TIME magazine put Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on its cover and praised him as a new kind of “pragmatic” Democrat, the kind that busts unions, ignores parents, and cultivates the approval of the business community. That is certainly a ne kind of Democrat.
For a critique of TIME’s fawning coverage, read the article by Peter Hart of FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting).
This is my favorite part of Hart’s critique, which shows the blatant bias in the magazine’s coverage:
“Time doesn’t dwell on criticisms of Emanuel’s policies; readers are told that “the Chicago Teachers Union, a power unto itself, loosed its heavy artillery”–which sounds menacing–and that some people “charged that the closures targeted majority-black schools with majority-black faculties.”
Could it be that people “charged” that because it was true? As the Chicago Sun-Times reported (3/6/13), “Nine out of 10 of the Chicago Public School students potentially affected by school closings this year are black.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
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Chicago Bull Sh*&$,
Wow, now we are supposed to praise bought out, selfish, corrupt leaders in the Democratic Party. This man is giving 100 million for a private university’s arena. This man is disgusting and TIME is clueless. A new political party needs to be formed that actually represents people and not the super wealthy and well-connected. This man is a living example of cronyism and TIME has spun it into some form of new bravery and insight. Whatever.
Proves that TIME is a complete joke, and owned by the mayor’s propaganda machine. Makes no difference to Chicagoans, who know better.
TIME magazine also named Debbie Gist (currently the Commissioner of Education in Rhode Island) as one of the “100 most influential people in the world” the year after RI hired her.
Who owns TIME?
Time Warner-one of the largest corps there is.
TimeWarner is like Goliath, a huge bullying presence that needs to be slain…how come we once were able to break up Ma Bell but now corporate America has captured the government and these to-big-to-fail/”let them eat cake”/self-serving corporations are aided, abetted and encouraged? Time is a corporate rag…send them a letter, email, phone call, tweet…tell them what you think of their propaganda Supporting the shill Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel aims to further help the Corporate takeover of public schools through the stealing of public taxpayer genrated funds being given to Charter Schools.Closing public schools that serve Chicago’s poorest citizens but funding a new arena for DePaul….send Time your message now!
I need to subscribe to TIME magazine so the truth can set me free.
Tell TIME what you think of their selection: Tweets to @TIME
Time Magazine has been, and will likely always be, a mouthpiece for the dominant ideology. Without sounding conspiratorial, I think it is safe to say that when a mainstream policy needs rationalization and defense Time is invariably present to do the job. What’s striking in the current moment, however, is the virtual absence of elite voices questioning the merits of corporate school reform. Thus far, there appears to be consensus at the top that it is the way to proceed. Consider the historical contrasts. During the Depression, Roosevelt was able to enlist dissident (and in some cases rogue) bourgeois actors such as Adolph Berle, Bernard Baruch, Marriner Eccles, and Joe Kennedy in his New Deal program. During the Vietnam War, maverick politicians such as Greuning, Morse and Full-bright and businessmen such as Edgar Bronfman were relatively early critics of U.S. foreign policy. Where are the corresponding voices today? And witness the effective ostracism of Diane herself from the elite domains she formerly traversed with great respect. Buffet was right, folks. There is a class war component at work here and the sooner we openly acknowledge that the better off we will be. Moreover, we will not see cracks in the solidarity on high until we become a more focused, organized and influential force nationally.
I think the only way this will end is if there is a boycott. Nothing ever changes until somebody starts to lose money.
At first I thought if was a photo shop spoof, like the Michelle Rhee Erase to the top photo!
Sadly it is not. Embarrassing for Time.
I just want one now photoshopped that has Diane as Person of the Year.
How ’bout person of the century… she’s attempting to save public education… this battle has been waging for quite more than a year.
Yes, Diane aside, where are the elite voices on this issue?
It takes an open media to bring them forward. The NYTimes effectively silenced Mike Winerip.
The privatization narrative has been authored by American Enterprise Institute, Chiefs for Change, National Governors Assoc., and so many others that litter the landscape with lies.
You can email the editor. I did.
letters@time.com
Incredible irony that Peter Hart is reporting regarding “fairness and accuracy in reporting” when his firm helped AFT promote this warped information on so-called teacher (the AFT gets dropped) “approval” of Common Core:
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/hart-weingarten-and-power-point-deception/
Peter Hart needs to pay attention to his own affairs.
And not just “approval”– “overwhelming approval.”
For all the viewers of this posting: the numbers behind the above assertion by M. Schneider are available via the link provided by her.
There is a name for playing fast and loose with numbers in order to arrive at the allegedly “overwhelming approval” by teachers of Common Core:
“Not all statistics start out bad, but any statistic can be made worse. Numbers—even good numbers—can be misunderstood or misinterpreted. Their meanings can be stretched, twisted, distorted, or mangled. These alterations create what we can call mutant statistics—distorted versions of the original figures.” [from the opening of chapter 3, “MUTANT STATISTICS Methods for Mangling Numbers” in Joel Best, DAMNED LIES AND STATISTICS (2012 updated edition of the 2001 original, p. 62]
And if the original numbers themselves are suspect then the inferences one can draw from a less-than-stellar presentation of them are worse than useless…
I repeat what M. Schneider wrote recently on this blog: don’t take her word for it. Don’t take my word for it. Click on the link, follow up any other leads you like, and take a look at the above work by Joel Best.
Then make up your own mind.
just cancelled my Time subscription.
I knew it would be fawning. National media are in the tank for school reform industry politicians.
Does it matter though? There’s already a yawning gulf between the reality of “reform” and what people are actually experiencing as a result of “reformers”
They all sold the Iraq War, too, but eventually reality trumped spin. They can only prop it up so long. It looks to me like people are finally questiong Bloomberg. The lead time to jam reforms through won’t be as long for this Mayor as it was in NYC.
Reformers have an actual record now, on the ground. Union bashing and clever marketing ain’t gonna cut it forever.
I was actually surprised that Chris Hayes on MSNBC had the Chicago Public Schools union leader on. Poor guy. His days may be numbered. They canned Phil Donohue because he bucked the official.line on the Iraq invasion.
NBC has promoted the school reform industry more than any other national media outlet.
At one point they were conducting panels bankrolled by for-profit colleges. Absolutely ridiculous that it’s presented as “news”.
One of many, many reasons I am finished with _Time Magazine_. Among others is their continual slippery slope when it comes to level of discourse. What grade level are they down to now? Sixth? Seventh?
I just finished the Time article and found one “plus.” The article makes it clear that Rahm Emanuel is shuttering schools because of “a billion-dollar deficit” and drops the pretense of “reform.” It also makes clear that almost all the schools are in black neighborhoods and almost none in white neighborhoods. Similarly displaced teachers are mostly black.
Next stop: the courts.
But even the deficit is a lie. CPS is running a surplus. It’s just like the Iraq war – every excuse they use is a lie, but when one lie is exposed, they just shift to another and pretend (and the media lets them pretend) that that was the excuse all along.
We are at war with East Asia. We have always been at war with East Asia.