NY Times Admits it Lied to Help Bush

[chequita guevara]

Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

They pushed poorly sourced, specious claims, and buried more thorough research which discredited earlier claims.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I wonder why I even read any of your posts anymore.

It amuses you. Admit it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.

*GASP* Big articles based on fresh sources get put on the front page, while follow up ones, based on events a few weeks ago are buried in the paper! That NEVER happens!

It amuses you. Admit it.

Ok fine... but I wonder how people can get like this sometimes.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Arrian
"NY Times admits that it's journalism was shoddy."

Yep. (Again )

[East Street Trader]

The article leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Because it implies that this newspaper does some substantial amount of painstaking checking of facts but, Homer being entitled occasionally to nod, on some limited number of occasions forgot to do so.

That is bull****. It does what every other newspaper does - it publishes whatever stuff it's reporters "sources" can provide. Under cover (when it gets around to remembering to include it) of some flimsy attribution.

If you get the chance to see a daily newspaper up close what hits you in the eye is how hugely hungry the presses are for material. They just gobble stuff up. So the life of reporters and sub editors and so on is lived at a terrifyingly fast pace just gathering in and organising as high a volume of stuff as they can get their hands on.

The notion that they maturely deliberate or go back and check background facts is remote. If there is someone involved who can hit back - or the story will attract enough attention so that a retraction cannot just be tucked away at the bottom of page six - they may try to "confirm" a story from a second source before printing. (A nearly worthless precaution bearing in mind the dubious nature of those who peddle tittle tattle).

We were treated to a close examination of the process in the enquiry recently concluded here (the UK). The journalist concerned was roundly criticised for choosing to publish the material he obtained so as to give the worst possible aspect to the governmnet's conduct but what passed without a single comment was the fact that his basic approach was to conduct one short interview on tape and then publish everything that was said (as he had chosen to hear it) entirely uncritically. And it was quite right for this to pass un-noticed. it is what journalist do. As they always have.

"Coverage not as rigorous as it should have been" indeed. Sanctimonious, self important, two faced claptrap.

[Colon™]

Conservatives defending the NY Times. Good job che.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Colon
Conservatives defending the NY Times. Good job che.

[The Mad Monk]

No, no, it's still biased and inaccurate -- we're just saying that they haven't quite sunk to the level of the Weekly World News.

Yet.

[chequita guevara]

You were pwnzed!!!!

[DinoDoc]

Yea sure. You were just trolling. Whatever. Smells like a backtrack to me.

[DanS]

The context here is that The New York Times was getting a lot of flak in recent days from conservatives because it was criticizing the Bush administration for putting too much stock in Chalabi, but was using him as a main source itself. The Times just came clean and admitted their mistake.

You could look at this cynically and say that now The Times will criticize the Bush administration for not coming clean for relying on Chalabi, while The Times has come clean. That's par for the course.

And it was quite right for this to pass un-noticed. it is what journalist do.

Maybe in the UK. We demand more of our journalists in the US. Perhaps that is unrealistic, but that's what we do. Print journalism in the US doesn't seem nearly as tabloid as the UK press.

[Arrian]

Sanctimonious, self important, two faced claptrap.

It is the NYT, after all.

-Arrian

[Colon™]

Originally posted by DanS
The context here is that The New York Times was getting a lot of flak in recent days from conservatives because it was criticizing the Bush administration for putting too much stock in Chalabi, but was using him as a main source itself. The Times just came clean and admitted their mistake.

You could look at this cynically and say that now The Times will criticize the Bush administration for not coming clean for relying on Chalabi, while The Times has come clean. That's par for the course.

Yeah well, it's not like the Bush administration had ever managed to admit a mistake, even when it does a 180° turn.

[DanS]

See, there you go. Colon is anticipating the new New York Times line.

Too bad it just ain't true.

[chequita guevara]

All trolling aside, The NYT has a serious credibility problem. Jason Blair was merely icing on the cake. More problematically is that the conservative editorship has taken many right-wing claims at face value, giving them a lot of promotion over the last decade, when there wasn't evidence to suport the accusations.

Whitewater: false
Wen Ho Lee: false
WMDs in Iraq: false

All major stories which advanced the cause of the conservatives. Meanwhile, stoies which would have discredited conservatives have been downplayed or there was an attempt on the part of the paper to discredt them.

Bush's military record
CIA cocaine
The massacres by Central American governments in the 80s
and so on.

Hardly the bastion of liberalism or integrity either spectrum supposes.