It’s Not the Crime, It’s the Coverup — Part Sixty-Two
Wow.
After Greg Mitchell, the editor-in-chief of Editor & Publisher, ran a disingenuous piece on Reutersgate, Bob Owens quoted from a Mitchell piece in which Mitchell copped to making up quotes from people he couldn’t be bothered to talk to. After Bob’s piece got widespread recognition, an interesting thing happened: the story was altered to make it clear Mitchell had been a 19-year-old intern when he had made up the quotes in 1967.
Ben Domenech was young when he plagiarized, but that’s not the point — and Mitchell’s youthful manipulation of the news, while interesting and disquieting, is not the main point either. The point is that Editor & Publisher is quietly manipulating its online content to protect the reputation of its editor-in-chief — and it’s happening now, not in 1967. The story does not indicate that it has been altered in any way. The alteration was done quietly . . . so that nobody would notice.
But, of course, someone did.
I think this is a huge story. Whether is becomes one is now up to Big Media.
It’s also up to you to tell Big Media about it.
UPDATE: Bob’s commenters are pointing to evidence that Mitchell’s making up quotes happened in 1969 and not 1967. So was he 21 and not 19? Will he sneak in another change?
UPDATE x2: It’s worth emphasizing that the column that was changed was originally written in 2003, not hours or days ago. I sometimes change a post shortly after it’s written, for clarity’s sake. But this was a set of changes to a years-old piece in a trade magazine, to respond to criticisms made in the last day or two — with no indication that the piece had been altered.
Allah has more, with links to some Dan Riehl finds.
Recovering Fabulist Off the Wagon?…
Throughout the week, I’ve been posting about the anti-blogosphere sentiments bubbling at Editor Publisher. Today, the excitement boils over. To recap: Monday: EP Publishes a piece about the inaccuracy and unreliability of blogs (riddled with spelling …
Suitably Flip (72c8fd) — 8/26/2006 @ 8:30 amYou know, this is hugely funny. Everyone wants attention for his site, but the more attention you get (and Editor and Publisher certainly gets a lot), the less chance you will ever have to get away with this kind of crap.
Moreover, since E&P covered the Michael Hiltzik story, and the editors certainly know of all of the other stuff that has been uncovered by bloggers, they have even less excuse than some new writer or small potatoes blogger to think that they could get away with this stuff.
It ought to be rule number one these days: once it’s been published, someone out there has a screen cap of it, and if you change anything, it will get noticed.
Dana (1d5902) — 8/26/2006 @ 10:41 amBizarre.
At first I thought this was a non-story, but from the link (if I’ve got it right) the original was penned in 2003. Messing with stuff from two days ago without noting it is annoying, but it’s more editing than coverup. From 2003? Absurd. [If I don’t have this right, someone correct me.]
Especially when it’s so easy to do this right online; Slate does it routinely. Heck, Patterico does it. Stick in an update tag and note that the article is still getting attention and that for clarity, Mitchell was 19 or 21 or 5 or whatever when he did this.
On a side note, I don’t think Mitchell’s initial act is comparable to Domenech, who acted horrendously when confronted. But what the heck is going on here?
On a second side note, there’s little doubt that if you were take a random factual assertion from a random blog and a random factual assertion from a random newspaper, the newspaper would be more likely to be correct. But we out here are reading blogs non-randomly; if you were to take a California criminal law issue from Pat or from the LA Times, Pat’s way more likely to be right. (And if he’s wrong, he’ll correct it prominently, in real time.)
–JRM
JRM (5e00de) — 8/26/2006 @ 11:31 amTwo salient conclusions from all this:
1. The poohbahs of the press have been making up stories for a very long time, starting pretty much as soon as they got into the profession.
2. They are still doing it.
ras (a646fc) — 8/26/2006 @ 12:06 pmDan Riehl thinks Mitchell should be fired. Actually, I think he’s perfect to head such a trashy apologia for the media. Especially now that he’s been so utterly discredited.
clarice (c49871) — 8/26/2006 @ 12:42 pmWeekend Wingnut Roundup…
In a week when Pat Buchanan predicted the end of the white race in the U.S. and it became clear that Republican domination of the House might end, you just know the wingnuts are tryin’ to think their way out…
AGITPROP: Version 3.0, Featuring Blogenfreude (72c8fd) — 8/26/2006 @ 12:47 pmIts kind of like the liberal idiots saying if we banned all guns everybody would like in peace and harmony and we would be nice and loving which proves that liberals live too much to lala land and not in the real world proves thier stupid and rediclous
krazy kagu (956b5b) — 8/26/2006 @ 4:28 pmThe alterations to the 2003 article by Mitchell don’t immediately strike me as a mortal sin. We don’t even know Mitchell made the changes. He could have asked for the clarifying material to be added, and whoever did that failed to note the article had been changed. Of course, if Mitchell made the changes without permission, or if the changes are inaccurate, that would be a different story. So I’m reserving judgment until more facts are clear.
