ‘unbundled’ versions of the books…” This, the Times feels, is the right move to solve the problem. Any first year economics student, however, knows there is far more to it than just slapping more regulations on book publishers.

Still, the Times thinks it has the prescription for what ails our students.

“The bill is a good first step. But colleges and universities will need to embrace new methods of textbook development and distribution if they want to rein in runaway costs. That means using digital textbooks, which can often be presented online free of charge or in hard copies for as little as one-fifth the cost of traditional books. The digital books can also be easily customized and updated.”

The Times gravely assures us that, “Right now, textbook publishers are calling the tune.” Naturally, The NYT acts as if these evil capitalist textbook companies are abusing their status as official providers of books merely to rip-off our students. But the Times doesn’t bother to fill the reader in on the full story. The greater story is far more disgusting than just that of a textbook company taking advantage of our students.

Continue reading “New York Times Attacking Textbook Makers, Veiled Attack on Capitalism”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

NYT’s Failure to Understand Our Times Now Complete

April 20, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

To the New York Times there is only one issue in America: the war.

To show how pathetic The New York Times and John Broder are at analyzing the current political climate, all one has to do is read “Gore-Lieberman: A Hyphen Apart? Try Poles.” Here the Times clearly reveals that they see but two types of American politician: the good guys against the war, and the evil ones for it. That’s it. To the Times there is no other issue, no other divide, no other substantive thought, no other thing that separates our leaders one from the other. There is only the war and nothing else.

In this empty piece, the Times posits that should Al Gore had won in 2000 instead of George W. Bush, the second Gore administration would have seen a dump Lieberman movement that would have resulted in a different Gore vice-president in 2006.

Imagine for a moment the Supreme Court had gone the other way in Bush v. Gore in 2000. We would now be in year eight of the Gore-Lieberman administration. Well, maybe not the Lieberman part.

The reason the Times posits for this is because Gore and Lieberman have “staked out diametrically opposite positions on the Iraq war.”

Not only have Mr. Gore and Mr. Lieberman staked out diametrically opposite positions on the Iraq war, Mr. Gore went so far as to endorse one of Mr. Lieberman’s presidential rivals in 2004, Howard Dean, largely because of his opposition to the invasion. Mr. Lieberman is campaigning for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.

As Mr. Gore steadily migrated leftward from his roots as a hawkish, centrist New Democrat, Mr. Lieberman lurched to the right, so much so that he now makes common cause with Republicans, at least on the war.

Not only is this analysis about an inch deep, it doesn’t even rise to the rest of the old saying of being a mile wide for it’s an inch deep AND an inch wide.

Continue reading “NYT’s Failure to Understand Our Times Now Complete”

00Publius Contributor - Budget - Congress - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - GOP - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Taxes - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

Let’s Fool Taxpayers And Hide Taxes Behind A New Name: ‘Dues’

April 16, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, it was just April 15th and we all know what that means. It was tax day, the day when we must pay tribute to the Lords in Washington. And on that day, The New York Times published a new spendaholic, high taxing idea to fool America’s taxpayers into accepting more tax by pretending it is something else. Stuffed with bad historic interpretation, Republican slamming, and typical old style Stalinist rhetorical games-playing this editorial by Richard Conniff whimsically dreams the dreamy, dream that we aren’t taxed enough and how we might fool Americans into paying more by just using a different name for them. To whit they aren’t to be called taxes anymore. They’re to be called “dues.”

Conniff begins his uninformed rant against people who stand against high taxes by implying that we are even unpatriotic if we don’t support confiscatory taxation and that our politicians are just too weak spinned to properly lead us to higher taxes despite public opinion.

The word “tax” was never pretty. But it has lately become the ugliest word in the English language, right up there with its evil twin, “death.” Even in time of war, ostensibly patriotic politicians blithely pledge to slay any tax that rears its ghastly head. Public officials dodge work they know desperately needs doing because of the possibility that it may cause an increase in taxes.

Conniff’s is a rather uninformed view of how the concept of taxes has been treated by politicians throughout American history, sadly. He says that taxes have “lately” become an “ugly word,” yet that is not the truth at all. Taxes have been a hot button issue since before the day Bostonians threw the tea in the harbor, so the claim that only “lately” have they become something politicians wish to avoid is simply misinformed.

And, even more ridiculously, Conniff imagines that the only way things get done is by more taxes. He completely rejects out of hand with his editorial the concept that wasteful spending be cut and ways of making the budget more efficient be investigated because he wastes not a word on the subject.

Then Conniff gets into the Republican bashing.
Continue reading “Let’s Fool Taxpayers And Hide Taxes Behind A New Name: ‘Dues’”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Warner Todd Huston

Turmoil: The New York Times Facing Internal Take Over Bid?

March 2, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like Pinch Sulzberger is facing some stiff carping from the NYT’s shareholders and there are rumors of the dynastic family being pushed to move the paper’s Internet migration at a faster pace. The Telegraph reports “outside investors” are also trying to loosen the iron grip the long time owners have had on the Gray Lady. The feelings of these outsiders is that the Times will fail if it doesn’t realize that the times they are a changin’.

