This morning the LA Times published a full and official retraction of its Tupak Shakur story. Although I didn’t blog about it, I was initially feeling mighty critical of Times reporter Chuck Philips’ for what appeared to be his lack of adequate vetting of the material, but upon reflection I think that Alan Mittelstaedt had it exactly right in his Thursday LA Sniper column on the issue, and the Times’ handling of it—-as compared to….oh, I don’t know….the New York Times when confronted with its own patterns of using unvetted misinformation. Here’re a couple of clips from Alan’s column:
It’s not like Chuck and his editors ducked the incoming barrage. Within hours of learning of his mistake, Philips owned up to it and apologized. The next day, his paper ran a front-page correction. Philips and Times Editor Russ Stanton deserve a standing ovation, not to be pissed on by the legions of misinformed pundits.
Ladies and gentlemen, Chuck Philips made a mistake. A human error, no matter how serious or public, is, in the end, just a human error. The mistakes that matter more are the institutional ones. Look how long it took The New York Times to face the fiction spewed by Judith Miller and her paper about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction: the Times’ mea culpa ran on May 26, 2004 — three years or more after its propaganda began misleading a nation.
Or consider the case of Wen Ho Lee, the Chinese-American scientist suspected of stealing nuclear secrets from Los Alamos. The N.Y. Times destroyed his career with a story that ran on March 6, 1999. Eighteen months later, on September 26, 2000, the paper finally ran a bloated, charitable analysis of its poor handling of the story and said it “should have pushed harder to uncover weaknesses in the FBI case against Dr. Lee.”
(I also liked that Alan put in a plug for the moral superiority of dogs.)
…paper ran a front-page correction”
Lies about Tupak Shakur get retracted on the front page while lies about Republicans get corrected in the small print on page B-31.
Some advice for the Times’ lawyers: Next time, figure out a way to combine the front-page apology and the front-page retraction. With some strategic thinking, there would be no reason to run both and drag your reputation and that of excellent reporter Philips through the mud twice. My bill’s in the mail.
Woody – examples please?
As to the story – if Chuck Phillips and his editors took a few hours (or even a day) to confirm this what would have been the harm? Was anyone else breathing down their necks on this story? If confirming court docs is so difficult then why was this exposed so quickly?
When it comes to stories like this the TIMES has had a glass jaw for years. Remember “Freeway Ricky Ross?” He was the Capo di tutti Capi of drug dealers in South Central until allegations of CIA involvement (“Dark Alliance”) in the MERCURY-NEWS listed himas the chief conduit. Then he became a “minor Player” – thats when I threw in the towel and decided to start reading the dog trainer – and the NYT – like PRAVDA. Always, what is the motive here?
rlc, I see your point. Lies against Republicans are usually not retracted at all.
Evidence please? Examples?
Seems to me they’ve been more than kind to McCain who seems to have a problem distinguishing Shiites from Sunnis and got the Basra situation ass backwards yesterday (HINT: Maliki called for an Iranian brokered cease fire). But you wouldn’t know that from the media accounts that just parroted his falsehoods.
Meanwhile Hillary is taken to task (rightly) for screwing up a hospital story. Inexcusable since there are so many true examples. But which is more substantive?
rlc, I’m staying up late trying to meet a tax deadline. Surely, you can do your own research on this.
McCain just “misspoke
Woody is staying up late to figure out how to cheat the Government with his income taxes – typical Republican.
You know, it’s not so easy to lie about Republicans. They do such a magnificent job on their own reputations, there’s little need to assist them.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. (Napoleon Bonaparte)
Listener, the list doesn’t go back far enough, I didn’t see “Tricky Dick” Nixon or Oliver North, it would require tetra-byte file servers to maintain a longer history of Republican corruption.
rlc, I’m staying up late trying to meet a tax deadline. Surely, you can do your own research on this.
Shorter Woody: I make the claim, but you have to find my proof yourself.
Essentially, you still have nothing but truthiness.
You guys pick the most absurd things on which to demand “proof.”
You make a claim and can’t back it up. You’re a lightweight.
Pathetic. Simply, pathetic.
Yes you are. Recognition is the first step towards healing.