MICHAEL R. BLOOD
1
5 STARS = "VERY BIASED" (does NOT equate to "very good", quite the opposite)
Blood's December 21, 2007 article on Rudolph Giuliani is a sad piece of journalism. It is pure propaganda to achieve political goals. While it read like an editorial piece, it apparently was published as a report deemed to be newsworthy. The essay is clearly an attempt to cloud Giuliani's reputation just before the Iowa primaries. In it, Blood makes wide, loose, and disconnected allegations. In writing
"The mayor made famous _ and very wealthy _ in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has long described his City Hall as an open book."
he indicates that Giuliani was made rich after 9/11, insinuating that Giuliani financially benefitted from the horrific attacks on his city. He offers no support of this inflammatory statement, and ignores the fact that shortly after the attacks Giuliani completed his final term and reentered the private sector where his income and income potentials were no longer fixed.
Blood also makes much of Giuliani's domestic affairs. Blood begins to refer to Giuliani's contemporaneous paramour as "Nathan" within one sentence of disclosing that Giuliani had stayed with a gay couple while estranged from his wife during their split. This is a clear attempt to smear Giuliani's name by connecting his affair and pending divorce with the gay community - an inexplicable attempt from such a liberal columnist. Liberal readers should be disgusted with this pandering to such "conservative" paranoia and intolerance.
Blood states that only 3 law suits were brought against the NYC administration for Free Speech/Public Access concerns each year. This is in the largest, most complex city in our nation ... only 3 suits per year. That's a pretty good record, but Blood condemns Giuliani for this excellent record. His string of anectdotes do not suggest some pattern of secrecy in this mega-mayorship, and he leaves large gaps of uncomfortable silence for the readers to fill with assumptions to make his article work.
Another example is with the raison d'etre of the piece, that Giuliani contracted with a non-profit organization to archive the records of his mayoral term. Blood does his best to make it look like self-dealing but never really explains the support for serious concern. He offers the following: 1. Other mayors have left their materials with the city archives; 2. Records from previous administration are often not organized and their contents are unknown and inaccessible; 3. Giuliani contracted with a private, non-profit organization to archive his materials; 4. Giuliani had an undefined relationship with the non-profit organization; 5. All of the materials have been returned to city archives and before doing so were copied into electronic form and organized; 6. Giuliani had stated that once the archiving and organizing of the materials was complete, the records would be more accessible; 7. Nobody alleges any records are missing or altered; 8. In 2003 NYC has disallowed sitting mayors to contract with private organizations for the archiving official records.
Again, Blood talks like an impassioned child who just knows that he is right and you should see it too, even though there is no ive support offered for the position - in the end the gaps and silence are left to the reader to fill, with assumptions.
The most despicable part of this is the EDITORS NOTE at the bottom of the article which attempts to rehabilitate the poor and unsubstantiated writing. The note states that the writer has "covered Giuliani since 1996 - 2001." That being the case, even less credibility should be lent to this political advertisement. In 11 years, Blood should know who to interview for solid support to such serious allegations.
Shame on Blood, his editor and the Associated Press.
