The Grey Lady piffles

Are staff writers at the New York Times suffering from ennui brought on by piffling pundits & piddly politicians?  'Cause they're writing stuff that doesn't even remotely resemble news.  

Today's FirstRead headline -  Emails Show Hillary Clinton Adviser Sidestepping Potential Conflict.   HUH?  They created a story out of Huma Abedin immediately taking herself OUT of a conversation due to potential conflict of interests.

Sad evidence of something I've come to suspect - writers no longer know how to be reporters.  String together words like HRC chief of staff, Huma Abedin (Anthony Wiener's wife!  Saudi ancestry!), e-mail & there's gotta be a story in there!!  Or not.  

What a waste of ink & time...

In November 2012, Kris Balderston, then in charge of the Global Partnership Initiative in Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s office, sent an email about a potential joint initiative involving the State Department and the Rockefeller Foundation.

The email was sent to a group of people, including Huma Abedin, the deputy chief of staff to Mrs. Clinton, and to Thomas Shea, who at the time was one of the managing directors of Teneo, the firm where Ms. Abedin had a contract as a consultant, and which represented the Rockefeller Foundation.

Ms. Abedin quickly replied that she needed to be removed from the discussion because she was concerned about a conflict of interest.

But the exchange demonstrated the potential for such issues to have arisen as part of her status as a special government employee, a designation that allowed her to work for Teneo, the State Department, the Clinton Foundation and the Clintons personally.

So the big news was not that anything WRONG happened, but that it COULD have.  Yeah, like we didn't know that?  What the story actually illustrates - although it's not presented as if it does - is that Ms. Abedin handled the situation precisely in the way she should.

I am getting sooooo tired of media outlets getting riled up over non-issues. 

Thinkest thou there might be a connection between the gosh awful reporting coming out of outlets like The Grey Lady & the fact most are owned by only six (6) corporations?  

The days of the 4th estate standing up for the rights of the individual citizens are past & we're back in the good old, bad old days of yellow journalism*.  Just substitute Murdock & his ilk for Hearst & his.

High principles have rolled over in the face of higher profits for a select circle of corporate owners. Want proof?  How about the "newspaper of record" running a non-story that gives the whiff of scandal instead of applauding the  Clinton camp for acting exactly as they'd pledged.

God help us all - the 4th estate has left the building.

* Yellow journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts. During its heyday in the late 19th century it was one of many factors that helped push the United States and Spain into war in Cuba and the Philippines.    Seems we're back to the future.