Gray Lady responds to criticism ... from the left!

Earlier this week, the New York Times published an editor's note chastising itself for its "less than rigorous" coverage of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The good news is the Times is finally coming around to responding to criticism of its own news reporting. The bad news is it is only responding to criticism it has received from the left.

The really bad news is the Times just shot a warning across the bow of any reporter or editor who would even think about reporting facts that might support the Bush administration.

But, first, it's fair to ask, what exactly did the Times do wrong? When the Times published last year its notorious mea culpa regarding the journalistic fraud of Jayson Blair – its disgraced reporter who fabricated news – the Times was dutifully correcting straightforward lies that had appeared in its pages. It was a service to accuracy in reporting. (How they got into that mess is another story).

By contrast, what Times Executive Editor Bill Keller did this week in his editor's note is a devastating blow to objectivity in journalism. Let me explain.

In covering information regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction prior to the war in Iraq, the Times reporters simply used sources who they and their editors believed reliable at the time. (These were many of the same sources who the Bush administration also believed to be reliable). Moreover, the identities of many of these sources were usually disclosed and quoted fully on the record by the Times – giving the public and other news organizations an opportunity to investigate their credibility.

The Times then published news articles about what their reporters saw and heard. It is hard to believe any of these reporters intentionally slanted the news in favor of the Bush administration – if they tried, it is not likely they would have gotten away with it at the most-edited left-wing newspaper in the world. So, where's the fraud?

Given the standards established by the Times' coverage of other stories, it is not altogether clear how the Times reporters or editors were at fault here. Keller seems to think the information the Times published about WMD "should have been presented more cautiously." In addition, when certain reports were later proven suspect, the paper's "misgivings appeared deep in an article on Page A13" – in other words, they buried the correction.

What's so unusual about that? The Times does it all the time. Consider, for example, what happened to former Securities Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt.

The Times published a front-page story – based on an anonymous source – that Pitt failed to disclose critical information to his fellow commissioners prior to their vote on an appointee to an accounting board. The article was followed by a seven-day crusade of front-page articles regarding the incident – a major embarrassment to the Bush administration and Republican candidates occurring just prior to the midterm-2002 elections. The media firestorm that resulted culminated in Pitt's resignation on the eve of the election. (Only God knows how the Times-driven scandal may have influenced the voters).

Two months later, the congressional investigation launched as a result of the Times' "reporting" completely vindicated Pitt from any wrongdoing. The report of the General Accounting Office stated that Pitt never had the information that the Times accused him of withholding. How did the Times correct their error? By burying Pitt's exoneration – in a near unintelligible way – at the bottom of a story that actually bore the headline, "Government Report Details A Chaotic S.E.C. Under Pitt" (Dec. 20, 2002). Talk about rubbing salt into the wound!

The Times coverage of the Pitt pseudo-scandal occurred at the same time as the paper's WMD coverage. Yet, has Keller scolded his reporters and editors for relying on "sketchy information," for being "too intent on rushing scoops into the paper," for not presenting the information they had "more cautiously," and for burying the correction when they were later proven wrong?

The premise of Keller's apparent contrition about WMD is that his reporters got it wrong – that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and therefore prior reports suggesting otherwise were wrong. We know the Times got the Pitt story wrong – dead wrong, dead as a doornail wrong. But did the Times reporters really get the WMD story wrong?

According to former weapons inspector David Kay, the United Nations has found (a) recipes and equipment that would have allowed Saddam Hussein to resume production of biological weapons on short notice, (b) reference strains of a wide variety of biological weapons, (c) a prison laboratory for testing biological weapons on humans, and (d) long-range missiles capable of delivering WMDs to locations as far as Israel and Southern Europe.

The only thing missing are the so-called "stockpiles," though we have an audiotape (which Secretary of State Colin Powell played during his presentation at the United Nations) of an Iraqi officer demanding another officer "evacuate" a stockpile of nerve gas that was in his possession. Most recently, we discovered the direct presence of sarin gas in Iraq. (Of course, the Times buried the story. The Times' omission of mass destruction was pointed out in William Safire's recent column, "Sarin? What Sarin?," May 19, 2004).

Unlike the erroneous coverage of Harvey Pitt, it is not altogether clear that the reporters or editors at the Times covering the WMD story were wrong at all – reporters get details wrong all the time, and when an error is discovered, they report it on the corrections page. Yet, on the big picture – regarding the presence of WMD in Iraq – the Times' reporting seemed right on track.

It seems, therefore, that Keller's editor's note had little to do with making amends for bad journalism. Some may believe Keller was motivated by a need to appease its left-wing audience, who get upset about anything appearing in the Times that might be supportive of the Bush administration's policies.

But I rather think it was a very clever means of launching a front-page, election-year crusade against the Bush administration's justification for the war. At the end of the note, Keller raises the specter of forthcoming "aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight," the record being "the pattern of misinformation" about Iraq's weapons.

Using its news pages to attack President Bush is one thing – that is to be expected from the Times. The real genius behind the editor's note, however, is how it has threatened the newspaper's staff into lockstep conformity with the Times' propaganda machine.

What Bill Keller has done – quite masterfully – is to scare the truth out of the Times reporters and editors: Those who are not "skeptical" or "cautious" enough regarding events and information that do not support the Times' political leanings are in for a real scolding. Nice going, Mr. Kelly.