Friday, February 22, 2008
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NYT Responds to Reader Comments
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Posted by:
Matt Lewis at
3:30 PM
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In the wake of the firestorm surrounding yesterday's allegations, the NYT been forced to explain themselves. As they write today:
The NYT has received more than 2,000 comments, many of them criticizing the handling of the article. More than 3,700 questions have been sent via e-mail to The Times on Thursday night and Friday. Editors and reporters who worked on the article are answering some of the questions on Friday. (You can read the NYT responses here.)
... To give you an idea what the NYT is saying, here is the part where they answer the "are you surprised by the reaction" question. Notice, they blame much of the outrage -- not on their flawed story -- but on "McCain's operatives":
I think we all expected the reaction to be intense. We knew from our experience last year, when word leaked out we were pursuing this story, that Senator McCain's operatives would set out to change the subject by making the story about The New York Times rather than about their candidate. That's a time-honored tactic for dealing with potentially damaging news stories. We knew some readers would disagree with our decision to publish this information. After all, we wrestled with our own doubts on that score. We anticipated that it would provoke at least a brief media firestorm — and that our efforts to put Mr. McCain's relationship with a lobbyist in a bigger context would probably get lost in the retelling...
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This is a load of bull McCain is the one who wants this story out.
He know he can't spend any money and the more Huckabee beats him the lower his stock goes.
He needs to change the subject and how better for a 71y/o man to do so than jump in front of a SEX scandel.
This is so telegraphed the NYtimes is playing a part becuase this helps their Hildabeast with the Obama factor.
McCain needs the free press and Hillary needs a co-scandel thats why she is on the attack again.
Who else could be trying to push Barrack out of the closet? If everyone starts scanning the tabloids for a dig on McCain they will end up questioning Obama on the gay charge.
McCain needs to be a victim to get every GOP sheeple off the immagration topic.
This is 1st grade type "smearthequeer" crap |
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One of my professors (a strong Obama supporter) said, after reading Obama's book (I haven't read it but have no reason to doubt her) - he makes a point that we must all get past labeling one another ie. all republicans are evil and all democrats are stupid. Good point! After reading most of the latest blogs, I have arrived at this point -- As a long time republican,I am fully willing to accept being called evil if the democrats will just admit..........
LOLOL - Isabelle put me in such high humor that I just couldn't resist!!! |
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"perpetrators of evil." LOLOLOL - you have made my day - I really needed a good laugh. Hubby has a bad cold and is grumpy; the dog barfed on the rug, and the garbage disposal stopped. Thank you, I adore the old saw of right wing conspiracy and evil republicans. LOLOL |
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Too late. The cat's already out of the bag and any other journalist worth their weight can carry this story to it's end without fearing the wrath from the rightwing - whom, as we all know, are well-known for attacking the messenger rather than the perpetrators of evil. |
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Headline should be:
NYT stock falls another 10% after blatent partisan reporting reaffirmed. . . |
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Soothsayer,
You have a felony conviction on your record.
The Secret Service won't allow you within a half mile of the inauguration !
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In the meantime, we'll laugh all the way to the White House! :D |
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The people have a right to know when an experienced Senator is nice and chummy with a packaged sexy lobbyist. Packaging sex with lobbying is very, very suspicious in itself, with or without a Senator taking the bait.. |
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"NYT reports a 10 year old story based on thin, really thin information."
They've done it before - it was called Whitewater, except it was much older and thinner.
You guys didn't mind then - didn't hold their feet to the fire when the story panned - so this is what you get.
Enjoy |
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The NY Times piece is for obvious reasons not a model of journalistic purity. The sources are somewhat murky and the allegations somewhat irrelevant. If there is something real and significant to this story, I'm sure we can expect to see something further in the future, but for the time being McCain has resoundingly refuted the piece.
But here is the thing for me. As a Romney supporter, I'm having a hard time caring that McCain's character was probably unfairly attacked in this story. I don't think it was right for the Times to do it, but I'm partly of the opinion that McCain spent enough time during this campaign blatantly and unfairly assailing the character of my candidate, that when it happens to him, I barely raise an eyebrow. I'm not happy that it was done, and I'm not bitter about Romney's withdrawal, but I just can't get myself to care for what happens to McCain, and I certainly don't have a visceral reaction to this smear by the Times, nor do I feel a need to go to bat for McCain.
Am I alone in this? |
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NYT reports a 10 year old story based on thin, really thin information. They made a run at it in 2000 - no legs then either. It is pure tabloid stuff. Robert S. Bennett investigate the K5 for the Ethics committee - said he advised the committee to cut McCain out of the whole issue because he had done nothing even remotely illegal or suspicious - they didn't because it would have left only dems. He stated that this is just smear, everyone who knows McCain says it's smear, the woman and her company says it's smear. The problem is you can't unring a bell - just saying it makes the dems thrilled. The timing is meant to rip and tear at republicans, no surprise there. The NYT supported him when they didn't think he could win - now they are worried so the slime machine goes to work. I am voting McCain - can't fool me.
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I don't know, I remember when I was growing up and all the gossipy ladies in the neighborhood would be in a tissy,You would hear them say, when you hear a rumor, remember only half of it is true!!!hehe!!! |
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And I don't get this NYT saying that McCain didn;t respond to the story. They did respond!!!
They got testimony from McCain, Iseman and anyone they could find not under the name anonymous to say there was no sexual relationship. McCain told the Times when the story is leaked that he never talked to aides about this and unless they got people on the record he couldn't respond.
They also produced all the letters they send on behalf of the lobbyists company to prove no wrongdoing. None of that showed up in the article.
What else did the Times want!!!
Face it. They had six writers on the story who produced nothing. Those writers forced the Times to air the story to avoid embaressment of wasting hundreds of thousands (Alot for even the NYT) for nothing.
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So in other words the NYT response is, "People have a hard time seeing the greater context of our story because of the mistruths and fraud we perpetrated."
And this is the gold standard of journalism. I also like the "We knew this would be a controversial piece" bit.
There was a great line in the great HBO show The Wire when a homeless person confronts a journalist who wrote a misleading story about him. "Your point of view doesn't mean anything. A lie is just a lie."
And a smear is just a smear. This reminds me of the great Dan Rather after using fake information on Bush. "One mistake shouldn't get in the way of the context of the story."
A lie is just a lie no matter what point you are trying to make.
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