The Gray Lady Winked; How the New York Times's Misreporting, Distortions and Fabrications Radically Alter History

“In an account brimming with fascinating, if morbid, detail, Ashley Rindsberg rigorously exposes the dark side of the New York Times. For 99 years—since a 1922 description of Hitler as someone ‘actuated by lofty, unselfish patriotism’—it has labored under the shadow of its dynastic owners’ triad of problems: capitalist guilt, Jewish self-hatred, and an ambition for power, wealth, and status. The Times’ importance means the family’s issues have done much damage.” —Daniel Pipes “With the researcher’s eye for the damning detail and the novelist’s feel for the egos and appetites that animate great characters, Ashley Rindsberg has produced an eminently readable account of why a formerly great American newspaper betrayed its principles and how its decline made us all the poorer. Anyone curious about the New York Times’s path to perdition would do well to begin with this well-crafted story of ideological convictions obscuring grim realities, big personalities obscuring dogged truth-tellers, and unearned reputations obscuring a slow and sad fall from grace.” —Liel Leibovitz, Editor-at-Large, Tablet Magazine “Rindsberg’s timely book deals with the abuse of information for political purposes. It is a brave piece of historical journey into the annals of the New York Times. It shows us how what is now considered to be a new phenomenon, Fake News, belonging to the social media era or to the Trump presidency, began much earlier, and does not belong to only one particular political camp. Rindsberg has an important story to tell to anyone who has ever opened the pages of the New York Times. —Adi Schwartz, The War of Return “This book is a bracing, urgent reminder of the devastating real-world consequences that arise when an important institution falls in love with the sound of its own voice and puts its power in the service of myth creation on behalf of elites.” —Jenny Holland, Author & Former Times Staffer “We are all aware that the New York Times has its fair share of biases and more than a few disgraces. But Rindsberg exposes journalistic scandals well beyond what is commonly known. Studiously researched and eloquently written, this volume provides us with an indispensable antidote to the halo effect that the Times has enjoyed for so long.” —Benjamin Kerstein, Israel Correspondent, The Algemeiner Think a newspaper can't be responsible for mass murder? Think again. As flagship of the American news media, the New York Times is the world's most powerful news outlet. With thousands of reporters covering events from all corners of the globe, the Times has the power to influence wars, foment revolution, shape economies and change the very nature of our culture. It doesn't just cover the news: it creates it. The Gray Lady Winked pulls back the curtain on this illustrious institution to reveal a quintessentially human organization where ideology, ego, power and politics compete with the more humble need to present the facts. In its 10 gripping chapters, The Gray Lady Winked offers readers an eye-opening, often shocking, look at the New York Times's greatest journalistic failures, so devastating they changed the course of history. How its World War II Berlin bureau chief, a known Nazi collaborator, skewed coverage in favor of the Third Reich for over a decade.Its notorious coverup of the Ukraine Famine, a genocide committed by Stalin, showing that it was the newspaper's owners who directed the coverup in order to advance their own financial and ideological interests.The "1619 Project," a cynical, ideologically driven attempt to revise American history by rooting the nation's birth in slavery instead of liberty. The result is an essential look at the tangled relationship between media, power and politics in a post-truth world told with novelistic flair to reveal a uniquely powerful institution's tortured relationship with the truth. Most importantly of all, The Gray Lady Winked presents a cautionary tale that shows what happens when the guardians of the truth abandon that sacred value in favor of self-interest and ideology-and what this means for our future as much as for our past. "For 99 years-since a 1922 description of Hitler as someone 'actuated by lofty, unselfish patriotism'-it has labored under the shadow of its dynastic owners' triad of problems: capitalist guilt, Jewish self-hatred, and an ambition for power, wealth, and status. - Daniel Pipes, President, Middle East Forum