KATE ZERNIKE
June 05, 2006
Someone else noticed Kate Zernike's failure to report
At Real Clear Politics, Thomas Lipscomb complains that New York Times reporter Kate Zernike showed no journalistic curiosity at all in her May 28 report on Sen. John Kerry's long-delayed "response" to some of the questions about his Vietnam War experience.
Lipscomb reminds us that The Times did its best during the 2004 presidential campaign not to report on the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," who alleged that Kerry did not earn his Purple Hearts and Bronze Star in the manner he claimed, was not in Cambodia on Christmas 1968 as he claimed, and unfairly smeared all U.S. troops in Vietnam as Genghis Khan-like barbarians.
With no effort or investigation, The Times repeatedly referred to the claims of Kerry's Swift Boat antagonists as "unsubstantiated." Lipscomb says: