Libel Memorandum Attributed Falsely to Court Nominee (Jayson Blair Alert)

NY Times ^ | 9/28/05

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

September 28, 2005

Libel Memorandum Attributed Falsely to Court Nominee

By ADAM LIPTAK

Judge John G. Roberts Jr., nominated to be chief justice of the United States, was not the author of an unsigned memorandum on libel law that was the focus of an article published in The New York Times yesterday. The Times erroneously attributed it to him.

Bruce Fein, a Washington lawyer who was general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission in the Reagan administration, said yesterday that he wrote the memorandum, a caustic critique of New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 Supreme Court decision that revolutionized American libel law, and of the role played by the press in society.

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

Another fake, but accurate, memo.

[msnimje]

How does this story conclude? I do not access NYT site.

[decal]

These nebbishes are going to have to use a whole section of the Sunday editions just for errata if they don't shape up, and soon.

[M1911A1]

LOL, judge Roberts must be driving these folks batty...even when they try to make up some mud to sling at him, it doesn't stick. In fact, it bounces back!

[Lancey Howard]

LOL, that's the New York Times for you.
It gets harder and harder to believe that the NY Times once had a good reputation, many years ago.

[NavySEAL F-16]

I went to the correction in the NY Times. It states this:

An article yesterday about Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s views on libel law attributed a critique of a Supreme Court decision to him erroneously. Mr. Roberts did criticize the decision, New York Times v. Sullivan, in a 1985 memorandum. But a separate unsigned 30-page critique that was among the papers released from his years as a lawyer in the Reagan administration was not his; it was written by Bruce Fein, who was general counsel for the Federal Communications Commission in the Reagan administration. A corrective article appears today, here. (Go to Article)

I can't find what's different about the two articles.

[Lancey Howard]

By the way, did you see THIS?

The San Francisco Chronicle is as bad as the New York Times when it comes to malicious distortion and fraudulent reporting of the news of the day. It brings joy to my heart every time I read about layoffs at these toilet papers because it indicates that the end is near for them. I only wish these newspapers and the rest of their ilk would hurry up and just die already.

[HAL9000]

My list of preferred nominees for the other Supreme Court vacancy includes Bruce Fein - and Mark Levin and Ted Olsen.

[Pharmboy]

How come all their mistakes are against pubbies? Never seem to fall on the other side of the aisle...perhaps the same mechanism at work that forces all dead people to vote democrap.

[expatpat]

.....that forces all dead people to vote democrap

That's a very old tradition. Mark Twain had a funny piece about a guy who worked at a cemetery on the side of the hill -- he buried Democrats with their head into the hill to make it harder for them to get out and vote.

[EQAndyBuzz]

It must kill the editors and publisher to have to decide whether to fire people because no one to the right of Stalin will by their rag or to tell the truth and have people to the right of Stalin buy their rag.

I really feel for them /NOT