Making Stuff Up

The New York Times digs ever deeper trying to explain the systemic slant that transformed the paper from objectivity to outrageous liberal puppet-master. It began when the Times was caught "putting words in a contributor's mouth," the mouth belonging to Army reserve officer Phillip Carter, the words appearing in Carter's July 6th Op-Ed. That slip generated an "outlandish" next-day correction, now the poster-child proof of press bias:

The Op-Ed page in some copies of Wednesday's newspaper carried an incorrect version of the below article about military recruitment. The article also briefly appeared on NYTimes.com before it was removed. The writer, an Army reserve officer, did not say, "Imagine my surprise the other day when I received orders to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., next Sunday," nor did he characterize his recent call-up to active duty as the precursor to a "surprise tour of Iraq." That language was added by an editor and was to have been removed before the article was published. Because of a production error, it was not. The Times regrets the error.

Next, the Times' new Public Editor, Byron Calme, tried to explain, but unintentionally confirmed the bias, "Even with this sorting out of the mistakes actually made and the mistaken perceptions of some readers, the doubts about the paper's credibility stirred up by this incident won't be easily erased." Calme's prediction was borne out in today's Times letters to the editor. Chuck Nordhoff, who says he's "no fan of President Bush," observes:

[Y]our explanation of this situation confirms the suspicion of "an unusual number of readers" that "a Times editor had tried to put words in the mouth of the reserve Army officer, Capt. Phillip Carter, without his consent."

After all, isn't that exactly what happened? Captain Carter had rejected an editor's suggestions that were included (albeit inadvertently) in the published version of his opinion article. To my eyes, these unauthorized insertions have an anti-Bush bias.

Arthur Siegel agrees:

Given the editorial positions of The Times, it is inevitable that readers will assume the worst: that the editor tried to put words in Captain Carter's mouth. What other possibility is there?

Explaining how it happened is helpful, but I believe readers are entitled to know more. Have the policies regarding "editing" Op-Ed articles been clarified? Has the particular editor been disciplined? If there are no consequences for such actions, what will deter them in the future?

And the letter from Marine Lt. Col. Paul Amato is worth quoting in full:

Despite your long and confusing explanation, it is clear that an Op-Ed editor's initial proposed insertion into Capt. Phillip Carter's article was made up out of whole cloth before later discussions with the writer. Even though the piece was to be revised based on editors' subsequent conversations with Captain Carter, the initial reaction by the editor who chose this language as the going-in position is indicative of both the inherent bias of this individual editor as well as (I fear) The Times's editorial staff.

The real error here isn't that the wrong piece was run. Rather, it is that the Times editorial board permits editors to think - however fleetingly - that they can change the text and tone of a citizen's opinion to fit their own preconceived political notions.

As a United States Marine reservist who recently served a combat tour in Iraq, I find this incident to be particularly objectionable. No self-serving explanation or apology stating that proper procedures were not followed can hide the apparent lack of candor demonstrated by the editor who initially proposed this language.

Nothing new there, of course; kudos to liberals Kevin Drum and Brad DeLong for agreeing the Times crossed the line.

The "Carter Op-Ed Kerfuffle" illuminates the mechanism institutionalizing left-wing dogma, concludes Ed Morrissey:

This also explains why the media always makes a point in their journalism vs. blogger debating to point out its layers of editors as a quality control check. Apparently, they need one level for making stuff up, and another level to stop the first level from getting caught at it, at least at the New York Times. And this is on the Op-Ed page, where the only function of an editor should be to correct spelling and grammar and to cut out text for article length, not to make things up to pad it out.

Just imagine what all those editors do to their news articles!

Unfortunately, even for a casual Times reader, no imagination is necessary.

Conclusion: Letter to the editor author Tony Gozdz says it best:

I cannot imagine how this turn of events could be interpreted by any reasonable person other than that the editor put his or her words into the mouth of the original author, words that the author immediately and completely disagreed with.

It is clear that those "suggested changes" had nothing to do with clarity and style, but everything to do with the editor's political agenda and bias. It is disappointing that you appear to see it differently.

That's no surprise either, except to the one-sided lefty legions, media multitude and double-talk distributors defending Democrats with a see-, hear- and speak-no-evil obliviousness to objectivity.