New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly claim the most important detail from the excerpt the paper ran from their new book about Justice Brett Kavanaugh was removed during the editing process.
The essay about a second female Yale student who was allegedly victimized by Kavanaugh omitted the fact that she has no memory of it whatsoever.
The Times was forced to issue a correction, but then continued to spread the lie in other stories.
Speaking to MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell, the reporters claimed the article originally included the words noted in the correction—that “the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident”—but said it could’ve been removed by editors because "the Times doesn’t usually include the names of the victim and in this case the editors felt like it was better to remove it and in removing her name they removed the other reference to the fact that she didn’t remember it," Pogrebin said.
“We certainly never intended to mislead in any way,” she added.
The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway said that fails to explain "why they signed off on inaccurately edited version or why they didn’t say anything all day yesterday."
Reporters blame their editors for leaving the single most important detail out of their story. They don’t explain why they signed off on inaccurately edited version or why they didn’t say anything all day yesterday. https://t.co/2jqtDE4dOM
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 17, 2019
In response to a question about any other women coming forward, the authors excitedly tell Max Stier story, never mentioning that they never spoke to the woman or that she denied it through several friends. Difficult to blame this on editing.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 17, 2019
Investigative journalist and Townhall columnist Phelim McAleer also pointed out that they continued with the lie in their NPR interview.
Were the @nytimes editors sitting at their shoulders during this @NPR interview? Because they omitted the exculpatory evidence in this piece also Deception starts at 29:55 https://t.co/VnXw5rFlwV…
— Phelim (@PhelimMcAleer) September 17, 2019