Posted on 11/26/2004 8:12:15 AM PST by Pikamax
New York Times responds to Clifford May column
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Scripps Howard News Service
(SH) - The following letter by Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, was written in response to a Clifford D. May column that was distributed by Scripps Howard on Oct. 27. Also included is an answer by May to the Keller letter.
To the editor:
I'm all for freedom of debate, but Scripps Howard owes its subscribers an apology for the commentary it distributed recently under the byline of Clifford D. May.
Mr. May - whom you identify as a one-time New York Times reporter but neglect to identify as a longtime Republican Party spokesman - berates The Times for disclosing the disappearance of a large cache of high explosives from a vast weapons repository in Iraq. As you may recall, The Times reported that 377 tons of unusually dangerous high explosive disappeared from sealed bunkers in Iraq after the American invasion. The Iraqi government reported it had been stolen "due to lack of security."
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
This is huge (and I mean it). This exchange describes exactly what the problem is with The New York Times.
Anyone who still believes that the Times is impartial in its news coverage no longer can have that opinion after reading this exachange.
I hope this gets picked up on every high-volume blog.
Wow.
Pharmacological science is helpless against such virulent mental disorders.
Bill Keller-Blair
Are they married?
Seriously, Keller was the replacement for Howell Raines, who was Blair's sponsor. In my opinion, the Times' editorial slant is being driven by Pinch Sulzburger and not by any of the editors. If he is not replaced, the paper will only continue to lose ground.
The only good thing about it is that this administration doesn't pay attention (particularly now that the State Department and CIA are being purged). As a result, the Times will only lose impact throughout the next 4 years.
May's response letter, invoking Bill Safire, may provide a clue to Safire's departure. He simply may be getting too much pressure from the angry liberals at the paper.
I tried twice to read this article, each time my computer was invaded by a bunch of junk, can somepone post the actual article so I can read it? Thanks in advance.
Modbee.com
New York Times responds to Clifford May column
Scripps Howard News Service
(SH) - The following letter by Bill Keller, executive editor of The New York Times, was written in response to a Clifford D. May column that was distributed by Scripps Howard on Oct. 27. Also included is an answer by May to the Keller letter.
To the editor:
I'm all for freedom of debate, but Scripps Howard owes its subscribers an apology for the commentary it distributed recently under the byline of Clifford D. May.
Mr. May - whom you identify as a one-time New York Times reporter but neglect to identify as a longtime Republican Party spokesman - berates The Times for disclosing the disappearance of a large cache of high explosives from a vast weapons repository in Iraq. As you may recall, The Times reported that 377 tons of unusually dangerous high explosive disappeared from sealed bunkers in Iraq after the American invasion. The Iraqi government reported it had been stolen "due to lack of security."
Mr. May declares that there was "not a shred of evidence" that the story was true. He quotes a "senior government official" who assures him that the stuff was already missing when the Americans arrived. He goes on to assert that looters could not possibly have "stuffed 380 tons of explosives into their pockets and purses," particularly with American troops in the area. Based on these assertions, he launches into a fevered portrait of a newspaper attempting to undermine President Bush. His commentary is utter nonsense from start to finish.
The information in the original Times story was clearly attributed to the American-allied Iraqi ministry of science and technology, which reported the lost explosives in a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency in October. We obtained that letter in mid-October and assigned three of our best reporters to it. They got the information confirmed by a variety of sources - including at the Pentagon and the White House. That original story was so scrupulous that not a single detail has been successfully refuted in the weeks since.
On the contrary, by the time Mr. May's comment was published in the paper where I saw it, The New Haven Register of Oct. 31, his assertions had already been discredited by additional evidence. An ABC television affiliate in Minneapolis came up with footage showing American troops arriving at the arms depot on April 18, cutting open the bunkers with bolt-cutters, removing the IAEA seals, and examining boxes marked "explosives." The troops then departed, leaving the bunkers unsecured. (Bizarrely, someone inserted a parenthetical report of this TV footage in the Register version of Mr. May's commentary, apparently without noticing that it rendered Mr. May's whole argument ludicrous.) On Nov. 4, the Los Angeles Times published interviews with Army Reserve and National Guard troops who passed through the area even later in April and watched looters in pickup trucks carrying away boxes of explosives. The Americans did not intervene because they didn't have enough troops.