The Sulzberger-Ochs family has controlled what is arguably America’s most influential newspaper since 1896. Next month outside investors will try to make the family loosen its grip. It is shaping up to be a spectacular battle.

Of course the reason is that the NYT is lagging too far behind in their attention to the Internet. Some of you may recall the abject failure the paper’s premium content program was, this being an example of its failed Internet ideas. As the Telegraph reports: “Dissident shareholders and other critics say Sulzberger is moving too slowly into the digital age and putting one of the world’s great news brands in jeopardy.”

The Telegraph also reports that one former NYT executive said, “The prevailing philosophy of the place is that we are the Times and as long as we carry on doing what we do, the money will come.” This arrogant, short-sighted assumption held by the NYT rings a death knell if there ever was one.

Continue reading “Turmoil: The New York Times Facing Internal Take Over Bid?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Iran DIDN’T Completely ‘Halt’ Nuke Program After All! Where’s the NYTimes’ Apology?

February 13, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember how the New York Times went apoplectic over last December’s NIE estimate that brashly claimed that Iran had suspended their intent to manufacture nuclear arms? It was a front pager and formed the basis of claims that we had illegitimately targeted Iran for rhetorical attacks by many people who opposed the Bush Administration’s entire foreign policy regime. Well, as the New York Sun said on the 7th, “what a difference two months make.” It appears that the original NIE report was too hasty in its claims that Iran was innocent as the driven snow. So, here’s the question: Will the NYT gives us a front page story apologizing for their alarmism?

Yeah. I didn’t think so.

On December 3rd, the NYT led its front page, “News Analysis” article with this startling statement:

Rarely, if ever, has a single intelligence report so completely, so suddenly, and so surprisingly altered a foreign policy debate here.

And in their followup report, the first paragraph read as follows:

A new assessment by American intelligence agencies released Monday concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains frozen, contradicting a judgment two years ago that Tehran was working relentlessly toward building a nuclear bomb.

Well, that all sounds as if the Bush Administration badly bungled the claims that Iran was trying to get the bomb, doesn’t it?

But, we are now two months in the future from those breathless reports and it seems as if the initial NIE report that the New York Times was so exercised over turns out not to be so sanguine of Iran’s eschewing of its nuclear ambitions.

The New York Sun reported on the 7th that maybe “Iran halted its nuclear weapons program” is a claim that is a bit over blown.

Continue reading “Iran DIDN’T Completely ‘Halt’ Nuke Program After All! Where’s the NYTimes’ Apology?”

00Publius Contributor - Business - Democrats/Leftists - Economy/Finances - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - News - Patriotism - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - UN - Warner Todd Huston

Celebrating America’s Decline, ‘Waving Goodbye’ To The U.S.A.

January 31, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Through the pessimistically, penumbrous pen of Parag Khanna, the New York Times has declared that the U.S.A. is finished. Yes, we have lost our “global hegemony” and we will find that by 2016, “America’s standing in the world remains in steady decline.” Boy, it looks bad the for the good ‘ol U.S. of A., as far as the Times is concerned. My guess is that the news of our demise is being greatly exaggerated.

So, who is this Parag Khanna to whom the Times has given all this space? Well, he’s a “senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation” and guess who this organization is linked with? You guessed it: George Soros. Jonathan Soros, son of George Soros is one of those listed on the “Leadership council.” In fact, the larger portion of the Board members and other associates are journalists and left leaning activists. With a few token and so-called right leaning folks — like Francis Fukuyama and Christine Todd Whitman, neither of whom are conservatives — the Board of directors also sports such well-known names as the leftie Google king Eric Schmidt and Bernard L. Schwartz, the man responsible for transferring restricted technology to China during Clinton’s lamentable years in office.

No wonder Khanna thinks the U.S.A. is finished, look who he hangs out with!

Continue reading “Celebrating America’s Decline, ‘Waving Goodbye’ To The U.S.A.”

00Publius Contributor - Crime - Democrats/Leftists - Education - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Taxes - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

NYT: AZ Prop 300 ‘Frightening’ Away Illegal Alien Students

January 27, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The New York Times wants you to know that legislators in Arizona are mean to illegal immigrants trying to go to the state’s schools on the cheap. The Times wants you to imagine that Arizona’s new anti-illegal laws are oppressing those poor, illegal immigrant students that come into Arizona expecting to get all sorts of loans and financial breaks just because… well, just because they happen to draw a breath. The Times wants us all to tsk tsk the state of Arizona because it had the guts to finally do something about the billions of dollars lost to this flood of criminal aliens. Somehow, I don’t feel so bad, though.

With the sensational headline, “Arizona Law Takes a Toll on Nonresident Students,” the Times gives us the tale of woe of students that want to steal from Arizona’s educational system. They begin their tale with the experience of Marco Carrillo who was asked by his college counselor if he was a legal resident or not. The Times acts as if even asking this question is somehow mean-spirited or shocking.

“The very first question she asked me was whether I was a legal resident here,” said Mr. Carrillo, 20, now an electrical engineering student at Arizona State University in Tempe. “And I said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ And she said, ‘Oh good, that makes things easier.”

