Exclusive: NYT Public Editor Concedes O'Keefe 'Pimp' Hoax 'Unethical' But Won't Call for Retractions

[BradBlog]

Exclusive: NYTimes Public Editor Declines to Recommend Retraction for Multiple Erroneous Reports on False ACORN 'Pimp' Story
Despite repeated confirmation that the 'paper of record' was wrong, Clark Hoyt declines to recommend retractions
Describes O'Keefe as 'journalistically unethical', but recommends only that editors avoid 'dressed as pimp' language in future coverage...

The New York Times' independent Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, after sending me an email originally standing by the paper's misreporting of the James O'Keefe ACORN 'pimp' story, now describes the rightwing activists misrepresentation of his highly-edited and heavily-overdubbed hit videos as "journalistically unethical".

At the end of the remarkable email exchange between Hoyt and myself (published in full at the end of this article), he says he recommended only that "Times editors ...avoid language that says or suggests that O'Keefe was dressed as a pimp when he captured the ACORN employees on camera".

Even as Hoyt has now been given a mountain of evidence showing the Times was reporting was in error -- and even as I debunked, in no uncertain terms -- the three key reasons he originally offered to me for not recommending a correction, Hoyt nonetheless wrote in his final communication to me: "I still don't see that a correction is in order, because that would require conclusive evidence that The Times was wrong, which I haven't seen."…

But of course by now, he has seen, or at least he has been sent "conclusive evidence that The Times was wrong." Yet he has still declined to recommend any retractions by the "paper of record"…

FULL STORY, COMPLETE EMAIL THREAD WITH HOYT: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7715

[gratuitous]

1. If I read this right

Clark Hoyt is saying that the public should not expect too much out of the New York Times, as far as reporting facts accurately. You'd think that Times management wouldn't want to encourage the public to draw that conclusion, but as long as their own ombudsman makes the case that the Times isn't concerned about facts, why should anyone else?

[BradBlog]

4. You read it right...but it's even worse than that...

See his emails in the full article. It's simply astounding...

[EFerrari]

2. Ask him when the Times intends to investigate Ohio.

Some of us are still waiting on that! Okrent PROMISED they would if there was a story there:


Dear Ms. Ferrari,

In the first few weeks after the election several readers wrote us about this issue. Mr. Okrent responded to these concerns on his web journal. I include the entry below (see post #35).

http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/f...

dokrent - 5:40 PM ET November 21, 2004 (#35 of 40)

The Times and Covering Allegations of Election Fraud

Sorry to have been neglecting this spot for so long; I could give you a list of excuses, but none of them
is especially good.

Now, though, my mailbox has begun to overflow with criticisms of The Times for not looking more deeply
into allegations of large-scale vote fraud in Ohio and Florida, a story (if true) that no one can ignore. In some
of these messages, writers say that "now that the theft of the election has been proven ...," The Times must
reveal this to the wider world.

Were the assertion even nearly so, I would do more than recommend that The Times reveal it ­ I’d be
demanding it publicly, loudly and frequently. But the evidence I have seen to date proves nothing, other than
that there was a certain amount of error in certain counties, and an aggressive effort by some partisans in
some areas to challenge some likely Democratic voters. To my knowledge, no one in the Kerry campaign’s
vast on-the-ground operation, or in its armies of well-situated lawyers, has made the argument that what
happened in Ohio (or Florida) could have changed the result of the election. Similar views were explained
in "Vote Fraud Theories, Spread By Blogs, Are Quickly Buried," by Tom Zeller (Nov. 12).

And more, I expect, will be explored and explained in future articles if meaningful allegations can indeed
be established as facts. Both Matthew Purdy, the head of The Times’s investigative unit, and Rick Berke, the
paper’s Washington editor, assure me that reporters will continue to look into the issue. I’m confident that if
they find something, they’ll publish it. A good investigative reporter (much less a whole staff of them) turning
away from a story like this one ­ if true ­ would be like a flower turning away from the sun. Careers are made
by stories that detail massive election fraud.

But: the operative words here are if true. Wishing doesn’t make it so. Although it would probably pain him to
have someone from The Times touting his work, David Corn of The Nation, in a recent column, offers plenty
of reason to examine the allegations before I, or anyone else, should leap to give them credence. You can
find Corn’s column here.

Since then, over seven hundred other readers have raised similar concerns requesting more coverage on this issue. You may be interested in the following articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22poll.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/politics/15ohio.html

I raised reader concerns with Mr. Okrent and a few days ago he asked me to let you know that he does not believe The Times's coverage of the voting in Ohio is over.

The following articles have since appeared:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/politics/29ohio.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/national/24vote.html

Mr. Okrent wanted me to write you back asking that you please stay tuned.

Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times


:sarcasm:

Take it to them, Brad.

:kick:

[90-percent]

3. Like Michael Moore said

I think a link from democracy now? Anyway, he said that European papers are driven by readership, so they have to come out with stuff people want to read. In America, papers are driven by advertisers, so the needs of the reader may not be served. The needs of the corporations to use the reader as a consumer are what's being served in the States.

Who would want to read a paper that doesn't care about the facts and ignores wrongdoing?

I'm not going to pay for the privilege of reading corporate Pravda.

-90% Jimmy

[Uncle Joe]

5. I wonder what kind of legal recourse, ACORN would have against the Times?

Thanks for the thread, BradBlog.

[scannerdarkly]

6. Petition to make the Times accountable

A petition on this very issue has been posted at the Petition Site (Care2):
Tell the NY Times: retract anti-ACORN reportage