McClatchy Watch & Times Watch blogs

JinC Regulars know about McClatchy Watch, an outstanding blog that keeps an eye on the liberal/leftist McClatchy news organization.

The blog reports on everything from McClatchy’s frequent slamming of America's military to McClatchy's exec board's decisions to richly reward top executives even as the company's stock price crashes (It's down more than 85% in just the last three years.) and it lays off workers.

Following today's news that the NY Times was trying to manipulate what Sen. John McCain could say on its op-ed page in response to a Times' op-ed by the paper's preferred presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, an Anon commenter suggested: “in addition to a 'McClatchy Watch,' there should be a 'Times Watch.'"

Thank you, Anon.

Now some great news. There is a Times Watch. You can access it here.

It's lead post tonight is: “The Times Disses McCain Op-ed After Running Obama's “

The post's subhead: “The Times isn't about to give John McCain a break, setting stringent standards before it will take a pro-surge op-ed from him, even though it printed Obama's pro-withdrawal op-ed last week.”

The post begins - - -

When Hillary dropped out under a wave of hostile coverage, she left John McCain the only person standing between Barack Obama and a history-making presidency. With Obama rocking waves of positive coverage overseas, the media tide is out for the Republican nominee, and the Times surely isn't going to give McCain any breaks now.

The same New York Times that endorsed McCain (albeit in hold-your-nose fashion) during the Republican primaries now refuses to run an op-ed by him that: laid out recent successes in Iraq; said Obama was wrong in opposing the surge; and accused the Democrat of having "learned nothing from recent history."

Times' op-ed editor David Shipley emailed McCain's staff: "I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written."

Yet the McCain op-ed was in response to one from Obama, "My Plan for Iraq," that had appeared in the Times on July 14. Did the Times at least invite the McCain camp to submit an op-ed in defense of the war and the surge (to accompany Obama's call for withdrawal) before Obama's op-ed appeared?

Shipley said he wanted something more forward-looking that paralleled more closely with Obama's piece, which mentioned McCain only twice while sketching out a vision of withdrawing troops from Iraq. The piece McCain submitted to the Times attacked Obama on his past statements on the surge and also went after points from Obama's NYT op-ed. …

The entire post’s here.

We're fortunate to have McClatchy Watch and Times Watch.

I hope you'll visit both often.