

Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante? - ceejayoz
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/should-the-times-be-a-truth-vigilante/

======
jessriedel
Here's an example:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romneys-claim-that-
ob...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/romneys-claim-that-obama-is-an-
apologist-for-us-is-based-on-distortions/2011/12/01/gIQAdDpXlO_story.html)

>Romney suggests, Obama does not believe in American strength and greatness.

> Asked by a British reporter whether he thought the United States was
> uniquely qualified to lead the world, Obama answered: “I believe in American
> exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British
> exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” As Romney
> put it in his book, this “is another way of saying he doesn’t believe it
> all.”

> But Obama was just getting warmed up. His next sentence was: “I’m enormously
> proud of my country and its role and history in the world.” He continued:
> “If you think of our current situation, the United States remains the
> largest economy in the world. We have unmatched military capability. And I
> think that we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our
> Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief
> in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional.”

So, I think here that Mitt Romney is clearly being disingenuous if he's
claiming, based on this, that Obama doesn't believe in American
exceptionalism. It's dishonest. Nevertheless, if I squint at the first
paragraph, I really can interpret Obama as at least _downplaying_ American
exceptionalism. And, if you already suspected that Obama were a liar, then you
could try to claim that the first paragraph was revealing while the second
paragraph was fluff.

So I would have no problem with the NYTimes adding information that would
clarify or discredit a 3rd party's statement, like the full text of the Obama
quote referenced by Romney. But it seems extreme for them to follow up with
something like "Mitt Romeny is lying here".

~~~
foobarbazetc
The funny thing is, Obama is just being honest, while Romney is lying.

------
bitops
This article is asking whether the NY Times should be a newspaper.

~~~
redthrowaway
While pithy, your statement isn't entirely true. They're asking what _kind_ of
newspaper they should be. Regardless of how objective they are in their
corrections, there will be those who see such a move as legitimizing
editorialist in news articles. At the end of the day, we are trusting the
author and editor to be the final arbiters of truth. There are those who would
feel, perhaps rightly, that this oversteps their role as journalists.

~~~
glhaynes
It's just a question of where you draw the line, isn't it?

The Times doesn't print holocaust deniers' statements without a note that such
a claim is bullshit, does it? Or, if it does (in which case it would
presumably just make sure to have a "mainstream" 3rd party point of view
accompany it), how "big" can a lie be in the Times before they'd state the
clear objective [yeah, yeah...] truth in their own voice? A claim that George
W. Bush is still the President? That the sky isn't blue?

Which is not to say that "Obama apologizes for the US" is on the same plane as
far as how easy it is for the overwhelming majority to find agreeability on
its, err, "truthiness". Therein lies the rub, I suppose.

------
pavel_lishin
> As an Op-Ed columnist, Mr. Krugman clearly has the freedom to call out what
> he thinks is a lie. My question for readers is: should news reporters do the
> same?

It's not just a lie, it's a provably false statement. In fact, it might not
even be an intentional lie - if Romney truly believed that he heard Obama
apologizing for America, he wouldn't be lying, but he would be making a false
statement.

If a newspaper is printing lies and provably false statements, isn't that just
fiction?

~~~
GFKjunior
The line about Krugman made me laugh.

Just a year ago when I was a finance and econ student there was a big
controversy because Krugman would publish an article on the NYT and within
minutes there would be several comments refuting all his points. Many even
provided PHD-like citations that clearly showed Krugman lied. That was one of
the first times the NYT limited comments to less than 100 words, that way
arguments could not be made.

~~~
hindsightbias
You are a liar.

I just checked both his op-ed and blog posts and there are several comments of
several 100 words.

------
thadwoodman
I am not a huge fan of the Economist, but I do think they manage the synthesis
of reporting and critical analysis effectively by bluntly making value
statements. For example, take an exerpt from an article on Romney:

"He says he created a net 100,000 jobs during his time at Bain. That figure is
impossible to prove, but he could do more to argue that the benefits outweigh
the costs."

I wouldn't have a problem with that sentence appearing in the Times.

------
adamrights
In the 1890s, in a dry, neutral, "objective" tone the NY Times reported on
southern lynchings by including the "crimes" the victims supposedly committed.
A mere listing of facts is not journalism. Creating a context by researching
and checking on the data is, as bitops implied below.

"When you cannot measure, your knowledge is meager and unsatisfactory."
--Kelvin

------
Flemlord
Interesting they closed comments on an article specifically asking for
feedback.

------
thetrendycyborg
The New York Times has always struck me as rather pretentious and self-
important. They seem to report about themselves as much as the news.

