Posted on 09/25/2005 10:42:45 AM PDT by wagglebee
The mainstream media's newspaper of record admitted late Saturday that one of its reporters fabricated part of a news story on Hurricane Katrina relief.
Saying his paper "flunked" the test of basic journalistic fairness, New York Times public editor Byron Calame said Alessandra Stanley's Sept. 5 report claiming that the Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera "nudged" an Air Force relief worker out of the way so he could film himself rescuing a Katrina victim had been made up out of whole cloth.
"Since Ms. Stanley based her comments on what she saw on the screen Sept. 4, the videotape of that segment means everyone involved is looking at exactly the same evidence," Calame noted.
"My viewings of the videotape - at least a dozen times, including one time frame by frame - simply doesn't show me any 'nudge' of any Air Force rescuer by Mr. Rivera," the Times internal watchdog said, adding, "Ms. Stanley declined my invitation to watch the tape with me."
Times editor Bill Keller, however, is still standing by Ms. Stanley's bogus report. He told Calame that she was "writing as a critic, with the license that title brings - [and] was within bounds in her judgment."
"Ms. Stanley's point was that Mr. Rivera was show-boating - that he was being pushy, if not literally pushing - and I think an impartial viewer of the footage will see it that way," Keller insisted.
But Calame countered: "Ms. Stanley certainly would have been entitled to opine that Mr. Rivera's actions were showboating or pushy. But a 'nudge' is a fact, not an opinion. And even critics need to keep facts distinct from opinions."
Stanley's bogus report continues a pattern at the Old Gray Lady of making up the news.
Two weeks ago, columnist Paul Krugman was forced to admit that he falsely claimed media recounts in Florida showed Al Gore winning the 2000 presidential election. In August, a Times profile of Hillary Clinton changed a quote first reported by NewsMax where Clinton said she was "adamantly opposed to illegal immigrants."
In the toned down Times version, Clinton's opposition was to "illegal immigration" rather than the immigrants themselves.
The interesting thing about this story is that no matter who you believe, somebody at the NY Times is lying to the public.
If NY Times editor Byron Calame is right, then Times reporter Alessandra Stanley fabricated the story. If Times editor Bill Keller is right, then Times editor Byron Calame is lying. They're losing their credibility and relevence faster than you can say "Al Gore".
Urban legend. Go to Snopes.com. An excerpt:
"My name is Richard L. Johnston. I'm the physician who allegedly wrote the long email about my experience at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston where Katrina evacuees from New Orleans were housed.
I've never been to the George R. Brown Convention Center, and I have not been to Houston in more than 10 years. During the crisis of the last two weeks, I've been here in Jackson, Mississippi, taking care of evacuees from the Gulf Coast transferred to our VA Medical Center here where I'm the chief medical resident.
I did not write the email about the Brown Convention Center, but I did receive it and did forward it to several friends. The forwarded message included my signature block and that's why it was assumed that I wrote the email. However, in forwarding the message, I made a very bad error in judgment, and I deeply apologize for any hurt or discomfort I've caused others by doing so.
I've learned a hard and difficult lesson and I hope those of you who read this have also. Too much of what we all mindlessly forward through cyberspace can only be termed fictious, unsubstantiated trash. The appropriate receptacle is a garbage can."
And these people are deluded enough to think that future generations will consider them factual. What a joke!
"Ms. Stanley's point was that Mr. Rivera was show-boating - that he was being pushy, if not literally pushing - and I think an impartial viewer of the footage will see it that way," Keller insisted.]
-- Oh Brother! What BS!
From "A Streetcar Named Deceit":
“I don’t want realism. I want magic!....Yes, yes, magic. I try to give that to people. I do misrepresent things. I don't tell truths. I tell what ought to be truth."
Click here.
What the rag doesn't say is that it pulls similiar BS.
er...morning
Wow, talk about choosing the lesser of two evils; as much as I despise Geraldo, I despise the NYT more.
later read/ping.
I should have checked snoops..I can tell you thought a lot of the stuff that was in this email is true..My sisters friends worked there and at the astrodome and said that they were really sick and tired of some of these peoples attitudes..
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions; but everyone is not entitled to their own facts.
- Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
That and, judging from their recent layoffs, the Times doesn't have the cash to pay lawyers to tie this up.
Funny though...this admission comes out on Saturday (when few read it). Why don't they can Alexandra Stanley's immediate editor who said last week her characterization was truthful? He's obviously proven himself unqualified to be in that position.
The admission was printed on a Sunday.
The Newsmax article at the top of this thread says this:
The mainstream media's newspaper of record admitted late Saturday that one of its reporters fabricated part of a news story on Hurricane Katrina relief.
I have not seen the printed version but I didn't see this admission on the home page of the website.
Alessandra Stanley's problem is one of status. As a card carrying presstitute writing for the OGW, she doesn't understand what happens on the outside of her Ivory Tower.
Such things as being near or on a real helicopter, actually seeing and smelling the event and touching the persons involved is far from her concept of reality. When reality fails to register, her jelousy towards the unwashed reporters in the field takes hold and her mind compensates with fiction.
Louisiana is out there somewhere in flyover country and matters not to the real Americans residing in the City.
Judgement exercised by a (useful idiot) lib is always questionable and usually wrong.
LOL a good one to save for special occasions
I'm sure. That's what makes these types of e-mails ring true because they do have a lot of truths in them.
>> he fact that Jerry was talking lawsuit didn't
>> have anything to do with this?
> That and, judging from their recent layoffs, the Times
> doesn't have the cash to pay lawyers to tie this up.
However, the Ombud's op-ed does not necessarily rise to
the standard of a retraction, much less an apology, and
it's clear that officially, the NYT is standing by, that
is, repeating the libel. In fact, it hurts the NYT's
posture, since one of their employees is agreeing with
the aggrieved party.
Very stupid of them, considering that Geraldo is
reportedly a lawyer, and that Fox might love the
chance to subsidize an action by him, and drain the
NYT of its remaining cash.
Why in the word is the New York Times treated as if it were a legitimate news source on FreeRepublic, while we at Christian-news-in-maine.com can only post on bloggers and Religion?
We have never once been accused of fabricating the news, we have never been accused of lying, and yet, the nytimes gets breaking news status and we get blooger status.
It was us that had a man in New Orleans right after the storm, it was us that had a team spend a week with The Good News Missson in Indianapolis, it was us that a man spend two weeks in the woods of Maine with those who are protecting the Maine/canada border from intruders.
Oh well, thanks for letting me rant,
Jake
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