Several weeks ago (November 29th), I posted an entry here on Vital Signs Blog about a dastardly deceit perpetrated by the New York Times, a deceit promoting abortion that was extreme even by the Times standard. Well, this column by Michelle Malkin in Jewish World Review pursues the affair a bit farther and is, even to those jaded by years of watching the MSM hide, distort and malign the truth, pretty startling.And, by the way, here's a letter published in The Examiner today that succinctly covers the same issue. (Yes, writing letters to editors pays off.)
Byron Calame, public editor [ombudsman] of The New York Times, has performed an extraordinary public service by exposing one of the most significant recent media scandals.
In his Dec. 31 article, “Truth, Justice, Abortion and The Times Magazine,” in the NYT’s Week in Review, Calame reports that a cover story that appeared in The New York Times Magazine on April 6 about abortions in El Salvador fell below acceptable standards of journalism.
In a key example, the magazine article suggested that a woman was sentenced to a 30-year prison term for having an abortion after the 18th week of pregnancy. Although Jack Hitt, the freelance author of the article, referred to a court finding that the woman had strangled her baby after a full-term birth, he had not read the court document embodying this finding.
Moreover, The Times compounded its failed journalism by telling readers who complained that it had “no reason to doubt the accuracy of the facts” in Hitt’s article. The Times’ standards editor, no less, told Calame that the newspaper had no plans to let complaining readers know about the court document — or to run a correction or editors’ note.
The next time our nation’s intellectual elite — and The New York Times — mocks Fox News, the public should bear in mind The Times’ lamentable performance here.
Nathan Dodell
Rockville
