The New York Times Revisits Postville – And Destroys History In The Process

Most remarkable about this bad piece of reporting and editing are the transparent attempts to shield the names of certain activists or companies, apparently in order to mask the fact that the information the Times is now reporting was reported first – usually by me but also by the Forward and the JTA – in 2008, 2009 and early 2010.

The New York Times Magazine has an error-ridden piece this week on Postville, the Agriprocessors raid, and its aftermath.

Most remarkable about this bad piece of reporting and editing are the transparent attempts to shield the names of certain activists or companies, apparently in order to mask the fact that the information the Times is now reporting was reported first – usually by me but also by the Forward and the JTA – in 2008, 2009 and early 2010.

Here's one example:

The same month [Sholom] Rubashkin was arrested, a bank began foreclosing on the plant, and [Agriprocessors] suspended hundreds of employees without pay. Work at Agri slowed to a crawl. With few workers to slaughter the animals, hundreds of turkeys, stuck in cages on tractor-trailers outside the plant, began dying. The smell of decay seeped into the neighborhood.

Agri stopped paying its property taxes to Postville, and the town’s two biggest landlords — Seibert was not yet among them — folded shop, leaving behind thousands of dollars’ worth of unpaid water and heat bills, as well as hundreds of angry, out-of-work tenants.

Those landlords?

Sholom Rubashkin's Nevel Properties and Gabay G. Menahem's Gal Investments. Both continued to operate after Rubashkin was arrested and Agriprocessors lenders moved to foreclose in October 2008. In fact, Menachem was running his business in 2009. He filed a discrimination suit against the City of Postville in 2010 and received a large settlement in September 2011. The Times mentions none of it.

The evictions, utility cutoffs and starvation Postville activist Jeff Abbas and, literally, a handful of his friends (with some help from me, as well) helped stop got Jeff a well deserved award from the Methodist Church and some national attention. Read the piece of junk the Times published today and wouldn't know Jeff existed.

The man ran a soup kitchen out of his public radio station, day in and day out, feeding the poorest Agriprocessors workers with the help of a few of his friends.

He and I helped force the state to take action to protect workers who otherwise would have been evicted in freezing weather with nowhere to go for shelter.

The Paluan workers mentioned were primarily helped by Jeff, who was able to get some of them transportation back to Palau in Micronesia.

The Times mentions the Palauans, but not Jeff.

The Catholic Church and the local food pantry worked extremely hard to help these indigent people, as well. They are not mentioned by the Times.

The Times main source is the wife of the landlord who took over the day-to-day operation of Nevel Properties and later some of Gall Properties at the request of lenders – Trevor Seibert's wife Candy. This might account for why the Times never mentions the City of Postville's lack of concern for the indigent workers, its refusal to allow an emergency shelter to open in town. Homeless Agriprocessors workers were taken by Jeff Abbas and his friends to temporary shelters in other towns – improvised locations like church sanctuaries and, if my memory is correct, a shuttered bowling alley.

The New York Times has much to ashamed of, including its years of intentional silence on haredi child sexual abuse (pedophile priests sell papers, one Times staffer supposedly said, pedophile rabbis don't), a ton of missed coverage during the Agriprocessors scandals and its failure to do serious followup coverage on Agriprocessors Humane Slaughter law violations, its uncredited reliance on reporting done primarily by The Jewish Week and FailedMessiah.com for its belated series on haredi child sexual abuse published in May (stealing the work of others is apparently a trademark of the Times), and now this.

You can read it all here.

Comments

[Lubavitchers are Christians]

Mainstream America has known for a long, long time that the New York Times is not a trusted news source anymore. Their openly biased pro-haredi pro-Palestinian pro-liberal pro-Obama news coverage has pushed a huge percentage of America away from it, and the other liberal news sources like the NYT. That is why Fox News continues to enjoy record viewership, while the other networks are falling to historic lows.

So many people don't even care anymore what the NYT writes. They are becoming very irrelevant.

[BaltimoreYid]

Come on now a little revisionist history never hurt anyone, right?

[Vlad the Impaler]

Dear Shmarya,
Drop dead.

[zibble]

Their openly biased... coverage has pushed a huge percentage of America away from it, and the other liberal news sources like the NYT. That is why Fox News continues to enjoy record viewership

Hmmm, people are pushed away from the NY Times because it is "openly biased" and so start relying on a more balanced news source like Fox News?

You're joking, right?

[steve]

They did however print this editorial in 2008:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/opinion/01fri1.html

[dh]

So go get 'em, Shmarya.

[monsey_yid]

yea and the NYT is against metzizeh bepeh. And now they are against our dear Smarye. It must be the rabbis. Between the Lubavs and the Satmars. I don;t know which one, I think they should both be locked up and the keys thrown away.And they also are keeping Rubashkin locked up.
go get 'em Shmarye. Don't let them get away with it.

[itchiemayer]

Look, I know you liberals out there will do or say anything if you think it advances your cause even when it means blatant disregard for truth.

