Why the NY Times just keeps getting hammered.. the disgraceful coverage of the...

[jameznyhc]

New Book Destroys Credibility of Times' Duke Lacrosse "Rape" Coverage
Why did the Times believe in the Duke rape hoax so long? "[David] Brooks' brand of conservatism -- so moderate that he rooted for the Democrats to win control of Congress in 2006 -- still put him far to the right of almost every other writer and editor at the Times."

Posted by: Clay Waters
9/19/2007 3:12:02 PM



On Sunday Jeffrey Rosen reviewed "Until Proven Innocent -- Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case," by Stuart Taylor & KC Johnson, a book that, among bringing other injustices surrounding the case to light, also excoriates the mainstream press's shoddy coverage, much of which presumed the guilt of the three white lacrosse players. The case was later proven to be utterly false.



Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, called the book "riveting." Yet he devoted just two sentences to the frequent passages that rip apart the Times' shoddy coverage of the case, taking particular aim at reporter Duff Wilson and columnist Selena Roberts.



Rosen wrote:

"Nifong's sins are now well known, but Taylor and Johnson argue that he was aided and abetted by the news media and the Duke faculty. They are withering about the 'lynch mob mentality' (in the words of a defense lawyer) created by bloviating cable news pundits on the left and the right. But they are also sharply critical of what they call the one-sided reporting of the nation's leading newspapers, including The New York Times. With a few exceptions, the authors suggest, The Times's coverage consistently showed a 'pro-Nifong bias,' most notably in a front-page article apparently trying to resurrect the case after it seemed on the verge of collapse."

Times sports reporter Joe Drape could have been an early hero for the truth, but when Drape began to divert from the favored storyline of Times editors, he was replaced by another reporter, Duff Wilson, who hewed more closely to the pro-prosecution slant preferred by the liberal editors at the Times, who viewed the affair solely through the politically correct prism of race/sex/class. Wilson proceeded to get everything comically if not tragically wrong about the case, uncorrected factual errors and burying exculpatory evidence.



Ironically, Taylor and Johnston write:



"…the New York Times initially stood out for its reasonably balanced coverage. The first Times reporter to conduct detailed interviewing about the evidence in the rape case was sportswriter Joe Drape….Drape's March 31 article especially stood out from the pack. He highlighted comments by defense lawyers challenging the accuser's credibility, vowing that the DNA would prove the lacrosse players innocent, and pointing the fishy features of Kim Roberts's 911 call….the more he pushed, the more Drape came to believe that Mangum was not credible and her rape charge was probably false….Encouraged by Drape's performance, Thomas provided all the evident of innocence then in his possession to the Times reporter. Thomas was expecting a great article, but in early April Drape called him and said there would be no article because he was 'having problems with the editors.' 'From my perspective,' Thomas recalled later, 'the interest of the Times in defense information came to a slow crawl with the departure of Drape. And soon after Drape privately told people at Duke and, presumably, at the Times that this looked like a hoax, his byline disappeared from the Duke lacrosse story. The word among people at Duke and defense supporters, including one who later ran into Drape at a race track, was that the editors wanted a more pro-prosecution line. They also wanted to stress the race-sex-class angle without dwelling on evidence of innocence. They got what they wanted from Drape's replacement, Duff Wilson, whose reporting would become a journalistic laughingstock by summer…"



Taylor and Johnson have another revealing insight into the politicization inside the Times. After the paper's non-liberal columnist David Brooks penned "The Duke Witch Hunt" on May 29, 2006:



"…inside the New York Times, it was widely shrugged off as of little interest. Why? Because Brooks' brand of conservatism -- so moderate that he rooted for the Democrats to win control of Congress in 2006 -- still put him far to the right of almost every other writer and editor at the Times."



Most notorious was the 5,600-word front-page epic that appeared August 25, 2006, intended to counter the perception, slowly sinking in among the mainstream press, that the "rape" had in fact never happened Taylor eviscerated Wilson's story at the time, and the authors do a post-mortem on the infamous piece for the book.



