I was interviewed some years ago by a NYT reporter from the Science section of the Times. The reporter spent the entire afternoon with me and it was like taking you orals' over again. I was very satisfied with the article. Since that time, particularly in the last several years I've noticed the quality of the reporting has declined and several articles on people I know either personally or by reputation have been short changed by the Times's reporting. I think the current scandal is illustrative of a growing problem.
I'm a subscriber to the Times -- have been for two decades -- and would have to nitpick a little bit on the assessment of its reporting. There are some first rate reporters -- off the top of my head, the Stephens (Labaton and Erlanger), Elizabeth Bumiller, Adam Nagourney (the one Bush and Cheney, in what they thought was a private moment, called an a**hole right next to a mike that was on), not to mention opinion writers like Krugman, Herbert, Frank Rich, and Kristoff. I think the paper needs a new editor, and I hate to say that because I always quite liked Howell Raines. But I think his desperate centrism has cut the wings off and the bird is having a hard time flying. There are a couple of good people in the wings, wanting the editorship. Be interesting to see what happens.
They are now discussing whether to correct the correction:
Quote:Insiders say that the New York Times is preparing to make a correction on a portion of the massive correction it ran on May 11, regarding the fabrications, factual errors and plagiarism that appeared in disgraced reporter Jayson Blair's stories over several years.
The original 14,000-word correction and article ran on the front page of the Times.
But there is some contentiousness over how or even whether to publish a correction to the correction.
"One of the writers of the piece is resisting the correction," said an insider.
The story carried five bylines, and credited an additional two researchers. The resistance is said to be coming from reporter David Barstow - one of the five writers on the piece.
Reached yesterday, Barstow said, "I can't help you. Talk to the editors."
A Times spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter.
Un-be-freaking-lievable.
Of course, this is uncredited, and from the competition, so it could just be
schadenfreude...
New York Post
Sometimes when I'm in a part of the area where car radio reception is almost nil, I listen to Limbaugh. In the past couple of weeks he's been on a campaign against the NYTimes. I'm a little nervous about the possibility that smear may come into this -- not to say that the NYTimes hasn't erred badly and embarrassingly, but I'd hate to see a Condit/Monica campaign emerge from this simply because one section of media is being used against another.