Compare Fox with CNN, msnbc, ABC, NBC, and CBS. It gives the other side far more than the others. Bob Beckel, Juan Williams, among others to give the other side. Williams has even subbed for O'Reilly. Fox is far more honest than the rest.

You can have your liars like Wiener and that Debbie Wasserman Schmutz, and the entire Obama administration that rots from the top down from their narcissism and sociopathy.

The worst thing the black community has ever done is to accept being shamelessly pandered to and lied to by the Democrats. You would think that after decades of supporting Democrats and with how their lives have in many ways become worst, that they would realize that automatically giving the Dems their votes does nothing but marginalizes them. The first thing they should do to become empowered is to stop being used by the Democratic party.

The Democrats are about class warfare and race-baiting. It was sweet seeing Wasserman schmutz get nailed for her hypocracy this week, and to see John Sununu rip Andrea Greenspan Mitchell a new one, another political reporter whore for team Obama. She was made to look like what she is...a jackass.

Obama has done so many things that you liberals were against four years ago, but now you keep your mouths shut like you should have done then. Hell, Obama kills American citizens, and kills innocent civilians with these drones. Now I'm all for that, but you guys were all about Rule of Law, Due Process, and those niceties. Now when a Republican lacks transparency or denies terrorists "due process", you can't say anything because that will make you appear to be a hypocritical jackass. If a reporter asks Romney if he wins to explain why he is doing many things that Liberals always claimed to be against, all he has to answer is "well, you never asked the prior President abuot this, it didn't bother you then, so next question....The current administration has given the next Republican administration cart blanche to do whatever they want because the media has let the Obama administration do whatever they want. Moreover, they have blood on their hands from the death of Border Agent Brian Terry.

[PrettyBoyFloyd]

I love it when Shmarya gets his panties up in a bunch.

[Mike]

When NYT writes an article that Shmarya agrees with it is heralded as a major accomplishment when not we are told that they are irrelevant. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

The same month [Sholom] Rubashkin was arrested, a bank began foreclosing on the plant, and [Agriprocessors] suspended hundreds of employees without pay. Work at Agri slowed to a crawl. With few workers to slaughter the animals, hundreds of turkeys, stuck in cages on tractor-trailers outside the plant, began dying. The smell of decay seeped into the neighborhood.

Agri stopped paying its property taxes to Postville, and the town’s two biggest landlords — Seibert was not yet among them — folded shop, leaving behind thousands of dollars’ worth of unpaid water and heat bills, as well as hundreds of angry, out-of-work tenants.

Not the first time that massive collateral damage follows government actions. Something should be put into place where the government should somehow step in and take over a situation to help it through so as to cushion the plight of the innocents who will suffer due to their actions. Not only the "big business" like banks and auto deserves "bailout" help.

[rebbeca]

Lubavitchers are Christians, said: "Their openly biased pro-haredi"

LOL The NYT is "openly biased pro-haredi" !and the FM Shmarya-Shmata is.....? what? ha hah

[s]

Jeff Abbass, others from Postville and people from Decorah deserve so much thanks for the work done for families after the immigration raid. So many homeless people from Palau were taken to Decorah to live temporarily.__/ Your new Somalian employees who do not have family in Minneapolis to see on days off do not need to drive that far to get Halal food. Rochester has several Somalian grocery stores and a Pakistani grocery on 200 block East Center Stret that have Halal food. Somalian restaurants, and a Somalian tea shop in 100 block North Broadway. Somalian gas station that may also sell groceries. Somalian clothing stores. The main mosque is at North Broadway and 1st St. N.W., the second mosque in the 600 block of 6th Ave N.W.. One Somalian grocery, restaurant is across the street from the main mosque. / The community college teaches four Arabic-language classes. Public library has on 2nd floor a Somalian-language section and an Arabic language section. InterCultural Mutual Assistance Association (IMAA) building is on Valley Drive N.W..// It saves the extra 160 mile round trip drive to minneapolis and would give Agri-Star employees a chance to make new friends. Possibly someone in Postville can print this out and give it to a new employee in Postville.

[state of disgust]

Jeff can speak for himself but ...

Most of the food distribution was done by St. Bridget's and the Lutheran Church folks who ran the food pantry. Jeff did do some emergency soup kitchen work, mostly out of frustration because no one else was doing anything to help. Poor workers would show up at the station asking for help and Jeff responded. It got him into trouble with his board which included a local bank official (who's bank benefited from huge deposits from Agriprocessors) and an official of Agriprocessors (also a member of the Rubashkin family)! And these were the people who objected to Jeff covering anything to do with Agriprocessors. Eventually they stopped paying his salary, misused PBS grant money, and forced Jeff out. After Jeff left the radio station was moved from Postville to Decorah.
This unsavory episode was just another sad chapter in the Postville saga.

[Gwen]

I wasn't there, but re the alleged ill treatment of illegal aliens, these people have to allege they were ill-treated to stand a chance of getting a U visa, available to illegals who were abused by American citizens -- same route-to-citizenship used by women abused by U.S. citizen husbands, etc.