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NYT Editor On Changes To Front-Page Gitmo Story: No Biggie
Michael Calderone at Politico has gotten comment from the New York Times Washington bureau chief, Dean Baquet, about the paper's changes -- sans correction -- to the online version of a story on freed Guantanamo detainees engaging in terrorism that was on the front page of the print paper Thursday.
At issue were changes to the headline and lead of the story that amounted to a walk back of its original claim that one in seven Gitmo detainees "returned" to terrorism. The headline shifted from "1 In 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds" to "Later Terror Link Cited for 1 in 7 Freed Detainees."
The difference is between a story about the government blundering by letting hardened terrorists free, only to rejoin the fight against America, and a more complicated story in which some Gitmo detainees may have become radicalized while imprisoned.
Baquet thinks the changes, which would seem to speak to basic assumptions about the nature of Guantanamo, were no big deal, and therefore did not warrant notifying Times readers in a correction or editor's note.
Here's what he told Calderone:
Reading some of the criticism it seems that people are saying it undercut the story. It did not. The story was about the estimate of the number of people who ended up, by DOD"s account, as being engaged in terrorism or militant activity after leaving Gitmo. That still stands. The change was an acknowledgment that some assert that not everyone in Gitmo is truly a terrorist. Some critics have said that Gitmo is also filled with people who aren't truly terrorists.Anyone who is reading a significant retreat in the story, or as us somehow saying the story is wrong is looking for politics where it ain't.
The problem here is that the use of variations on the word "return" throughout the original story was wrong and significant. And keep in mind that the story was pounced on by right-wing media and picked up on cable, where the "returned to jihad" phrasing was endlessly parroted. (Others have pointed out the credulousness of the piece on other fronts.)
As we said above, the use of this phrasing speaks to important assumptions about what happened at Guantanamo -- and, potentially, how we deal with detainees there in the present. Which is presumably the same reason why the Times rewrote the headline and lead of the piece.
Josh
Zachary
There is still no mention in the original story (or did I miss it?)of the Pentagon's earlier definition of "militant activity" which included the two Brits who cooperated in the making of a movie about their time in Gitmo or any former detainee who speaks with reporters and likewise complains.
Not exactly what most people would consider "returning to the battlefield".
May 22, 2009 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
It has been a long while since we could rely on the NYT to provide accurate, reliable reporting.
May 22, 2009 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
The NYT has surely made its share of mistakes, but compare it to any other American newspaper, or even any other English language newspaper in the world (I can't vouch for for other languages that I can't read), and it does pretty darn well.
And no, I don't work for the Times.
May 22, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
The NY Times reserves its corrections area for serious errors, such as misspellings of names that could inhibit searches for stories.
Glaring editorial blunders? They pride themselves on that prerogative, to shape news as the Times shapes news. Even years of declining respect and evidence of catastrophic damage to the US politic haven't shaken the core Times belief that the news is whatever they say it is.
In that, they are and have long been quite aligned with the Bush-Cheney Administration. Tragically. Senselessly.
May 22, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aligned with the Bush-Cheney regime they're not. Judith Miller may have been, but she's gone.
May 22, 2009 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
It may be petty, but seriously, he used "ain't?" And he's an editor of the NYT?
May 22, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're right, its petty. It's a perfectly good word--it's vernacular style, not a Nobel Prize acceptance speech.
May 22, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
For a while during and after the speech, the online version of the NYT headline said, "Detainees may go to US, Obama says".
That was taken down and changed into something less appallingly sellacious in about 20 minutes.
Poor guys are trying to stay afloat, so they drop in a little sex now and then.
May 22, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not that it was all that bad, but to make that the major takeaway from the speech? They just fell in line with the MSM, pushing the implication that it's, "Oh so scary! Please, won't someone think of the children!"
I just thought that was really weak.
May 22, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
It has become very sad that, ever since the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, readers cannot trust the NYT on matters of national security. The ghost of Judith Miller still haunts the newsroom. It also is no surprise that Elizabeth Bumiller had the byline. When she was covering the White House, she wrote some terribly embarrassing puff pieces about Bush. She obviously is one of the new brand of stenographers that report the news for dailies these days; and the fact that it has infected the NYT should be no surprise, as its standards have seriously deteriorated in the last decade.
May 22, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bless you and all the other 'librul' web sites who force these changes by printing facts. Without your hard work and research nothing vaguely resembling the truth would be printed.
May 22, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The newspaper of record is the newspaper of wreckage. Here's the funny part: The editorial board of the Times is solely to blame. Not the economy, not a fickle, illiterate peasantry that doesn't appreciate high-falutin' journalism. Not the internet or rising prices of dead trees. The blood trail leads right to delusion so preciously held by the publisher and editors: That they define whatever truth there is in any issue. The Times alone has the capacity to dig it out and spread it before us. The Times alone tells us how any element of our lives is important or disposable. The Times alone can tell us what to believe, how to think.
The Times alone. Dead.
May 22, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Breaking News!!!
NYT Editor Stands Up To Defend Stenographer Posing As Writer
They were obviously just eager to "scoop" their leaked report into the public domain. The fact is that the Pentagon's assessment has varied all over the map and is highly suspect. Did the headline say
Pentagon About To Release Yet Another Version Of Released Detainee Behavior
??
That would have been an accurate headline.
May 22, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink