New Republic boss ‘regrets’ slight

April 17, 2001

WASHINGTON — The editor of The New Republic says he “regrets” not giving WorldNetDaily credit in the left-wing magazine’s current cover story on China. He blames an “editing error” for the omission.

Before Elaine Chao’s confirmation as President Bush’s labor secretary, WorldNetDaily ran several exclusive, copyrighted articles exposing her ties to Communist China, as well as her influence at the conservative Heritage Foundation, a China hawk until Chao came
aboard in 1996.

In its April 23 issue, on newsstands now, The New Republic repeats most of WorldNetDaily’s original reporting without citing the independent newssite.

New Republic Editor Peter Beinart insists the leftist journal was not trying to cast the material as its own. He explains that an earlier draft of the nearly 7,000-word cover story referenced WorldNetDaily, but was removed by mistake.

“An editing error late in the process removed the reference, which I sincerely regret,” Beinart said in a letter.

Beinart vowed to correct the “oversight” on New Republic’s website and in its next print issue.

Late yesterday, the magazine’s online version added a single credit to WorldNetDaily’s work midway through the long piece, titled “Sullied Heritage: An investigative report by John B. Judis on the decline of principled conservative opposition to China.”

A correction follows at the end of the story.

The cover story’s author, Judis, a senior editor at New Republic, also apologized in a separate letter.

“I am truly sorry about this,” he said. “I always try to give other reporters credit for their work.”

Judis says he originally included WorldNetDaily in the lead of his story.

But “in the first series of galleys, there was no mention of WND — it was missing just as in the final version,” he said.

“I know this may seem odd to you but I was [as] surprised as you that it wasn’t there,” Judis said.

He says he initially blamed “an editor and one of [the] production people” at the left-wing magazine before realizing that he had, in his final draft, “inadvertently” cut the reference to WorldNetDaily himself.

“You guys were totally right to be pissed off about the omission of WorldNetDaily from my article,” said Judis, who on Feb. 27 emailed this reporter about WorldNetDaily’s stories on Chao, China and Heritage before starting research on his cover story.

Read Joseph Farah’s commentary, Story sharks at New Republic

Judis or Judas? New Republic editor rips off WND’s Chao-China story

Read New Republic’s story: Sullied Heritage (online post: April 12, 2001)

Compare New Republic story with WorldNetDaily’s series of stories …

Elaine Chao’s ties to Chinese leader (Jan. 13, 2001)

Chao’s pro-China coup at Heritage? (Jan. 16, 2001)

Chao has biz ties to Lippo (Jan. 17, 2001)

Dissident Wu ‘very surprised’ at Chao pick (Jan. 17, 2001)

Heritage to close odd Hong Kong shop (Jan. 24, 2001)

McConnell’s belated dirty-money discovery (Jan. 26, 2001)

Wall Street Journal citings:

WSJ Opinion Journal’s “Best of the Web” (Jan. 19, 2001) citing WND’s “Chao’s pro-China coup at Heritage?” story