Delicious Irony: Bill Keller on What Separates the New York Times from the Agenda-Driven Rabble
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller:
Some years ago, a colleague tried to sum up the essentials that set us apart from agenda-driven journalists of the right and the left.
The first is that we believe in verification rather than assertion. We put a higher premium on accuracy than on speed or sensation. When we report information, we look hard to see if it stands up to scrutiny.
You know what’s coming when a Big Media guy starts bragging about Big Media accuracy, right? He’s about to screw something up. The very same column began:
Has anyone actually seen James O’Keefe and Julian Assange together? Are we quite sure that the right-wing prankster who brought down the leadership of National Public Radio and the anarchic leaker aren’t split personalities of the same guy — sent by fate to mess with the heads of mainstream journalists?
Sure, one shoots from the left, the other from the right. One deals in genuine (albeit purloined) secrets; the other in “Candid Camera” stunts, most recently posing as a potential donor and entrapping a foolish NPR executive into disclosing his scorn for Republicans and the Tea Party.
O’Keefe wasn’t posing as a donor, of course. He wasn’t even wearing a donor costume! Or a pimp costume. Or . . . in the video at all.
(Sticklers for accuracy might also wonder how Keller knows O’Keefe “entrapped” NPR execs, given that Keller obviously didn’t watch the video. Keller tells us: “We put our faith in the expensive and sometimes perilous business of witness.” Yet he can’t even bring himself to take the inexpensive and non-perilous step of pressing the play button on a video player, so he can witness the video about which he is writing. Either that, or he doesn’t know what O’Keefe sounds like — meaning he never watched the ACORN videos. Either way, it does not inspire confidence.)
Keller of course acknowledged that the paper makes errors. The same paper that prizes accuracy over speed rushed to tell us that Gabrielle Giffords was dead. So what separates the Gray Lady from those damn agenda-driven journalists? Why, the forthrightness and speed of their corrections!
Of course, newspapers are written and edited by humans. We get things wrong. The history of our craft is tarnished by episodes of gullibility, denial and blind ignorance on the part of major news organizations. The Times pretty much overlooked the Holocaust as it was happening.
So there is a corollary to this first precept: when we get it wrong, we correct ourselves as quickly and forthrightly as possible.
So you would presumably be astounded at the speed with which Keller’s paper corrected his rather glaring error regarding O’Keefe. Right?
Right?
Correction: April 10, 2011
An essay on March 27 about the responsibilities of the mainstream media in an era of partisan coverage misstated the role of James O’Keefe in the recent so-called sting aimed at National Public Radio, during which an NPR executive voiced his dislike of Republicans and the Tea Party. O’Keefe arranged for two of his associates to pose as donors to NPR; he did not pose as one himself.
The date at the top of Keller’s essay says March 25, but let’s go with the correction’s date of March 27, which probably represents a print publication date.
That’s two weeks to make a simple correction to a blatant error.
Do you think they just learned of this error yesterday?
Yeah, Bill Keller, the speed of your corrections does indeed set your paper apart.
Just not in the way you think.
What separates the New York Times from the agenda driven journalists of the Left? Many of the agenda-driven Lefties are at least marginally aware that to sell their swill, they have to package it attractively …. so that can write. Or, at least, they can write better than the deluded staff of the New York Times. But then so can my Father In Law, and he suffers from debilitating and permanent brain damage.
C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968) — 4/10/2011 @ 11:58 amEven more delicious irony-Rosie o’donut calling birthers crazy since she is a 9-11 truther.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/10/2011 @ 11:58 am“What Separates the New York Times from the Agenda-Driven Rabble”
The only thing I can think of that separates the NYT from the rest of the rabble is the Hudson River.
Dave Surls (fb3b50) — 4/10/2011 @ 12:08 pmBill Keller is filth. What a shocka!
Torquemada (fccc6f) — 4/10/2011 @ 12:17 pmC. S. P. Schofield.
Is your father-in-law Bill Keller?
Torquemada (fccc6f) — 4/10/2011 @ 12:18 pmI quit reading the Times in my Sophomore year of college, disgusted with its slant to the left. And that was in 1966, it hasn’t gotten any better in the 45 years since (damn, have I gotten older?)
GM Roper (4a1023) — 4/10/2011 @ 12:26 pmGM Roper – My experience is similar. About the only time I look at that rag now is when somebody asks me to fisk a Krugman piece or some other piece of garbage they publish.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/10/2011 @ 12:30 pmTorquemada,
No. He’s a reflexive Liberal, but used to be a bright and personable guy that I just didn’t agree with much. We got along, in part because my marriage to his daughter outlasted his marriage to her mother by a fair margin. Then he developed a tumor the size of a lemon attached to his optic nerve. He has short term memory problems, impulse control problems, and is marginally diabetic which is exacerbated by the preceding. It’s sad.
Bill Keller, on the other hand, shows all the signs of having congenital brain damage. He’s always been a smug and stupid swine.
C. S. P. Schofield (8b1968) — 4/10/2011 @ 12:38 pmI hope he’s (Keller) studying Spanish for that upcoming move of the Ed offices to Monterrey (if he’s asked)?
AD-RtR/OS! (5b0e13) — 4/10/2011 @ 12:41 pmIt’s obvious Bill Keller suffers from syphilis or he suffers from liberalism.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/10/2011 @ 1:33 pmHow is nazism far-right when they are actually pro-union pro-eugenics and all for aborting inferior babies……………..oh wait they oppose communism so they are ultra-right no matter what they do.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/10/2011 @ 2:18 pmcough McCain Iseman cough
Dave (in MA) (102b24) — 4/10/2011 @ 2:39 pmWhat Separates the New York Times from the Agenda-Driven Rabble?
Walter Duranty?
Paolo (Italy) (e69deb) — 4/10/2011 @ 2:55 pmWell said, Paolo.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/10/2011 @ 3:48 pmIn the Words of Vizzini; ‘those words you’re using’
narciso (cfef6a) — 4/10/2011 @ 5:23 pmThe New York Times … Didn’t that used to be a newspaper?
Murgatroyd (fd5fcd) — 4/10/2011 @ 11:08 pmthe New York Times is a regional newspaper what serves New York City and some of the surrounding area … I think for the most part they feed New York people the sort of news diet they prefer, though the people what read it are increasingly the same very white very rich self-styled effete intellectual pansies what listen to NPR
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/11/2011 @ 9:14 amEffete intellectual pansies are very fond of the New York Times in Chicago.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/11/2011 @ 9:19 amI did not know that. Does the NYT still have its Starbucks distribution deal? I don’t think that sort of co-branding with effete pansy media positions Starbucks where it really should want to be, but I went to Starbucks’s the other day and they still had the same who-listens-to-this-crap cds so I would guess they’re probably still very much in the effete pansy media business.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/11/2011 @ 9:26 amI do not patronize Fourbucks, so I know nothing of any distribution deals. A large number of effete intellectual pansies do patronize Fourbucks, however, which is one reason I do not, that plus the cost of their products.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/11/2011 @ 9:40 amActually the NYT’s coverage of local NYC news is pathetic. It really doesn’t act like a local newspaper; it prefers to publish stories based in Chicago rather than provide a local angle.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 4/11/2011 @ 11:50 pm