NYTimes Editor: We shouldn't have published it.

[Borealis]

The column requires registration, so you'll have to deal with the link I'm providing instead, since I don't give out personal information to newspaper websites. Those of you who have registration to the Times website, feel free to confirm it.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006173.htm

Un. Freaking. Believable. The NYTimes ombudsman, Byron Calame, buried a bombshell mea culpa in his column today--reversing his prior defense of the Times' blabbermouth report on a once-secret terrorist banking data surveillance program and now admitting the paper was wrong to publish it:

Since the job of public editor requires me to probe and question the published work and wisdom of Times journalists, there’s a special responsibility for me to acknowledge my own flawed assessments.

My July 2 column strongly supported The Times’s decision to publish its June 23 article on a once-secret banking-data surveillance program. After pondering for several months, I have decided I was off base. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis. While it’s a close call now, as it was then, I don’t think the article should have been published.

NOW HE TELLS US?!

<snip>

I haven’t found any evidence in the intervening months that the surveillance program was illegal under United States laws. Although data-protection authorities in Europe have complained that the formerly secret program violated their rules on privacy, there have been no Times reports of legal action being taken.

Why isn't this on the front page?!

A very good question. So the Times admits they screwed up in a big way. So why isn't this on the front page of the newspapers, the lead story on the network news?

 

[blueapplepaste]

Well I for one am glad that they did publish it. America had a right to know that they were being spied on by their government.

 

[nvxplorer]

Treasury gave the same information to the Wall Street Journal as it did to to the Times. The WSJ published the information on the same day as the Times.

Why wasn't this reported on by the media? Must be that liberal media bias.

 

[SummerMadness]

I like selective outrage.

 

[Alarum]

Ah I see, god forbid anyone engages in introspection and evaluation of their actions. Nope, that's not mature and responsible. We should 'stay the course.'

Not that it would have mattered in this case, as the WSJ came to the same conclusion as the NY Times (and have recieved, let me check... nope, no criticism at all).

 

[Borealis]

Well I for one am glad that they did publish it. America had a right to know that they were being spied on by their government.

Except that they weren't. They were tapping overseas calls to and from known terrorist affiliates. There are more people suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease than people on that list.

But that doesn't fit the 'attack the Bush Administration' template, so it's ignored to make room for lies and accusations of misconduct.

 

[burrow_owl]

This was the newspaper's ombudsman, not the editor. He doesn't speak for the paper, but on behalf of the readers.

 

[rosewaning]

An ombudsman is supposed to look at a story and judge the rightness of it, without passion or prejudice. They are supposed to be professional. In this column, he admits that he was unprofessional in his initial assessment of the story.

Too bad the damage has already been done. This would have been more appropriate immediately after the story was published.

 

[Voegelin]

. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis . . .

Yeah so what is the excuse for Walter Duranty and Harold Denny? For Herbert Matthews? For Anthony Lewis and Sydney Schanberg? For Jason Blair? For using political juice and eminent domain to grab expensive property for a loading dock for the Times and then editorializing on the benefits of the Supreme Court Kelo decision? For crusading against evil corporations while having one class of stock which benefits the family while sticking outsider investors with junk paper?

And on and on and on...

There are no excuses. There is no apology which can be accepted for the misery the Times has inflicted upon the world since its cover up of the Holodomor.

 

[nvxplorer]

. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis . . .

Yeah so what is the excuse for Walter Duranty and Harold Denny? For Herbert Matthews? For Anthony Lewis and Sydney Schanberg? For Jason Blair? For using political juice and eminent domain to grab expensive property for a loading dock for the Times and then editorializing on the benefits of the Supreme Court Kelo decision? For crusading against evil corporations while having one class of stock which benefits the family while sticking outsider investors with junk paper?

And on and on and on...

There are no excuses. There is no apology which can be accepted for the misery the Times has inflicted upon the world since its cover up of the Holodomor.

Nice try.

