New York Times Does Whole Article On Blogger's Mean Attack On WaPo Obama Muslim Piece Reporter -- But Devotes One Sentence To Actual Criticism Of Piece
December 17, 2007 -- 10:00 AM EST // //
Okay, this is just bizarre. Today The New York Times did an article covering the dust-up over the Washington Post Obama Muslim story. And guess what the focus of the entire piece was?
The fact that a blogger/professor said some nasty things about the WaPo reporter who did the piece, Perry Bacon, Jr., sparking a battle between journalistic worthies over on Romenesko.
Meanwhile, guess how much ink The Times devoted to the actual criticism of the piece? A grand total of one sentence.
These are some odd priorities on the part of The Times. The fact that one blogger got some journalists mad by saying some mean things about a WaPo reporter was deemed more newsworthy by the paper than the fact that multiple editors at one of the most influential broadsheets in the country, including WaPo executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr., signed off on an article that recycled rumors about a major political figure without declaring them false.
It gets worse. The Times reporter who wrote the story, Maria Aspan, interviewed Downie for her article -- and judging by her piece, she didn't ask him a single question about the piece itself or about the substance of the criticism of it.
As Will Bunch observed the other day, one thing this episode revealed very clearly is the "circle the wagons" mentality that prevails in journalism, in which journalists' instinct to defend one another against outside criticism tends to produce more passion than the core journalistic questions that such criticism raises at times. As Bunch asked:
Wouldn't be amazing to see a day where Downie, Nagourney, Tumulty and the rest showed up on Romenesko with such forceful opinions -- about the state of campaign journalism in 2008?Wouldn't it have been nice if The Times deemed this whole episode worthy of attention before a blogger said something mean about an establishment journalist? It's certainly not a stretch to imagine that if this blogger hadn't said nasty stuff about Bacon, The Times wouldn't have seen the episode as newsworthy at all.
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