"Duff Wilson had been very much part of the journalist pack committed to the now increasingly discredited presumption-of-guilt approach….The big piece [written with Jonathan Glater] ran on August 25, jumping from the front page to a full page inside the paper and totaling 5,600 words. The headline was: 'Files in Duke Case Give Details but No Answers'….[they] gave unwarranted credence to contrary evidence of dubious credibility….the article was littered with inaccuracies, such as its claim that, just after midnight, 'the dancers stopped. An argument ensued. Using a racial epithet, someone yelled that they had asked for white dancers, not black ones. That much is agreed. It was 12:04 A.M. March 14.' In fact, far from 'agreed,' the Times claim that a racial epithet was hurled at the women inside the house was clearly false….But the most misleading aspects of the article were its selective presentation of evidence and omissions."



The authors follow up with a comprehensive analysis of the story's grievous errors of fact and chronology.



A stark contrast to the paper's presumption of guilt in the Duke lacrosse (non)rape case appeared in the paper on Tuesday in a "News Analysis" by Victoria Burnett concerning the case of Kate and Gerry McCann and their four-year-old daughter Madeleine, who disappeared in Portugal on the night of May 3.



A strong presumption of innocence permeated the Times' piece, with Burnett emphasizing the parallels between the McCann disappearance and the case of Lindy Chamberlain, whose infant was killed in the Australian outback in 1982. The case was made into the movie "A Cry in the Dark." Burnett said the Chamberlain case "finds disquieting echoes" in the McCann case: "Mrs. Chamberlain's experience offers cautionary notes on how flawed evidence and speculation can turn victim into convict."



Too bad the Times didn't heed that counsel before painting the Duke lacrosse players as guilty of rape.

[Defekted]

http://www.timeswatch.com/



why dont you save some of your precious time and have Dmitry make a direct link to these pathetic sites...... that way you can do something productive with your life rather than copy and paste endless rightwing articles....


dont you understand you have nothing to stand on when your newspaper of choice has front page stories that look like this?





Take a break.

[jameznyhc]

lol ok so ruining the lives of 4 kids because of their race is right wing lol...as for the post headlines?? lol! 2 headlines the surrender monkeys, and finish the job were EDITORIALS, not news stories..the post has an op ed thats right of center i know it boggles your mind that a print newspaper can actually not be a left wing rag..the article about treason ? written in the op ed piece as COMMENTARY by a former military man ralph peters who spent 8 weeks with the troops.. so yeah better than printing lies and ruining peoples lives.. pretty pathetic the times is so out of control they need a watchdog site just to monitor them ...great paper of record

[Defekted]

Surrender monkeys?.... slightly right of center, yeaaaaaaaaaaa.....

anything other than a politican that advocates nuking the middle east will have their face photoshopped on monkeys.......

classy!

Keep reading that junk and ill keep reading my Times

[jameznyhc]

Surrender monkeys?.... slightly right of center, yeaaaaaaaaaaa.....

anything other than a politican that advocates nuking the middle east will have their face photoshopped on monkeys.......

classy!

Keep reading that junk and ill keep reading my Times

oh you never commented about how the times ruined 4 kids lives because they were white and the so called victim a black female?? your thoughts please??

[TheHipHopBillGates]

the last republican supporting george bush bashing the new york times, what's next lucky charms with marshmellows?

[Defekted]

oh you never commented about how the times ruined 4 kids lives because they were white and the so called victim a black female?? your thoughts please??

when you comment on surrender monkeys (a bipartisan group of the most respected people in American politics - and their earnest attempt to bring a managable end to the worst foreign policy blunder in this countrys history) ill comment on lacrosse, wiffle ball, polo, whatever.... lol.....

but then again, scratch that... that would be putting the times and your coloring book into a equal footing, and lol, we all know that just cant happen.....



