In this episode of The Dennis Prager Show, host Dennis Prager interviews author Ashley Rinsberg about her book The Gray Lady Winked: The New York Times: Misreporting, Distortions, and Fabrications Radically Alter History. Rinsberg explains that the book originated from a footnote in William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which noted that the New York Times ran a 1939 front‑page story claiming Poland had invaded Germany – a claim that mirrored Nazi propaganda. This discovery sparked her investigation into a pattern of NYT errors and intentional distortions spanning World War II and beyond. She cites several key examples: the Nazi‑aligned misreporting of the Polish invasion; Walter Duranty’s denial of the Ukrainian famine (Holodomor) and his Pulitzer, allegedly driven by the Times’ ownership to facilitate U.S. recognition of the USSR; and Frederick Burchall’s glowing coverage of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, also Pulitzer‑winning, which served Nazi propaganda. Rinsberg discusses how these stories were not isolated mistakes but part of a broader editorial agenda, often influenced by owners’ political goals. The interview also touches on Rinsberg’s background, her methodology of cross‑checking NYT reports with on‑the‑ground realities (e.g., in Israel), and the broader implication that caring about NYT coverage can cloud moral clarity. The conversation frames the book as a corrective work exposing systematic propaganda and urging listeners to critically assess mainstream media narratives.
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Among those of us in public life, you can divide the world into these two groups: those who care about what the New York Times says about them and those who do not. The only way to moral clarity in this country is not to care about what the New York Times says about you. That's by way of introduction of an extremely important work that has just been published titled The Gray The Gray Lady Winked. The Gray Lady is known as the New York Times. The New York Times: Misreporting, Distortions, and Fabrications Radically Alter History is the subtitle. The author is Ashley Rinsberg, who when I read his biography, I would say qualifies as a Renaissance man, novelist, essayist, freelance journalist. Et cetera, et cetera. Born in South Africa, and then the rest is fascinating history. So, Ashley Rinsberg, welcome to The Dennis Prager Show.
Thank you, Dennis. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you so much.
What prompted you to write this book?
Well, the book grew out of a chance occurrence when I was kind of thumbing through a copy of William Shire's great book of history on World War II, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. And in a footnote, Sire just kind of noted almost casually that on the eve of World War II, the New York Times had run a story claiming that Poland had invaded Germany, which was— I was sitting in my chair and it just kind of almost knocked me out of the chair. It was such a crazy idea that the New York Times could print something that was so wrong, so opposite to what we know is the truth about World War II. It's fundamental. And that launched me on a mission to understand how that happened, why that happened, what else happened like that. And that eventually evolved into a full book.
That is mind-blowing. I didn't want to interrupt you. I want to repeat this.
It really is.
Well, I, I remember reading that in college, by the way. It is one of the most riveting works of history I have ever read. And I think it stands up in time, don't you?
I absolutely do. And not only does his book or his books stand up, but his journalism does too. And that was really important, something that I went back and looked at how other journalists, how other news outlets were covering events like World War II. And, you know, 'cause it's easy to say, well, looking back, it's 2020, very nice of you, you did your research great. But the reality was that people like Shire or Edward Murrow, they were reporting very much correctly. They were reporting on things like World War II or the Holocaust or many other events in history that the Times completely botched. These guys got it right and the Times got it completely wrong. So it wasn't just about hindsight.
Who did Shire report for?
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that Shire was one of Murrow's boys.
So that was at NBC? What network?
That's a good question. I'm—
okay, fine, it's not important. But Shira was not a New York Times reporter?
No, no.
Right, okay. I want to get back to your revelation. So you saw in— was it a footnote, did you say?
A footnote in Shira's book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
So yes, the New York Times actually reported This is what I said was mind-blowing, that Poland invaded Germany and not the other way around.
Yeah, so the, the lead story on that day in 1939 was basically a reprint of Nazi propaganda.
That's what the Nazis claimed. That's right, it was— they were responding to a Polish invasion.
