Wednesday, September 03, 2008

NYT Retracts Front Page Smear

NYTimes.com"A front-page article in The New York Times on Tuesday and articles in other news outlets reported that Ms. Palin was a member of the party, the Alaskan Independence Party, for two years in the 1990’s."

It would have been nice if they had verified the story before they ran it on the front page.

I guess that would be too much to expect from the paper that ran three front-page stories yesterday on a candidate's daughter's personal life.

**Update**
LAT has not yet retracted their story posted 15 hours ago. Let's see if they do.

4 comments:

Robert C. said...

I'd hardly call it a smear; NYT got a detail wrong, but Palin does have ties to this extremist political party. Her husband's membership and her address of the AIP convention make it a relevant issue.

Anonymous said...

Grasping. At. Straws.
Paul

g_rob said...

A detail? Is that what that's called? I thought getting a detail wrong was like saying she was from Eagle Falls rather than Wassila. Or that she played guard and not forward on her basketball team. Seems to me that this "detail" is much more than that and something that really should be fact-checked before it's printed in one of the most-read papers in the world.

dcat said...

The husband being a member kind of matters. Her speaking before the party actively kind of matters. Her kind words about the work they are doing kind of matters. This is a party that advocates secession and has been condemnatory of the United States and the flag.

And yes, it is getting a detail wrong given that one of the sources confirming her membership was a member of the party hierarchy. No smear here.

dcat