Patterico's Pontifications

12/20/2015

NYT Claims Deletion Of President Obama’s Unflattering Comment Was Space-Saving Move, But Then Adds 116 More Words To Report

Filed under: General — Dana @ 9:44 am



[guest post by Dana]

Earlier this week I posted about two things you can count on: President Obama watching TV to get his news (or in this case, not watching enough TV to understand why Americans might be tense after a terrorist attack on the homeland), and the New York Times carrying water for him as they happily deleted an unflattering and revealing comment he made during a private meeting with political reporters.

Here is what was deleted with no accompanying Editor’s Note:

In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments. Republicans were telling Americans that he is not doing anything when he is doing a lot, he said.

Responding to reader complaints about the stealth deletion, T. Becket Adams of the Washington Times, posted the New York Times’ explanation for the edit:

Thanks for the question. There’s nothing unusual here. That paragraph, near the bottom of the story, was trimmed for space in the print paper by a copy editor in New York late last night. But it was in our story on the web all day and read by many thousands of readers. Web stories without length constraints are routinely edited for print.”

Ah, a space-saving move. Okay, then. But let’s look at NewsDiffs’ comparison of the space-saving deletion, before and after:

Untitled-2

To put a fine point on it, Sean Davis observed that while the New York Times trimmed 66 words in a space-saving move, they added 116 more. And with this space-saving deletion, the president ends up not looking quite as foolish. Unfortunately, that can’t be said of the New York Times. As a reminder, this is the same New York Times that had the temerity to editorialize about an assumed “campaign of deception” with regard to CMP’s Planned Parenthood videos. At this point in time, they really should reconsider ever using the term “deception” in any kind of editorializing or reporting, no matter the subject at hand.

It’s a mystery to me why they still try to pretend they are something that they clearly are not.

–Dana

11 Responses to “NYT Claims Deletion Of President Obama’s Unflattering Comment Was Space-Saving Move, But Then Adds 116 More Words To Report”

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (86e864) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:45 am

  2. this idea that we have “allies in the region” what are counting on failmerica to “take in the group”

    lol

    happyfeet (831175) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:51 am

  3. oops take *on* the group i mean

    happyfeet (831175) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:51 am

  4. President Obama watching TV to get his news

    Pfft. I hate seeing that person’s name with “president” before it, although something like “President Dingleberry” would be okay.

    (Oh, and, yea, writing or reacting that way is juvenile, but look at what the US has become over the decades—a Peter-Pan society, full of corrupt, stunted liberalism and the millions who subscribe to that particular immature philosophy.)

    Mark (f713e4) — 12/20/2015 @ 9:59 am

  5. I have a feeling we will have to smoke obama out of the white house.

    mg (31009b) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:16 am

  6. That deafening sound of silence is the collective shrug of the MSM, because what difference does a little deletion make at this point in time? Who cares if the nation’s leading paper of record adds or deletes to reports in order to make presidents, er, this president look good? SOP.

    Dana (86e864) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:24 am

  7. The country is being run by people with no morals or sense of decency.

    mg (31009b) — 12/20/2015 @ 10:34 am

  8. All the beans fit to spill…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 12/20/2015 @ 11:30 am

  9. As bad as this NY Times spin for Obama is, I think other things Obama said Are even worse. Apparently events like the terror attack in San Bernardino are risks we have to bear in Obama’s America.

    DRJ (15874d) — 12/20/2015 @ 1:56 pm

  10. From DRJ’s link:

    A more horrifying point is that the president confirmed the widespread perception that he is pulling punches in the fight against Islamic State. “Obama doesn’t think this is an existential battle that’s worth the cost to the United States of an all-out war,” columnist David Ignatius said in The Washington Post. A similar conclusion appeared in a New York Times article about the meeting.

    Both say Obama will not change course even if America suffers what he regards as minor terror attacks, presumably like the one in San Bernardino that killed 14 people and wounded 22. Ignatius described this as Obama’s “cost-benefit analysis” and wrote that the only thing that would lead the president to alter his strategy “would be a big, orchestrated terrorist incident that so frightened the public that it began to prevent the normal functioning of America.”


    In other words, get used to this, our new normal.

    Of course, that will change if he is personally and directly impacted by a terrorist attack. Bright now, though not enough Americans that matter have been killed.

    Dana (86e864) — 12/20/2015 @ 2:14 pm

  11. Well, if the NYT’s plan was to call attention to Obama’s idiotic statement, then it’s been more successful than any Obama policy on record.

    tops116 (d094f8) — 12/20/2015 @ 11:00 pm


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