Exactly, exactly. And, and it wasn't by chance, of course. This was— these were very well-seasoned propagandists, the Nazis, and they decided they would launch the war by deceiving the world as to the fact that would give them enough time, enough credibility. It would confuse the story enough to create a pause, and that's all they needed. As we know, they were— one of their biggest strategies was using the blitz, move fast, storm, and just having the space of a few days where people people said, oh, okay, well, if the Polish insurrectionists actually did invade the German border town, then maybe the Germans are right to invade Poland. It kind of makes sense. And that's exactly what the Nazis wanted. But it all depended on getting this out into the world, and having it printed on the front page of the New York Times was, I would say, qualified as—
okay, so that Remember, this was all in answer to my question, what prompted you to write this book about the New York Times and its lies? So that footnote sort of triggered this whole thing in you?
Yeah, I, you know, I think a lot of, a lot of people like myself at the time and still today have a sense that something is up when you read certain stories or coverage in the mainstream media. You get a sense that you're not getting the full picture, and sometimes you even get a glimpse where you absolutely know you're not getting the full picture. In my case, I had been living in Israel, I still live in Israel, and I saw the Times reporting here, and I saw the reality on the ground here, and I said, there's just no way to reconcile these two things. The reality is so divergent from what I'm reading in this illustrious newspaper. How can it be? And when I saw this little footnote in William Shire's book, I said, okay, there's something more here. There's something going on. And when I discovered what happened throughout The Times' coverage of World War II over the course of a decade, that's when I started to understand that that feeling that I had that something was amiss was actually real. It was what we call, you know, almost like being gaslighted when you discover, aha, it's not me, it's them.
Well, of course it began even before the 1939 German invasion. Because they got the Pulitzer Prize for denying that the Ukrainians were having a famine.
Yes, definitely, definitely that. And that was, um, at least on the same level, the same proportion as their coverage, or their botched coverage of World War II, which is that famously a reporter named Walter Duranty covered up Ukraine famine. He denied it in his reporting. He was I would say the most famous English language reporter in the world at the time. He was a brilliant person, um, spoke 5 languages, Oxford educated. And the Times' narrative still today is that he was kind of a rogue reporter. He was slovenly. They really pinned it on him, but that isn't the story. Duranty knew very well what was going on in Russia and Ukraine. He was there. He was on the ground. He was very well connected. He covered it up, it turns out, because he was instructed to. And this is the story The New York Times has never really let out, and I've never really seen it pieced together or told in this way. You know, the question is, why would Duranty do this? Why would he risk his whole career, his journalistic reputation, to peddle such a big lie? I mean, the Ukraine famine was big news. It was a big story. And if you're a journalist, you want that story. You don't want to cover up the story. You don't want to make it seem as if there's no story. So that's the question. Why did he do it? It's a question no one really asks. And the answer to it is because the New York Times' ownership wanted it to be told in this way, because they were pushing for American official recognition of the USSR. This was the early days of the Soviet regime. And you could not convince the American public that their government should recognize this regime if it had just killed 2 to 3 million of its own people. Turns out the number was actually much greater than that, but that's what was known at the time. And they buried it for that reason, and it worked. FDR recognized the USSR. It was with Walter Duranty's help who really shepherded the process, and everybody kind of got what they wanted aside from the American public.
Why did he get a Pulitzer Prize? Were they as corrupt as the New York Times?
You know, it's one of these things that's very hard to digest, and it's that The reporter who, during World War II, on the eve of World War II, printed the Nazi lies on the front page of the New York Times received a Pulitzer. The New York Times reporter who called the Berlin Nazi Olympics the greatest sporting event of all time received a Pulitzer.
Who said that?
This was a man named Frederick Burchall, who doesn't have the profile of Duranty. Right.
I was just curious. I'm impressed that you even remember the name, but that's what he wrote from Berlin in the New York Times?
That's what he reported from Berlin, and that was a lot of the times his coverage was very much carrying that water. And again, the Berlin Olympics were very clearly a propaganda—
Yes, totally. I'll be back in a moment. The book The Gray Lady Winked about the New York Times, up at DennisPrager.com.
