When Moody's announced it was considering lowering the rating of New York Times Company debt instruments, it cited weak cash flow as one factor. Apparently, almost a million dollars has flowed into its coffers from an 8 page advertising section sponsored by the genocidal regime ruling impoverished Sudan.

Gateway Pundit, Gotham Gazette and and FelixSalmon.com deserve great credit for bringing this to light. Gatewway Pundit notes:

The New York Times explains this months publication policy:

...Daily News columnist Lloyd Grove quotes a Times spokesperson as saying the paper took the ad because of "our strong belief that all pages of the paper " news, editorial and advertising " must remain open to the free flow of ideas." But Mickey MacLean at World Views speculates that "it also didn't hurt that an estimated $929,000 freely flowed into the newspaper's coffers as a result of the section."

But, here is how the New York Times answered the same question last month when asked why they would not publish the Muhammad cartoons:

The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.

Unless of course, it is a dung covered Virgin Mary painting

Hat tips: Larwyn and Ed Lasky

Thomas Lifson  3 22 06