Since The Wall Street Journal published the same story, on the same day, and you refuse to criticize a conservative newspaper, let's bash the Times for something unrelated to your own OP.

 

[MachZer0]

Nice try.

Since The Wall Street Journal published the same story, on the same day, and you refuse to criticize a conservative newspaper, let's bash the Times for something unrelated to your own OP.

Injecting some truth into the story expalins why the NYTimes is criticized and the WSJ is not.

 

[ImmortalTechnique]

nice point, Mach. according to that little gem, the difference between the two newspapers is that

THE GOVERNMENT NEVER TOLD THE JOURNAL NOT TO!

good, great. so the Times is wrong because they published a story even though the government told them not to, while the Journal just published it.

i get it now

 

[JoyJuice]

The column requires registration, so you'll have to deal with the link I'm providing instead, since I don't give out personal information to newspaper websites. Those of you who have registration to the Times website, feel free to confirm it.

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006173.htm

A very good question. So the Times admits they screwed up in a big way. So why isn't this on the front page of the newspapers, the lead story on the network news?

I'm not sure I have any outrage about tracking banking other than the Governments propensity of losing laptops with everyone's data. I do find it funny the attack on the NY and LA Time while the WSJ gets the conservative kitchen pass.

This war on terror is indeed a war of intelligence and not the fly paper nonsense in Iraq.

 

[ImmortalTechnique]

This war on terror is indeed a war of intelligence and not the fly paper nonsense in Iraq.

which, amazingly enough, is exactly how Clinton, the best anti-terrorism president in the last 25 years, waged the war.

Bush's strategy of ignoring the problem until he can start a war that will make the problem worse, as well as accomplishing the difficult feat of making life in Iraq WORSE than it was under a madman like Saddaam Hussein, is simply not working at all

 

[praying]

So the Times admits they screwed up in a big way.

This isn't quite accurate; one of the public editors at the Times admitted that. What is the public editor?



Byron Calame is the readers' representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly on the Sunday Op-Ed pages.

 

[MachZer0]

nice point, Mach. according to that little gem, the difference between the two newspapers is that

THE GOVERNMENT NEVER TOLD THE JOURNAL NOT TO!

good, great. so the Times is wrong because they published a story even though the government told them not to, while the Journal just published it.

i get it now

Again, injecting soem truth may help clarify the matter. The NYTimes refused to withhold the story, so the administration declassified portions of it and released it to the journal hoping for a more balanced job of reporting. In other words, if the NYTimes had not reported the story, the WSJ would not have reported it either, thus the Times is more worthy of criticism.

 

[ImmortalTechnique]

Again, injecting soem truth may help clarify the matter. The NYTimes refused to withhold the story, so the administration declassified portions of it and released it to the journal hoping for a more balanced job of reporting. In other words, if the NYTimes had not reported the story, the WSJ would not have reported it either, thus the Times is more worthy of criticism.

what a silly argument. if the Times had information wrong, and the information was so sensitive, the government should have simply let them publish their false information, no one else would have reported it, and the Times would have looked foolish

if anyone should be blamed, then, its the government that declassified the information. If they wouldn't have done so, perhaps this "vital" program could still be in place

 

[draper]

I've yet to see a newspaper correction on the front page, ever.

 

[MachZer0]

what a silly argument. if the Times had information wrong, and the information was so sensitive, the government should have simply let them publish their false information, no one else would have reported it, and the Times would have looked foolish

Nobody said anything about the information being wrong. It would appear that you iferred that incorrectly somehow

if anyone should be blamed, then, its the government that declassified the information. If they wouldn't have done so, perhaps this "vital" program could still be in place

Please read the story again. The administration asked the Times not to publish the story, and they refused. The Times determined to print it anyway so the "cat was out of the bag" so to speak.

 

[Yusuf Evans]

I may not have agreed with their decision to divulge classified information, but at least stand by your decision to do so. This shows no fortitude on the NYT.