WNYC-FM radio personality Steve Post calls the New York Times not the "newspaper of record," but "the newspaper with a record."
It certainly has a record when it comes to alternative medicine. In October [1993], for example, the Times called Hatch and Richardson¼s efforts "The 1993 Snake Oil Protection Act." Admitting that "the biggest volume of mail being logged in many Congressional offices these days" is in support of these bills, the influential paper claimed that this mail was generated by the health food industry's "scare tactics."
The Times apparently views supplement consumers as dupes. The struggle, they think, is really "about the right of unscrupulous companies and individuals to maximize profits by making fraudulent claims."
Yet the Times's own readers are increasingly pro-supplement, as Marian
Burros acknowledged in her "Eating Well" column (8/4/93). Many "believe
that the Government is trying to take away their access to these remedies,"
and consider the Times' position "dumb." In addition, the Times is silent
on the fact that Richard Gelb, chairman of Bristol Myers-Squibb and vice
chairman of Memorial Sloan-Kettering, sits on its own corporate board..
