“The Internet has given us many glorious things: streaming movies, multiplayer games, real-time information and videos of cats playing the piano. It has also offered up some less edifying creations: web-borne viruses, cybercrime and Charles C. Johnson.”
That’s how David Carr begins his piece on Charles C. Johnson.
The theme of the New York Times editor is that Johnson is a bad person and a bad journalist. Here’s a typical paragraph from top notch journalist Carr writing about Johnson.
“I’m basically one of those kids who was bullied all his life,” he said. He’s now extracting payback, one post at a time.
Taking a line out of context and appending a snide remark to it in a way that makes it seem as if it’s a quote, but not a direct one, is dubious journalism.
The entire Carr piece is a collection of similar snide remarks and condescending put downs with a real “Get off my lawn” quality. And yet all this comes from a guy who has a lot more claim on being up there with viruses and cybercrime.
In his memoir, Carr described being a working reporter who smoked crack, beat women and sold drugs. That naturally led to a job at the New York Times.
Where then does the condescension come from? Carr is a terrible person who sits near the top of a paper that is often wrong, rarely apologizes for it, serves as the mouthpiece for the White House and targets political enemies with smear campaign.
The New York Times does all the things that Carr accuses Johnson of doing.
He can now push the button on almost anything that has heat, a scent of scandal or the ability to activate his base of angry, conspiratorial readers, who believe the republic is being overwhelmed by criminals, feminists and the politicians who enable them.
Substitute the Koch Brothers, Evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, men, the Redskins and assorted other liberal foes and that’s an apt description of the New York Times.





















