New York Times gets it wrong -- with repercussions

Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor for the New York Times, whose job is to monitor and explain faults in the Times' journalistic integrity and accuracy in reporting.    Yesterday, she published an extensive expose and correction of their reporting mistake that should not have happened.

Last Sunday, a Times article reported that "the U.S. government had missed something that was right out there in the open: the jihadist social-media posts by one of the San Bernardino killers. Its initial paragraphs read as follows:

"Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passed three background checks by American immigration officials as she moved to the United States from Pakistan. None uncovered what Ms. Malik had made little effort to hide — that she talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad.  She said she supported it. And she said she wanted to be a part of it."

Ms. Sullivan continued:

"It was certainly damning – and it was wrong. On Wednesday, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey [stated that] , Ms. Malik had not posted 'openly' on social media. She had written emails; she had written private messages, not visible to the public; and she had written on a dating site.

"In other words, the story’s clear implication that those who vetted Ms. Malik’s visa had missed the boat . . . was based on a false premise."

 
She goes on to explain that the error was the result of relying on "anonymous sources" that were wrong.  Unfortunately, "such falsehoods and their repercussions live on long after the stories have been corrected or disputed."    Further harm is done, as Erik Wemple of The Washington Post wrote, because the story "set fire to the news system.   All sorts of follow-up reports surfaced.  And straight into the political arena it went. . . .  Ted Cruz was using it to bash Democrats."

These were the same two reporters who falsely claimed, again using "anonymous sources," that Hillary Clinton was about to undergo a criminal investigation by the Justice Department because of her email server problem.   That was not true. 

Ms. Sullivan then described the steps being taken by the Times to ensure that this respected "newspaper of record" was taking to avoid future mistakes like this.  The editor who had checked the article admitted that it "was a really big mistake" and that they should have pushed harder for confirmation before publishing it.

The Times will be putting a new system in place that reduces such overreliance on anonymous sources.   All of their editors agreed that the process needs to be slowed down.   The competitive pressure to be the first to publish a story can lead to cutting corners on confirmation and fact-checking.

For anyone interested in the reporting process and in journalistic integrity, as I am, I highly recommend the TV series that last for just two seasons, "Newsoom," starring Jeff Daniels as a television news anchor.    It's a fascinating look behind the scenes in the (fictionalized) world of broadcast journalism, where integrity is often pitted against being first with a breaking story.    Some of the episodes are about just this:   waiting to air the story until they have three reliable sources -- and often having to withstand the pressure from the station owner, whose concern about ratings does battles with the idealistic news team who would rather be right than first.

The New York Times has long been considered the best.   I applaud them for having a Public tEditor exposing their own mistakes instead of trying to cover them up.   At the same time, it seems that the Times has been slipping up more frequently lately.   I hope this one will be a lesson.

It was an important story, and this mistake and its repercussions probably contributed to an increase in fear and anti-Muslim feeling in this country.   There's enough already, and the Republican candidates are just making it worse.   We don't need our best liberal newspaper piling on.

Ralph