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. [my emphasis]
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. [my emphasis]
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.
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