~~~
jessriedel
> Arthur S. Brisbane is the readers' representative. He responds to complaints
> and comments from the public and monitors the paper's journalistic
> practices.

This isn't a regular news article, it's a special editorial section. This
seems like a very appropriate subject.

~~~
thetrendycyborg
Yes. But they do a lot of these editorials, which seem to get linked
frequently. I guess that's what I end up seeing. I see more links to the
NYTimes talking about itself then I see links to news on the NYTimes.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I think that reflects more on people who do the linking rather than on NYT
itself.

------
sliverstorm
It's an interesting question, and in my little world the answer is full of
caveats. Opinion and a nose for lies is wonderful when the journalist sets
themselves after factual accuracy and digging up the truth. It is tiresome and
unpalatable when a journalist begins interjecting relatively unsubstantiated
personal opinion where it doesn't belong.

------
InclinedPlane
The news media has deteriorated in the last few decades due to several
different, and in some cases surprising, forces.

First, we are all aware of the trend towards infotainment and tabloidism that
has occurred over time. "Human interest" stories, celebrity gossip, etc. are
generally far cheaper than investigative journalism and when your revenue
comes from ads (effectively selling eyeball quantities) you end up in a
situation where quality takes a back seat to popularity. Which means that the
ability to produce content that is _popular_ and cheap will lead to higher
profit margins than other sorts of content.

Second, historically worldwide communication to large populations was
difficult, so there were only a few broadcast media outlets: newspapers,
radio, and television. Naturally these outlets took it upon themselves to
serve as the gatekeepers of information for a community. They not only did
original reporting on local issues they also re-broadcast additional material
such as national news, weather reports, syndicated comic strips. And they
provided services such as classified ads which leveraged their role as the
main information conduit for communities. However, they came to see these
secondary activities as part and parcel of their identity, as a very
fundamental aspect of what it means to be a "newspaper" or a local television
news channel. More so, because such content is easier and cheaper to reproduce
it had a much higher profit margin (just as above) than producing original
content, leading to the withering of original reporting. Even as technology
has erased the need for news organizations to serve as information conduits
many of them have had a hard time letting go of that identity.

Third, over the last few decades there has been a trend towards the ideal
model of "reporting" being a very abstract idea of absolutely "unbiased" and
"objective" reporting of pure facts. On the surface this seems like a
perfectly fine idea, but in reality it's devastating to the ability to
actually report the news. Unmoored of any viewpoint, perspective, or values
the "news" then becomes something akin to abstract art.

The unfortunate end result of all of these factors is that modern news media
organizations tend to concentrate more on access and reproduction than
investigation and fact checking. More so, news organizations find themselves
in a horse race with other competitors and begin to fear for losing access, so
they keep their reporting in check and don't rock the boat.

Ultimately this leads to a news media which fails at its central duty: to
inform the public. Instead it becomes a mere regurgitative conduit which
serves more to prop up existing establishments than to be the sort of radical,
actively truth-seeking, institution-challenging organizations we idealize them
to be.

------
georgieporgie
The news has been in a race to be first for decades. Now, twitter and blogs
will win that race, every time.

If news media isn't going to revert to solid journalism, then they'll simply
die off and be replaced by technology and crowds. The current depth of
reporting is not really more significant than listening to any random
commenter or person stringing together unverified 'facts'.

Incidentally, I've been trying for two months to get a local news reporter to
admit that she blatantly misreported something. The level of integrity shown
so far is on par with a sixth grader whose dog supposedly ate her homework.