Bill Keller
Executive Editor
The New York Times
To the editor:
I am disappointed that it is not clear to Mr. Keller that this story did not meet the Times' standards - standards I learned and practiced during the years I served as a Times reporter, foreign correspondent and editor.
I have sent Mr. Keller a five-page letter noting the holes that should have been filled and the questions that should have been answered before this story ran on the Times' front page - the week prior to a presidential election. He has not replied so far. I will be glad to share that letter with anyone who has further interest in this issue.
Allow me to make a few very quick points to illustrate why there should be concern over this story:
1) It is not clear that HMX and RDX explosives were filmed by the Minneapolis crew, but if they were, the RDX almost certainly was not present in the amounts suggested by the Times. ABC News' Martha Raddatz discovered an I.A.E.A. document showing that in January of 2003 there were only three tons of RDX stored at Al Qaqaa.
Based on this document, one must conclude that of the two explosives on which the Times reported, one was not present in significant amounts. (Three tons, in the context of the amount of explosives and weapons that were amassed by Saddam and destroyed by U.S. forces is insignificant.)
2) The Times ignored the satellite imagery showing large trucks near the Al Qaqaa depot on March 17, just two days before hostilities broke out. At that time, it would have been relatively simple for Saddam Hussein's forces to remove such explosives. Gen. Michael DeLong, former deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command, has said that just prior to the invasion: "Two days before March 19, 2003, we saw quite a number of vehicles going into Syria. We could not go after them because we said we'd give Saddam 48 hours."
3) William Safire, one of the Times' leading columnists, also believes it possible that the Times may have been manipulated in regard to this story.
He wrote in his Nov. 1 column: "Bin Laden was the second outsider to try to influence our election in an 'October surprise.' I suspect the first was Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief U.N. arms inspector, said to be miffed at the Bush administration's refusal to support his bid for an unprecedented third term."
In the end, we still don't know the truth about the explosives. We still don't know for sure whether HMX and RMX were at Al Qaqaa when U.S. forces arrived, how much may have been there, whether what was there was entirely destroyed, partly destroyed or not destroyed at all by U.S. forces. We don't know whether explosives were looted, when this might have happened, how it might have happened, or who was responsible.
Nevertheless, based on insufficient information, the Times broke a sensitive story on its front page days before the elections - and that story was immediately exploited by one presidential candidate against another.
These are the questions that ought to concern Mr. Keller.
Clifford D. May
President
Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Posted on 11/24/04 10:59:00
http://www.modbee.com/24hour/opinions/story/1866216p-9774273c.html
FReegards
Baredog
I really wonder if the NY Times has any idea how many Americans consider them "damaged goods"? They are so blatantly biased consistently. IMHO not worthy of fishwrap.
Did the New York Times, in its original story, identify itself a longtime Democrat Party house organ?
I rest my case.
CBS collaborated with the Kerry campaign when it launched the Ben-Barnes/forged-memos National Guard story. The Kerry campaign already had their talking points and stump speech ready to roll when CBS launched its salvo. Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill was on the phone congratulating CBS' main source within minutes of the broadcast. Democrat party hacks across the nation had there speeches and soundbites already written and they were delivering them within hours of the broadcast.
Similarly, the collaboration between the NY Times and the Kerry campaign on the explosives story was so tight that Kerry even had the stones to slyly preview the story during a Presidential debate PRIOR to the Times' publication of the story.
Then, by the time the NY Times did publish the story, the Kerry campaign already had another coordinated attack of speeches, soundbites, and TV ads prepared and ready to roll out the door. It was amazing.
I am breathlessly waiting for the New York Times to launch an investigation of itself the way CBS did.
You're welcome. The NYT is on its way down the tubes. Until they get rid of Pinch, they won't stop the slide. (Has anyone noted the similarity between the situation at the CIA and at the NYT? Good troops in the field, for the most part, but sorely in need of changes at the top. Bush and Goss are on the right track, but who, besides the stockholders, will take action at the NYT.)
The stockholders can't vote out management because the Sulzburgers hold a special super-voting class of stock.
Do you remember the threatened law suit against Sinclair when it planned to show the Kerry documentary at the end of the campaign? The allegation was that by engaging in that type of programming it was alienating advertisers (both directly and indirectly, by alienating viewers and ultimately reducing advertising rates) and therefore wasting corporate assets.
In my opinion, a suit like that would be about the only way that stockholders could pressure Times management. Also in my opinion, it is a real longshot.
Isn't Bill Keller the one married to the Gilbey Gin heiress?
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