Do these guys do any research at all???? Another Bad Slip for 'NY Times': Katrina Victim Unmasked By E&P Staff Published: March 23, 2006 10:10 AM ET NEW YORK For the second time in less than a week, The New York Times today admitted to a serious error in a story. On Saturday it said it had misidentified a man featured in the iconic "hooded inmate" photograph from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Today it discloses that a woman it profiled on March 8 is not, in fact, a victim of Hurricane Katrina--and was arrested for fraud and grand larceny yesterday. As it did in the Abu Ghraib mistake, the Times ran an editors' note on page 2 of its front section, along with a lengthy news article (this time on the front page of Section B). Again mirroring the Abu Ghraib episode, the newspaper revealed a surprising and inexplicable lapse in fact-checking on the part of a reporter and/or editor. The original article, more than 1000 words in length, was written by Nicholas Confessore. He also wrote the news article about the error today. Without saying that he wrote the first story, he wrote today: "The Times did not verify many aspects of Ms. Fenton's claims, never interviewed her children, and did not confirm the identity of the man she described as her husband." The editors' note states: "An article in The Metro Section on March 8 profiled Donna Fenton, identifying her as a 37-year-old victim of Hurricane Katrina who had fled Biloxi, Miss., and who was frustrated in efforts to get federal aid as she and her children remained as emergency residents of a hotel in Queens. "Yesterday, the New York police arrested Ms. Fenton, charging her with several counts of welfare fraud and grand larceny. Prosecutors in Brooklyn say she was not a Katrina victim, never lived in Biloxi and had improperly received thousands of dollars in government aid. Ms. Fenton has pleaded not guilty. "For its profile, The Times did not conduct adequate interviews or public record checks to verify Ms. Fenton's account, including her claim that she had lived in Biloxi. Such checks would have uncovered a fraud conviction and raised serious questions about the truthfulness of her account." Last Saturday, the Times editors' note disclosed that Ali Shalal Qaissi, pictured on the front page "as the hooded man forced to stand on a box, attached to wires, in a photograph from the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal of 2003 and 2004," was not that man. "The Times did not adequately research Mr. Qaissi's insistence that he was the man in the photograph," it related.
Ah yes, the New York Times... excellence in journalism. This doesn't come as a surprise to anyone anymore... even liberals. It's just common knowledge now. It will be swept under the rug. Anyone remember Jayson Blair, or did we all forget?
Interesting to note that it took the Times "several dozen" stories before "noticing" Jayson's plagiarism's. Hmm...
All the libs call fox news a bunch of liars but it's the NY Times, Boston Globe, and let us not forget the new republic who are the ones that are conistently getting caught lying. This is twice this week for the times. All the lies that are fit to print.
You'll notice these false stories all tend to have a common template, eg victims of a cruel and incompetent adminsitration. It wouldn't occur to the reporter to check the facts too closely, because they would naturally assume the story was true.
I remember the NYT profiling a woman who was a waitress in Montana or something. The Time's angle was she wouldn't save an iota in taxes under the then new Bush plan. Poster child for how common folk are raped by "tax cut for the rich" ect. It wasn't until an alternative journalist interviewed the waitress that it was discovered she had no tax liability under either tax rate. It's awfully tough to cut one's tax bill to below zero!
Not if you are a Democrat who believes in the redistribution of wealth it isn't. Most of them are for that provided they aren't the ones paying the taxes. (See the Kennedys)
That's very unfair. If somebody comes to them with an anti-democrat story sure, they'll ignore it. And if somebody comes to them with memos from 1970 hot off the laser printer and obvious forgeries (but anti-Republican), yeah they'll run it without blinking. But once a story that shows a democrat in a bad light gets out, they'll be doing nothing but research to disprove it. And if they fail to disprove, they'll even run the regular story. Just look at the research they did on the Swifties. Make no mistake, they've got research-ability and are willing to use it, for the right cause.