The New York Times editors bow deep to the Pentagon to make it easier for DiRita to screw them. To understand how deep they bowed, I had to read this slowly and twice:
NYT – Editors’ Note
A front-page article yesterday reported on an American military inquiry’s finding that guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention center in Cuba "mishandled" the Koran in five cases. The headline exceeded the Pentagon’s characterization, saying that the investigation revealed "harm" to the Koran. The Pentagon did not give specifics of the mishandling, so it was not known whether a Koran was actually damaged.
NY Times – Corrections, May 28, 2005
The article the editors’ note corrects was headlined:
and included this quote from Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita:
"And so what we’re trying to make sure people understand is that the impression they ought to have is that the guards, the interrogators, the command down there have been extraordinarily cautious, and yet there have been instances where inadvertent mishandling has occurred or other types of mishandling,"
DiRita said this in a the official Pentagon press conference. The transcript of the press conference is titled DoD News Briefing on Koran Mishandling Allegations. In the same transcript you will also find one inquiring General Hood who says:
"We found that in only five of those 13 incidents, four by guards and one by an interrogator, there was what could be broadly defined as mishandling of a Koran."
Let me repeat what the NYT editors’ note on the correction page says:
1. ‘Our headline did exceeded the Pentagon’s characterization.’
2. ‘The headline said the investigation revealed "harm" to the Koran.’
3. ‘It was not known whether a Koran was actually damaged’.
No 1 is factual false as the DiRita and the Hood quote on record shows. The NYT headline did in no way exceed the Pentagon’s spokesmen. It is a nearly verbal quote of General Hood;
No 2 is factual false as the neither the headline nor the article mentions anything about "harm" to the Koran being revealed through the Pentagon;
No 3 is irrelevant as neither the headline nor the article suggest that a Koran was actually damaged.
Last weekend Newsweek did a double non-retraction retraction. During the following days we learned, that the Newsweek story was correct, but for one small detail. This was a huge embarrassment for the administration, but after the retraction even more for Newsweek. One would expect other media to learn from this and not to cave in to Pentagon bullying as easy as Newsweek has done. But to cave in is exactly what the NYT editors do.
If the New York Times really worries about loosing readers, they should print the truth and, when the truth is spinned, their interpretation of it marked as such.
The original article is correct, as is its headline. The overruling editors’ note is not the truth. It is factual false on several points or irrelevant.
If the editors of the New York Times really worry about correct statements (and if they have any backbone left,) they need to print a correction of their false statements. Otherwise, they better look for new jobs. Readers will not pay for being lied to over and over again.