(2005-12-01) — New York Times Publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. today slammed the Pentagon for its alleged practice of secretly paying for placement of positive “news” articles in Iraqi newspapers and of subsidizing some Iraqi journalists whose reporting supports the Pentagon’s agenda.

“Why should foreign newspapers get more favorable treatment than our own homegrown media?” said Mr. Sulzberger. “The New York Times, for example, receives no money from the State Department for all of the anonymously-sourced stories we run for their career bureaucrats who oppose the Bush administration’s foreign policy.”

The publisher noted that “with nosediving circulation numbers due to our waning credibility, we could use a government subsidy.”

“If U.S. taxpayers can prop up Iraqi journalists and domestic public television,” Mr. Sulzberger said, “then how about showing some love to the neediest cases right here in the Big Apple?”

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