Greta Van Susteren is not impressed with the New York Times ‘ reporting skills, and she let the world know about it in a recent take-down of the publication’s Marco Rubio driving record exposé.
For the Fox News analyst, it was a story framed to make Rubio look bad since it had very little newsworthiness and little to do with the man himself.
In her column over at Huffington Post , Greta explains by first pointing to the way that NYT framed the story.
“A review of [Rubio driving] records dating back to 1997 shows that the couple had a combined 17 citations: Mr. Rubio with four and his wife with 13.”
Van Susteren points out that it’s a bit of a stretch to pin someone else’s driving record on Rubio, and that it was likely done for no other reason than to make the issue look worse than it is.
“Why are Mrs. Rubio’s driving infractions pinned on him? He wasn’t driving those 13 times, she was! The headline is written to pin her driving record on him. Headlines matter — that is what most people read and then stop. Collapsing the two driving records in that one headline smears the candidate. She is the one with the driving problem — 13 violations to his four.”
Greta speculated that the reason the Times did what it did is that it would have looked ridiculous writing a story about a candidate with four minor driving infractions.
She also notes that two of the driving infractions were 12 years apart, and none of them were for serious offenses.
Conservative news site IJReview also pitched in that the Times never reported on President Barack Obama’s driving record, which was considerably more marred than that of Rubio’s.
Referencing a Washington Post story, the IJReview noted the following.
“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama got more than an education when he attended Harvard Law School in the late 1980s. He also got a healthy stack of parking tickets, most of which he never paid.”
“The Illinois Senator shelled out $375 in January — two weeks before he officially launched his presidential campaign — to finally pay for 15 outstanding parking tickets and their associated late fees.”
“Obama received 17 parking tickets in Cambridge between 1988 and 1991, mostly for parking in a bus stop, parking without a resident permit and failing to pay the meter, records from the Cambridge Traffic, Parking and Transportation office show.”
So, Rubio supporters point out, there appears to be a clear media bias on the part of NYT . But what do you think, readers? Is Greta Van Susteren right taking the paper to task for its reporting?
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