Lucia

de Vernai

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December 24, 2008

P’wned! Lazy New York Times Gets Taken by Phony Letter

The editors of the New York Times have gone beyond the call of proud left-wing media duty on more than one occasion in recent memory. Despite having to use one of its buildings as collateral due to less-than-glowing financial statements, the daily has not lost the self-assured content selection that only the New Yorker could (maybe) compete with.

Earlier this year, the NYT rejected an op-ed by presidential hopeful John McCain about his plan for Iraq only a week after it published a piece on the same subject by President-elect Obama. The editor of the section explained, saying, “'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written” but would be pleased to look at another draft. Well, the piece was in the op-ed section and no one has ever accused NYT of ardent impartiality. Who can blame them for closely guarding their journalistic principles and protecting the ideological integrity of the publication?

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe can. On Monday, the NYT published an electronically received letter from Delanoe criticizing Caroline Kennedy’s sudden and desperate attempt to replace Hillary Clinton as New York’s senator. "We French can only see a dynastic move of the vanishing Kennedy clan in the very country of the Bill of Rights,” the letter said, calling it, “both surprising and appalling."   

Since it is perfectly common for European bureaucrats with no diplomatic authority to write biased letters about issues not irrelevant to their constituencies in American newspapers, NYT published the letter without confirming its origin with French authorities. Unlike McCain’s opinion on the war, the French mayor’s criticism of American politics was based on experience and impeccably written. Right . . .
 

Ironically, the hoax was first pointed out by a French news source France-Amerique, a French-language monthly based in New York City. Then Delanoe’s people asked for a denial and apology. And then the NYT admitted that maybe something went wrong. Given that print journalism is quickly fossilizing and industry giants cannot make ends meet, credibility is the only thing papers like the NYT have to keep them in business.

“All the News that’s Fit to Print,” the paper’s motto and grounds for rejecting candidate’s letters rely on the tradition the publication. Mistakes like this undercut the foundation of trust and accuracy that journalists have worked and risked their lives for for decades. All those months correspondents spend listening to air strikes in the Middle East mean little to readers who see yet another media outlet blatantly unconcerned with the truth. A mistake like this is not an omission or an accident the way misspelling a four-syllable Kuwaiti name is. It’s hubris and carelessness and editorial double standards. And probably a Barney’s holiday sale that ends in 40 minutes.   

The letter should not have been published without verification, NYT admits, and they’re looking into measures to prevent such incidents in the future. Getting off the high horse and using some of that Lord and Taylor advertising money to start making calls would be a good place to start.   

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