Don Feder on why The New York Times is dying

Don Feder, you will recall, is the head of something called Jews Against anti-Christian Defamation, and used to write for the Boston Globe and is a wingnut crackpot who seems to have a worm snuggled in his brain.

Today he's busy trying to get people to boycott The New York Times which he feels is a bad, bad newspaper because it's way too liberal and who needs a way too liberal newspaper in the bad, bad city of New York?

His boycott, as we noted previously, is a project of AIM (Accuracy in Media - which is a misnomer if there ever was one) and you can visit his boycott site here.


Feder would have us believe that The New York Times is in dire straits. It is going down. He claims that advertising revenue is dropping and the paper's stock values are plummeting - "its shares have lost 66% of their value this year."

Why would this be? Feder says part of the reason may be the economy. Duh. It's not like The NYT is the only paper riding rough seas. But there's more to it, says Feder. The paper has seen a steady decline in readership over the past 15 years. Duh. It's not like the same thing isn't happening everywhere. Even in our little central Florida town the local newspaper is in such trouble that it has revisited just about everything it does, including the formatting of the paper, and finally merged with a paper from another nearby town.

That's the story of newspapers all over the country, whether one deems them "liberal" or "conservative."


But Feder sees something bigger here. The New York Times is sinking fast because of its "palpable bias." Feder says "As time goes by, The Times has swung further and further to the left - not just in editorials and commentary, but also in what purports to be news coverage." And that, dear friends, has led to such "disgust" that readers stopped reading it.

Feder, being a right winger and kook, wanted McCain and Palin to win the election. He is really pissed at the Times' "slanted coverage" of this year's presidential campaign, which he claims was "biased, brutish and business as usual. Its reporting here was on par with its coverage of gay 'marriage,' domestic energy exploration, judicial activism, illegal immigration, gun ownership, abortion, taxes, the $700-billion bailout - you name it."

Well, that about covers the right wing's playing field!


Feder is flying blind. He offers no facts to back up his assertions. In fact, as I recall, other writers have argued that The New York Times is, at times, too conservative. I'm one of them.

Feder is just another wingnut with the bolts coming loose. And like loose-bolted wingnuts everywhere, he thinks that if he hollers long and hard enough, what he asks us to take on faith will become reality.

Finally, one might argue that readers aren't quitting on the Times because it is too liberal. The majority of people in this country did elect Barack Obama! Thus, one could argue the reason The New York Times is losing readership is that it's too conservative and no longer in touch with the political beliefs of most of the people in the United States. That argument becomes stronger when one realizes that New York City, where the Times gets most of its readers, is even more liberal than the rest of the country.

So, not only is Feder wrong. He's really wrong.

And that's a good thing. It's also typical.

Don Feder's boycott of The New York Times

Perhaps the best thing one can say about Don Feder is that he doesn't try to hide his bigotry and his hatred for all things "liberal."

Now a media consultant and author, he formerly worked as an editorial writer at the Boston Herald. In 2005, he founded and assumed the presidency of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation. Feder is a rabid conservative, with a bent toward theocracy, with the need to impose his beliefs on the rest of the nation.

He has written several books and numerous columns expressing his extremist views, and has appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor," "Hannity and Colmes," "Politically Incorrect," "The 700 Club," "Focus on the Family," and "Fox and Friends." Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham have referenced his columns on the air.

Those affiliations tell you most of what you need to know about Don Feder.


Currently Feder's mission is to organize a boycott of The New York Times. He is, in fact, the editor of Boycott The New York Times website. This boycott is a project of Accuracy in Media (AIM), which gives you a further clue, as AIM is about anything BUT "accuracy" in the media.

What has Feder so upset that he's taken on The New York Times? It's quite serious, actually; a major problem in our world; and something that desperately needs to be rectified immediately.

It has to do with -- ta ta! -- the so-called "war on Christians." Yup! The New York Times, in a November 12 editorial, had the unmitigated gall to suggest that the United States Supreme Court rule a Ten Commandments display in a public park in Pleasant Grove, Utah, is in violation of the Constitution's First Amendment's Establishment Clause. Pleasant Grove, you see, refused an offer by The Church of Summum to set up its own monument to its Seven Aphorisms in proximity to the Ten Commandments display.

There are some 10 other monuments in Pioneer Park in Pleasant Grove.

So, the Supremes are considering this "monumental" matter. The Summumists (or whatever the hell they're called) are arguing if a Ten Commandments monument can be erected, well, so can their Seven Aphorisms monument!

Summum is a rather kooky religion started in 1975 by a guy named Corky. I am not making this up. You can read further about Summum and this fracas in Utah here.


But back to Feder. Feder has been "summumed" by his higher power to fight The New York Times because of its lack of "true" religion and its assumption that all religions, including a kooky religion by Corky, must be accorded equal treatment.

Feder disbelieves that equal stuff. This is a Christian nation, says Feder. The New York Times is "distorting the First Amendment to promote secularism," says Feder. If this wasn't meant to be a Christian nation, asks Feder, "why was Congress's first official act to hire a Christian chaplain? (They couldn't find a Jewish one?)

Feder then delves into the repository of right-wing theocratic historical crap that fills the history books of the Reconstructionists: Congress appropriated money for Christian missionaries to the Indian tribes (that's not quite the way it went, but no matter). "What about 'In God We Trust' on our currency and 'One Nation Under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance ...."? Now, I'd guess Feder is being coy here, 'cause he must know that both of those items were inserted much later in our history and were a political ploy to nod to god in hopes he/she would give the U.S. special blessings and protection and had nothing to do with the founding of our nation.


Let us say once again - this is a secular nation! It is a nation comprised of people who believe in just about every religion under the sun; or none. True, most of the folks profess Christianity although you'd never know it considering the shape we're in. Furthermore, the word, Christian, has several thousand different meanings for there are thousands of Christian cults.

The New York Times is right. Toss out the Ten Commandments display, the Summum monument to the Seven Aphorisms, or any other religious monuments that might have misguidedly been placed in the public Pioneer Park, in Pleasant Grove, Utah!

And then Feder can go on ranting about how badly Christians are "persecuted" in this secular nation of ours. I mean, hell's bells, they can't tell anyone what to believe any more. And it seems like the number of atheists has increased by .0001 percent.

Feder claims to be Jewish. Sounds like a "closet" Christian to me!