Timothy Rutten: Champion of Ethics as Proclaimed by the Los Angeles Times
From the Code of Ethics for the Los Angeles Times:
We report in environments – Hollywood and Washington, to name two – where anonymity is routinely sought and casually granted. We stand against that practice and seek to minimize it. We are committed to informing readers as completely as possible; the use of anonymous sources compromises this important value.
. . . .
When we use anonymous sources, it should be to convey important information to our readers. We should not use such sources to publish material that is trivial, obvious or self-serving.
From Tim Rutten’s latest column on the Beauchamp/The New Republic affair:
According to sources at the New Republic, who asked to remain anonymous, Foer and Scoblic never were informed that the Army was taping their telephone conversation with Beauchamp, though they had every reason to presume that was so. These sources also say that since Sept. 7, Foer has had two additional telephone conversations with Beauchamp when none of his superiors were present. According to a knowledgeable source, in both of those calls Beauchamp denied signing an admission that his story was false and apart from the incident already corrected, insisted the story was true.
According to our anonymous sources, our story was right the whole time!
Nothing self-serving there!
I stand foursquare behind the proposition that Timothy Rutten is committed to the highest standard of ethics possible as articulated by the L.A. Times.
(Thanks to Bradley J. Fikes.)
OH GAWD how the MSM hates Bloggers! And especially those that can post commentary to them!
Is it any wonder that their subscriptions all continue to dwindle? Some folks actually need the printed version, still today, but those connected don’t, and those connected get REAL news faster than even CNN can create it as well!
TC (1cf350) — 10/30/2007 @ 12:46 amFoer is approaching idiocy of epic proportions. Beauchamp is stringing him along – probably so he can keep saying that he has powerful friends to keep the Army from prosecuting him.
chaos (9c54c6) — 10/30/2007 @ 6:40 amThank you for the mention. Wonder if anyone at the LAT is paying attention?
Bradley J. Fikes (1c6fc4) — 10/30/2007 @ 7:17 amBut Mr. Patterico, he got the narrative right, only the facts wrong! Whats the Matter, don’t you read Editor and Publisher? (Savage!)
Californio (a5fb0f) — 10/30/2007 @ 2:20 pmAnd this is the L.A SLIMES the sludge is still flowing in L.A.
krazy kagu (1b5cd8) — 1/20/2008 @ 8:23 pm