Ill send you a few hundred bucks in the mail so you can subscribe to the times and educate yourself..... then you can come back to this forum enlightened.....

timeswatch.com LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!! so pathetic.

[lolz]

Tawana in 08

[jameznyhc]

when you comment on surrender monkeys (a bipartisan group of the most respected people in American politics - and their earnest attempt to bring a managable end to the worst foreign policy blunder in this countrys history) ill comment on lacrosse, wiffle ball, polo, whatever.... lol.....

but then again, scratch that... that would be putting the times and your coloring book into a equal footing, and lol, we all know that just cant happen.....



Ill send you a few hundred bucks in the mail so you can subscribe to the times and educate yourself..... then you can come back to this forum enlightened.....

timeswatch.com LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!! so pathetic.

ok i already did surrender monkeys was an op-ed piece ..used with humor and sarcasm ..most people thought the headline was hysterical ... comments on the duke rape case??

[jameznyhc]

the last republican supporting george bush bashing the new york times, what's next lucky charms with marshmellows?

hmm not sure what that has to do with the duke rape case ..

[Defekted]

ok i already did surrender monkeys was an op-ed piece ..used with humor and sarcasm ..most people thought the headline was hysterical ... comments on the duke rape case??

as for the rape case, the entire media from left to right were camping out in NC from day one till it was over....it was a hysteria that I never once believed should even make page 75.... there are alleged rapes and killings everyday in the ghettos and you never hear about it, but the second it involves affluent white kids from prep schools its a 4 month story.... just like the white girl who disappeared in aruba, holy shit, a whole year on it, rediculous, people get kidnapped daily in the states...... anyway, i read the NYTs everyday and i assure this story barely made it, if ever, to the front page..... \

most people find that hysterical? most people thought photoshopping baker and hamilton on monkeys and putting it on the front page of the paper is hysterical? who? you and your boys? winners! make sure you remind me to invite your crew to the next neighborhood BBQ outing....

Making light of the Iraq war and ways to come to a bipartisan agreement and solution to the entire mess is funny? classy paper with its classy readers.... readers that dont enlist to fight the war they believe in but find it 'hysterical' when their paper makes fun of it...... tisk tisk.....

[jameznyhc]

as for the rape case, the entire media from left to right were camping out in NC from day one till it was over....it was a hysteria that I never once believed should even make page 75.... there are alleged rapes and killings everyday in the ghettos and you never hear about it, but the second it involves affluent white kids from prep schools its a 4 month story.... just like the white girl who disappeared in aruba, holy shit, a whole year on it, rediculous, people get kidnapped daily in the states...... anyway, i read the NYTs everyday and i assure this story barely made it, if ever, to the front page..... \

most people find that hysterical? most people thought photoshopping baker and hamilton on monkeys and putting it on the front page of the paper is hysterical? who? you and your boys? winners! make sure you remind me to invite your crew to the next neighborhood BBQ outing....

Making light of the Iraq war and ways to come to a bipartisan agreement and solution to the entire mess is funny? classy paper with its classy readers.... readers that dont enlist to fight the war they believe in but find it 'hysterical' when their paper makes fun of it...... tisk tisk.....

oh come on now your just mad they stole your idea ..you know its funny ..shit i even laughed when you came up with it first and you posted that photoshop pic of bush face on the chimpanzee..aka as your famous line THE CHIMP ..

[Defekted]

oh come on now your just mad they stole your idea ..you know its funny ..shit i even laughed when you came up with it first and you posted that photoshop pic of bush face on the chimpanzee..aka as your famous line THE CHIMP ..

the difference is i dont consider www.bushorchimp.com as a legitimate news source..... just a hysterical website (notice no photoshopping was required, a side by side comparison was good enough, lmao)

you on the other hand parade NYPost as a legitimate news source, the day you see bush on a monkeys body on the front page of the NYT's Ill jump of the GW Bridge.