Boycotting the New York Times for Unfair Prop 8 Coverage

Some of our readers may be interested in Don Feder's overall project of boycotting the New York Times:

NY Times Leaves Out Relevant Details in Coverage of Prop 8 Lawsuit (online here)

Don Feder, editor of the Boycott The New York Times website (BoycottNYT.com), noted that The New York Times intentionally left out most of the relevant details in reporting on the ongoing effort to overturn California's Proposition 8 (the marriage-protection amendment to the state constitution) in an article the paper published on November 18.

"Tuesday's story is a continuation of The New York Times' biased coverage of the entire Prop. 8 campaign," Feder wrote on BoycottNYT.com. "In evaluating The Times' coverage of any issue, what's not reported is as important as what is."

The Times story focuses on California Attorney General Jerry Brown's request that the State Supreme Court review the constitutionality of Proposition 8 in response to protests and lawsuits.

Among the facts The New York Times conveniently left out of the story are the following:

• Same-sex marriage was never part of the California Constitution. It was forced on the state in May, by an edict of the same court now being asked to rule on the legality of Prop. 8.

• Despite massive opposition by the mainstream media, including The New York Times, Prop. 8 passed by a vote of 52% to 48%. Now, citizens of 30 states have enacted marriage-protection amendments, by an average vote of 68%.

• In 2000, 61% of California voters approved Prop. 22, a statute limiting marriage to a man and a woman. The Court swept that aside with its mandate, necessitating the marriage amendment.

• Those demonstrations by opponents of Proposition 8 the paper mentioned in passing are often aimed at the Mormon and Catholic Churches and are frequently violent. At one, an elderly woman was assaulted by an anti-Prop. 8 mob.

Feder's commentary on The Times' ongoing distortion of the California marriage debate is available here.