But, see, Mr. Carrillo IS a resident. So, what is the problem here? The problem, as the NYT sees it, apparently is that it is unseemly even to ask. But, Arizona’s new Proposition 300 requires the new focus on citizenship and the NYT is appalled by such a thing,

Such questions have become commonplace in Arizona, where voters passed a 2006 referendum, Proposition 300, that forbids college students who cannot prove they are legal residents from receiving state financial assistance.

To any real American, this seems like a sensible and good rule. If you aren’t a legal resident, why the heck should you get all sort of financial breaks to go to school in Arizona? But, the NYT seems to want to warn us about how eeevil this law is.

Continue reading “NYT: AZ Prop 300 ‘Frightening’ Away Illegal Alien Students”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - Military - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Our Veterans are a Bunch of Murderers on a ‘Downward Spiral’?

January 14, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a long report published on Sunday the New York Times appears to be trying to promulgate the idea that our returning military vets cannot successfully reintegrate back into their communities and into “normal lives” after returning from the stress of active duty overseas. The Times seems to be saying that our veterans have become murderers and are so mentally wracked that coming home is difficult for them. Their entire report is written as if the rate of murders committed by returning veterans is shockingly high. But, a look at real statistics proves that vets are less likely to become murderers than the general population. The Times does a great job smearing our veterans as nutjobs, but does not do such a great job giving a balanced view of the real statistics.

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

This 9 page (on the web) report gives us case after case and lots of generalities, such as…

“Everything is multicausational, of course,” Dr. Lifton continued. “But combat, especially in a counterinsurgency war, is such a powerful experience that to discount it would be artificial.”

An obvious statement, but not a conclusive one by any means. This piece is filled with these sorts of comments alongside the specific stories of returning vets who did have breakdowns that led to murder. But the Times wants to make it seem as if our vets are universally a troubled lot.

But these killings provide a kind of echo sounding for the profound depths to which some veterans have fallen, whether at the bottom of a downward spiral or in a sudden burst of violence.

It is absolutely true that our current vets won’t be different than past soldiers returning home. Some will not be able to get past their service, many more will be bothered by it but otherwise will be able to reintegrate back into society quite well, and still others will have no problems at all.

But, why did the Times focus on this aspect of vets turning into murderers back home? Was their motive merely to alert returning vets that they should feel no shame in getting help? If so, why go for such an over-the-top subject matter to do so? Or was their motive solely one of exploitation?

Continue reading “Our Veterans are a Bunch of Murderers on a ‘Downward Spiral’?”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

NYTimes Raises Obama Assassination Fears

January 8, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

I think we are finding our newest MSM mantra about how evil Americans in general are and Republicans in particular are. Mark this as an example of that with the fear that Barack Huessein Obama will get assassinated. This time the New York Times is raising the specter on their The Caucus blog in a report by Sarah Wheaton.

Today, in Dover, Francine Torge, a former John Edwards supporter, said this while introducing Mrs. Clinton: “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually” passed the civil rights legislation.

The comment, an apparent reference to Senator Barack Obama, is particularly striking given documented fears among blacks that Mr. Obama will be assassinated if elected.

This is an obvious attempt to pump up Obama by an MSM who is starting to feel that their choice, Hillary, is wounded. I think the MSM is trying to switch candidates by raising Obama up to mythic status. These faux assassination fears are built on equating Obama with Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. — but more often Kennedy. This sort of thing elevates Obama to the hero status that the left heaps upon Bobbie as well as serving to fan the all-Americans-are-racists talking point that the left is so in love with.

Keep an eye out for this MSM meme. I have seen it several times of late, so it is spreading throughout the MSM for sure. (see my previous report on a Huffington Post Obama assassination story.)

Continue reading “NYTimes Raises Obama Assassination Fears”

00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

The Man of the Year Award: Insult or Accolade?

January 7, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

What is it that you first think of when someone tells you that a celebrity or famous person has been named the man of the year? That first thing you think of is that the celebrated person had done something great to be named the man of the year, is it not? And isn’t it the general expectation that the “great” thing equates to a great and
good thing? After all, why celebrate someone who did something bad as a man of the year?

Good question and one we should ask Time Magazine for Time seems not to grasp that celebrating the good is, well, a good idea.

The man of the year for 2008 is Vladimr Putin, the man who has nearly single handedly has sent Russia back into the arms of a totalitarian government. A man who is responsible for killing the nascent democracy budding in Russia and sent it back into oppression. A man who stands n the precipice of an internal war that could easily turn violent as the various powerful factions in Russia begin to confront a post Putin era, this is the man that Time celebrates on their cover for 2007.

In fact, Time has been making the mistake of celebrating the non-celebratory actions of the infamous for quite some time. First, though, we need to clear up what infamous means as, apparently, some seem to have forgotten the definition of the word.

Infamous – 1: having a reputation of the worst kind: notoriously evil

This definition certainly describes at least seven of the choices for Time Magazine’s man of the year since they started the list in 1927.

Continue reading “The Man of the Year Award: Insult or Accolade?”