Times on a Roll
Times on a Roll
Why is The New York Times increasingly considered unreliable?
What with the paper of record back in full denial mode with respect to its latest falsifications, we might point out how differently The Wall Street Journal handles ethics questions.
A friend there tells us that The Journal ran a series of four critical stories a few years back about a large U.S. consumer-products company. For the first three articles, the investigating reporter called up and was told the company did not wish to comment on the story, and their "no comment" went into the paper. But for the fourth piece, the writer, approaching deadline, failed to call the company and inserted another "no comment" anyway. That was his mistake. Because the company had in the meantime decided to comment, it complained to Journal higher-ups, who sacked the reporter.
We think Times reporter James Dao should be fired. This isn't because he falsely made it seem that a dead Iraq War veteran was bitter and unhappy about serving in the war when he was, in fact, a passionate supporter of it.
It's that Dao refuses to admit that he did anything wrong.
All of us make mistakes. (In our brief time at this paper, we certainly have.) But a person who can't admit or acknowledge their deceptions shouldn't be working as a journalist, certainly not at the paper of record.
The larger issue, though, is that The Times still isn't serious about taking action against dishonest reporters. The rot starts at the top, with executive editor Bill Keller.
Bound up with this is a special irony regarding Times op-ed writer Maureen Dowd's attacks on rival reporter Judith Miller: Few have recalled that Dowd had previously deliberately falsified comments of President Bush in a column-and that Keller never bothered to take any action against Dowd for that.
-Jim Finch