Finally! A mea culpa from the New York Times on its coverage of the non-existent WMDs
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Today New York Times editors finally
admitted that they failed to do their jobs when it came to vetting sources for
the disinformation on "Weapons of Mass Destruction.
From the New York Times editors
today, comes this:
...we
have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it
should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and
seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand
unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining
the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.
And
later:
Some critics of our
coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our
examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors
at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for
more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper.
Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire
to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended
to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones
into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at
all.
More
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html"
target="NewWindow">here.
See also this article from Editor & Publisher, which notes a number of problems with the Times' admission of error here.
The
thing is, you have to wonder
why the
editors and reporters were so eager to rush to judgment on this. What is it
about the nature of the business that made them so ready to believe the now
discredited sources, when there were plenty of other people who were criticizing
those sources, outside of the Bush Administration? Why would they not listen to
the anti-war points of view? Why did they give so little attention to the people
who said these sources were suspect?
It's
a bit too little, and very much too late, for them to admit this mistake. Better
late than never, I suppose. But still, I can only think of the thousands of
lives that have been lost -- American, Iraqi, and others -- thanks to the
Times'
complicity in the selling of the war.