I am far more concerned right now that Mitchell did such a shoddy job of examining the evidence of staged and phony photographs from Lebanon. That is because people relying on his articles would come away misinformed about what happened. And that is a very serious matter.
Bradley J. Fikes (f912b4) — 8/26/2006 @ 5:38 pmThe MSM/DNC has been manufacturing “fake but accurate” news(?) for 60 years. My father worked in DC from 1949-1953. I got to see what was really happening in Congress; then read the fiction printed as “news” in the Post. When we came back to Cal (1954) I was already cynical about the Press. I was a Dem in the early 60’s and was at many demonstrations and the next day read the fairy tales printed as “news” by the LAT.
In Summary – The MSM/DNC has been fabricating “news” for at least 60 years, that I am aware of; probably much longer than that. Before Talk Radio (30 years ago) and blogs (5 years ago approx) they were not called on their staged or bogus “news”.
Rod Stanton (cd243e) — 8/26/2006 @ 7:49 pmThank God for Talk Radio and blogs!
PS – Even as a second grader I was amazed that people who saw what really happened in Congress and then read the fiction in the Post would continue to buy the paper. The last 35 years a lot of people have come to the same conclusion I did as a second grader – why buy a “news” paper that prints lies as news!
Rod Stanton (cd243e) — 8/26/2006 @ 7:56 pmYeah, when I was in second grade I was constantly outraged at how my country’s parliamentarians were treated.
Oh the humanity.
Chris from Victoria, BC (9824e6) — 8/26/2006 @ 8:36 pmDid the change “make it clear” or just “claim”? I wonder if they might not be lying about this, too.
Bleepless (322aca) — 8/26/2006 @ 8:53 pmiT is tru taht I occassionally corect the speling on my cite without posting it as a update.
Dana (1d5902) — 8/27/2006 @ 8:01 amI think this is another example of people who actually experience an event, then read about it in the newspaper and wonder if they were at the same event as the reporter. Some is political spin, and is done by both sides, and some is making it up. The difference is that they aren’t getting away with it anymore. The closer you get to politics, and I mean local politics as much as state or national, the more you see this.
Mike K (416363) — 8/27/2006 @ 8:47 amEven the SwifVets caught this one!
Yet another MSM mainstay proves itself garbage
anon (0c6e3d) — 8/27/2006 @ 6:30 pmIt was a mortal sin by SOMEONE.
One does not change articles online without acknowedgement. That is a pretty accepted rule for about 10-12 years now.
anon (0c6e3d) — 8/27/2006 @ 6:33 pmWell, now we have a new version of the article. No mention of the orginal edit(s) that added the faulty. Now he is 21 instead of 19. And the corrections are written in the first person (“On the other hand, I was, at the time, just 21.”)–So at some point, Greg Mitchell had a hand in all of this editing (including the orignial edits?)…
Quote (link in sig):
================================================
By Greg Mitchell
Published: May 20, 2003
NEW YORK Opinion
CORRECTION, August 27, 2006: Several readers of the 2003 story below have informed us that the water flowing over Niagara Falls was turned off in June 1969, not in 1967, as the article below stated. We have corrected or deleted that date and Mitchell’s age where they appeared in this column. Mitchell worked at the Gazette in the summers of 1968 and 1969 before graduating from college in 1970. The incident recounted below occurred in his second summer at the paper, not in the first, as the original had it.
****
Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) as a summer intern, our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?
BfC (71aff5) — 8/28/2006 @ 10:04 am…
Still, I felt bad about it for years and (obviously) have never forgotten it. On the other hand, I was, at the time, just 21.
…
My ethical breach at 21 in Niagara Falls was bad enough. One expects a bit more from a 27-year-old with years of experience in New York…
Greg Mitchell is a freaking fraud.
Period.
Federal Dog (9afd6c) — 8/28/2006 @ 1:34 pm