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In response to the Harvard study documenting how newspapers labeled waterboarding as "torture" for almost 100 years until the Bush administration told them not to, The New York Times issued a statement justifying this behavior on the ground that it did not want to take sides in the debate. Andrew Sullivan, Greg Sargent and Adam Serwer all pointed out that "taking a side" is precisely what the NYT did: by dutifully complying with the Bush script and ceasing to use the term (replacing it with cleansing euphemisms), it endorsed the demonstrably false proposition that waterboarding was something other than torture. Yesterday, the NYT's own Brian Stelter examined this controversy and included a justifying quote from the paper's Executive Editor, Bill Keller, that is one of the more demented and reprehensible statements I've seen from a high-level media executive in some time (h/t Jay Rosen):

The emergence of a shadowy domestic espionage group sheds light on how the government collects online data

An analysis by Harvard students reveals that the press has shifted torture standards and even language on command

At a $30,000 per plate DNC fundraiser, the President explains that it's your fault if you're dissatisfied

The Washington Post's contempt for readers: Prominent Time Warner employee writes a love letter to Time magazine

Above all else, the mythology of Muslim as Scary Menace must be preserved

On the eve of a new leak, widely trumpeted Pentagon accusations about the whistleblowing site have proven false

A media demonization campaign against the whistle-blowing site includes outright falsehoods