In former times, the color gray possessed a nobility it has largely lost in today’s technicolor world. Gray hair was a sign of maturity and wisdom. Reasoning that respected shades of gray signaled deep thought and respect for the complexity of reality. It abhorred sensationalism.

Even after a change of style, the image of the gray lady persists to this day. After more than a century of resistance, on October 16, 1997, The New York Times for the first time used color on its front page. It was a revolution, but its compact text and overly lengthy and poorly articulated articles submerging the reader with mostly (but not always) factual statements convey even to today’s reader an impression of grayness.

In the 20th century, gray had one major thing going for it: It could not be called “yellow.” The late 19th century witnessed the emergence of “yellow journalism,” designed to stir readers’ most extreme emotions, including their appetite for war. Yellow journalism earned its military stripes in February 1898 when William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal featured the headline: “DESTRUCTION OF THE WAR SHIP MAINE WAS THE WORK OF AN ENEMY.”

With no evidence to support its claim, the Journal blamed Spain, the colonial overlord of Cuba. Within two months of that headline, the United States had declared war on Spain. The settlement of that war four months later instantly turned the US into a global colonial power. The Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Guam had become its possessions. 

Hearst could be proud. His yellow journalism had provoked a successful war of conquest. In contrast, throughout that period the Gray Lady had maintained its measured and fact-based approach in its reporting. Over the ensuing century, the Gray Lady defended its image as the “newspaper of record.”

Modern critics of the NYT may justifiably claim that by the beginning of the 51st century the paper’s color had veered at least to ochre. Judith Miller’s breathless reporting about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction equalled in intensity and ultimate effect Hearst’s exploitation of the sinking of the Maine. Just as effectively as Hearst’s provocation of war against Spain, the NYT literally did its damnedest to justify George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in March 2023. If Hearst’s war had the effect of vastly expanding US dominion, the assault on Iraq constituted a major step towards producing the increasingly complex quagmire visible today in the Middle East.

The NYT has never been alone in its encouragement of US wars. But it continues to eschew sensationalism. The Gray Lady’s sober prose has nevertheless proved itself fully compatible with the goals and achievements of the most successful yellow journalism. Readers can savor the latest example of it in a meticulously documented March 29 article by Adam Entous bearing the title: “The Partnership: The Secret History of the War in Ukraine?” Instead of pushing for a new war, the article seeks to convince readers that the wonderful war the US has been secretly engaged in for three years in Ukraine was well worth waging. Its final sentence, quoting former US President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, expresses a hope against hope that it might even continue. “Ladies and gentlemen, carry on.”

But let’s take a closer look at this sample of Entous’s Gray Lady prose. Even when he attempts to be even-handed, he can produce absurdly self-serving sentences such as this one: “The Ukrainians sometimes saw the Americans as overbearing and controlling — the prototypical patronizing Americans. The Americans sometimes couldn’t understand why the Ukrainians didn’t simply accept good advice.”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Good advice:

Anything US politicians and military experts have to say because, by definition, they are known to be “a force for good” in the world.

Contextual note

The message of the article can be summarized in three ideas. The magnanimous US political and military complex generously offered a partnership with victimized Ukraine. It did so in secret to better ensure its efficacy. Though the enterprise ultimately failed, producing massive loss of lives and a nation in ruins, the US can stand tall for having done its utmost. It would have succeeded if only the Ukrainians had lived up to the terms of the partnership.

Entous makes his contempt for the Ukrainians clear when he adds “simply” to the remark about not accepting good advice. This is just one example of the author’s and newspaper’s studied capacity to craft its Gray Lady style in such a way that contorted moral reasoning and militaristic self-aggrandizement seem like natural features of the geopolitical landscape described.

Consider Entous’s eloquent characterization of the collaborative arrangement engineered by the US. He calls it a “partnership of intelligence, strategy, planning and technology” that “would become the secret weapon in what the Biden administration framed as its effort to both rescue Ukraine and protect the threatened post-World War II order.” Two complementary noble ends which no citizen of the democratic West could possibly call into question.

But it doesn’t stop there. Entous warns us that the global order is on the brink, because “that order — along with Ukraine’s defense of its land — teeters on a knife edge, as President Trump seeks rapprochement with Mr. Putin.” This makes it clear that the Ukrainians aren’t the only ones refusing to follow good advice. Biden’s successor in the White House is also to blame.

Since at least 2015, the NYT’s ochre journalism finds itself in its comfort zone whenever criticism of Donald Trump is required. Our Devil’s Dictionary has in the past exposed the paper’s shameless and deeply hypocritical commitment to Russiagate during Trump’s first term, for example here and here.

In the author’s eyes, there’s plenty of blame to go around: Russia of course, for what the NYT has always called its “unprovoked” aggression, but also Trump and the Ukrainians. Only the personnel of the US military industrial complex and the Biden administration can stand tall. When you think of it, this isn’t very different from Trump’s tendency to categorize everyone, including allies, as enemies trying to take advantage of the US. All but Israel, that is.

Historical note

As a member of the Gray Lady’s team, Entous deserves applause for daring to produce this “untold story” that boldly contradicts the narrative his paper has been developing over the past three years. It has consistently denied the US was doing anything other than empathetically responding to Ukraine’s repeated appeals for assistance. Entous brings us out of the fog by clarifying the true history of the kinetic war in Ukraine, even as he simultaneously displays a studied indifference to the far more complex history of betrayed agreements (Minsk) and declined negotiations that over the span of eight years made the conflict ineluctable.

At one point, Entous gloats over what he refers to as the “New York Times investigation” he himself conducted. It “reveals that America was woven into the war far more intimately and broadly than previously understood.” Understood by whom? By readers of the NYT? He appears blissfully unaware of the fact that multiple experts such as former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, Colonel Douglas Macgregor or former CIA Russia analyst Ray McGovern were describing that reality in alternative media as early as the spring of 2022.

Here are some notable examples of the reality that was hidden from the public before Entous’s article:

“A vast American intelligence-collection effort both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.

One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said.

“In some ways, Ukraine was, on a wider canvas, a rematch in a long history of U.S.-Russia proxy wars — Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Syria three decades later.

It was also a grand experiment in war fighting, one that would not only help the Ukrainians but reward the Americans with lessons for any future war.”

Readers should note how Entous evokes other fields of endeavor to establish the legitimacy of US policy. The “wider canvas” evokes the world of art; “a rematch,” sport and the “grand experiment,” science. In short, the US’s actions in Ukraine were the work of an advanced civilization, conscious of its commitment to the arts, to high level athletic competition and science. These are truly cultivated kill chains.

It’s a pity the chaotic Ukrainians weren’t able to follow such good civilized advice.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.