The New York Times has some explaining to do

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201005190039

The New York Times has some explaining to do

May 19, 2010 1:51 pm ET by Jamison Foser


This Associated Press report about the controversy surrounding Richard Blumenthal’s description of his military service raises some questions about the New York Times’ handling of the story:



So why didn’t the Times include Blumenthal “correctly characterizing his service” in its version of the video? That’s awfully misleading, isn’t it? Given that Republican Linda McMahon’s campaign has taken credit for feeding the Times the Blumenthal story, you have to wonder if it gave the Times the incomplete video, as well. Either way, the Times should explain why it chose to omit Blumenthal’s correct characterization of his service.



And I can hear you now...the "AP"?? Seems they turned over a new leaf...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x305275
Who woulda thunk it: AP is fact-checking, and it's popular!

:kick:

If this is all true - which given the CT veterans reactions, the NYT really needs to give their source and explain why they likely didn't speak to the CT veteran groups that appear solidly behind Bluementhal.

They should know the Right will never respect The NYT,
and probably chuckle when the Right puts one over on them.

Fox News is fed directly into their teeny brains.


This is NOT good marketing strategy for the New York Times (or the Democratic party leadership):
Piss of your customer base pandering to people who don't get you anyway...and never will.


"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

on the 2004 election

The Washington Post immediately dismissed allegations of fraud as ‘‘conspiracy theories,’‘ and The New York
Times declared that ‘‘there is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale.’‘

Rolling Stone mag

There are people there who should be in chains.

...tell

just imagine what its going to be this Nov and when obama up for re-elect.

they are all desperate and most everyone is brain dead and don't notice the out and out lies.

fuckety fuck fuck

mr blumenthal is forever tainted....whether he deserves it or not is irrelevant at this point...he was tried and convicted by the new york times.

when the story was flawed and badly reported.

...the pressure of the warp speed news cycle leads to sloppiness. Scoring a sensational-sounding "scoop" becomes more important than journalistic integrity. The NYT used to be better than this.

:thumbsup:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/19/867993/-CT-Sen:-NY-Times-blows-Blumenthal-story

I trusted the NY Times to get the story right, and believed the paper when it claimed Blumenthal had a history of misrepresenting his service history. As a veteran, it pissed me off.

Now I'm pissed at the NY Times for not properly doing its job, and denying its readers the available information necessary for its readers to properly assess the situation.

I trusted the newspaper. You'd think I would've learned my lesson after Judith Miller.

Update: Colin McEnroe of the Hartford Courant has a pretty devastating itemized listing of the flaws in the NY Times article. He also asked local reporters who covered Blumenthal what they knew about Blumenthal's military record:

(end snip)

Here is link to McEnroe article:

http://blogs.courant.com/colin_mcenroe_to_wit/2010/05/the-flaws-in-the-nyt-blumentha.html


The Times pulled another Acorn on Blumenthal. This time it will backfire on them.

doing a half-assed job. Like that will happen.

Too much like what happened to Acorn. I have been outraged at the Times really since the Acorn mess.

:)

Yeah, that's a good excuse. I can see that playing really well for a politician. Would you accept that from a child?

I'm amazed that so many people think a phrase earlier in the speech, in which he says he "served in the military during the Vietnam era", makes it OK to lie later in the speech. The earlier phrase does not say that he didn't go to Vietnam; it just says he was in the military (I presume that people are happy that service in the Reserve does count as 'being in the military'). That phrase covers being sent to Vietnam as well; since he later made that claim in the speech, anyone hearing the speech would still have been completely misled.

I'll give you an analogy: if a DU post said "as a parent, I think education is important. As a mother, I think girls get held back at school", and then it turned out the DUer was a man, would you say "but he called himself a parent at first, so we can ignore the lie about being a mother"?

There is nothing in that link that hurts the NYTimes reporting or helps Blumenthal.

It is more of the same of what Blumenthal is being accused of. Any veteran that was honestly trying to say he did not serve in a combat zone, would say "While I did not serve in Iraq/Vietnam/etc, I did serve during that time and ....." Blumenthal seems to have purposefully been ambiguous so he could lead votes to think he did serve in Vietnam. That is despicable!

And he didn't want to/have to correct them.

*wink wink*

Do a little dance, take a little sidestep, do a little dance, take another sidestep ~ from "The Best Whorehouse in Texas"

Good Gawd almighty.

(snip)

"He has always been completely straightforward" about his military service, said Jean Risley, a chairwoman of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc. "I never once heard him say that he was in Vietnam."

Risley was quoted in the Times as recalling an emotional Blumenthal describe the abuse that he and other veterans received when they returned from the war.

She told ABCNews.com today that she was misquoted.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/richard-blumenthal-politician-misstate-military-record/story?id=10678932

How low can the NYT sink. I know of Blumenthal's legal work and admire it. He's got guts and the right approach to the Wall Street crooks. When I say the NYT blip fly by I thought, "Oh shit!" and I was right - it's more bull shit from the Times, the paper that brought us the invasion of Iraq and the 2nd term of Bush-Cheney.

They have huge answers on this one, just huge.

just the same old in a different wrapper.

i don't trust the NYT for shit. it's just a convenient paper to cite to shut up the credulous and lazy.

I wrote about them once. They deserved it too;)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0806/S00332.htm

Both have been obsessed with bringing him down.

I'm sorry but if you say earlier in a speech that you served during the "Vietnam era" and then say "served in" or "coming home from" that is pretty much leading your audience to believe that you did serve in Vietnam or at the least allowing them to think that. The correct way, as a veteran, I would phase that would be to say "Although I did not serve in Vietnam, I did serve during that time."

To make this worse, I saw this quote this morning:

"I wore the uniform in Vietnam and many came back to all kinds of disrespect. Whatever we think of war, we owe the men and women of the armed forces our unconditional support."

The occasion was the Stamford Veterans Day parade Nov. 9, 2008.

The speaker was Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, as quoted by The Advocate.

http://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Critics-weigh-Blumenthal-s-words-491710.php

I don't know much about the News Times and which way they lean (they are a Hearst owned paper). However, if this quote is accurate, then this guy needs to go.