Report: New York Times ‘Taking Orders’ From de Blasio to Criticize NYPD

On Wednesday’s “Varney & Co.” Fox Business Network anchor David Asman claimed that the New York Times was “taking orders” from Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) when they wrote an op-ed criticizing the police for turning their backs on the mayor.

“The mayor’s office reached out to all his political allies, urging them to stand up to the police union and to stand behind the mayor, that is to reject the cops and put their faith behind the mayor. Well, a lot of people, even Democratic politicians, don’t want to do that because they realize the importance of police in New York” he said.

Asman continued, “some people did bow and kowtow I would say, to the mayor’s office, and one of those was the New York Times. We had this atrocious editorial in the New York Times yesterday blaming cops, putting the onus on cops who are standing up for themselves calling cops ‘snarling, sense of victimhood.’ That’s what they say the cops are, that the cops, their grievances are a ‘snarling sense of victimhood.’ So, cops being gunned down in cold blood are not really victims, but criminals are. that’s what the New York Times said. We couldn’t really understand how they could say something like this, but now we know why because they were taking orders from the mayor’s office.”

He concluded, “the real job of journalists is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Well, in this case they were just kowtowing to the mayor’s office.” And “you expect NPR to take their talking points from authority, not the New York Times.”

Asman did not say what his source for the claim that the Times caved to pressure from de Blasio, on Tuesday the New York Post reported that de Blasio “urged political allies to attack the police unions,” but neither the story in the Post, nor the one DNAinfo.com that was cited in the Post‘s piece, indicated that the Times was contacted by or gave into pressure from the mayor. The mayor’s office said that it contacted “public officials,” but did not ask them to bash the police. The Times said that Asman’s report was “ludicrous.”

.@NYTeileen tells me the claim that the New York Times took orders from de Blasio’s office is “ludicrous.” http://t.co/denJ8Gzj6k

— Tom Kludt (@TomKludt) December 31, 2014

(h/t Mediaite )

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