FAIR has a new Action Alert out pointing out that the New York Times has repeatedly published accounts of the right-wing anti-ACORN videos that credulously accepted assertions that have turned out to be false–for example, that one of the video-makers, James O’Keefe, went into ACORN offices dressed as a cartoon pimp. See the alert here for the real story–and feel free to post copies of your messages to the Times or to respond to the alert in the comments thread here.
To: Clark Hoyt
March 11, 2010
Investigate ACORN videos
Greetings Mr. Hoyt:
I’m writing to urge the New York Times to investigate the unedited videos that were the basis for the “pimp & prostitute” advice alleged to have been given by ACORN. The Times needs to set the record straight, making it clear that the public videos were misleading, and how unfair it was to the ACORN staff and organization.
Best regards,
Bert Skellie
Date: Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 11:55 AM
Subject: ACORN story needs investigative journalism
To: public@nytimes.com
Dear Clark Hoyt,
It is with grave distress that I read the careful assessment by FAIR that the New York Times did not follow basic journalistic standards in doing a complete investigation into the activists who posed as legitimate clients of ACORN. The FAIR report is titled “NYT and the ACORN Hoax: Why can’t paper admit its mistakes?” on 3/11/10 — and contains some extremely disturbing analyses of your responses & of the NYTimes coverage.
It is important for the Public Editor & the Times to more carefully & thoughtfully engage these questions. People like me should be your prime readership. For years I followed your paper carefully but reluctantly ended my subscription this summer because of the bad coverage of health care issues– especially the lack of careful attention to the full spectrum of policy possibilities — such as the public option & single payer. Your piece was excellent & brave that queried whether the decision by the Times not to cover ‘single payer’ might have been an essentially a decision about political possibility rather than policy relevance or journalistic balance. I wish that you had shown that kind of care & courage in addressing the ACORN issue.
I almost kept my subscription to the Times because of your piece on the health care coverage…
Sincerely,
Betsy Taylor
Lexington KY
—
Mr. Clark Hoyt,
By now enough evidence has come out to refute the stories the NY Times’ has printed with regard to O’Keefe’s misleading ACORN videos. Mr. Hoyt, to preserve the integrity of your newspaper, it is time to print a correction. If you don’t, you run the risk of turning away a significant number of readers who will feel they can no longer trust your publication for accurate information.
Regards,
T. Dreier
——————————–
NOTE to FAIR: I received a generic response from the NY Times instructing readers as follows: “Requests for corrections should be submitted to nytnews@nytimes.com. If you are dissatisfied with the response, please let us know.” So, I also emailed my note to that address, as well.
Just as “plagiarism is a major journalistic sin” [Hoyt quote from his 3/6 “Journalistic Shoplifting” piece] so is being unwilling to make corrections and deny error as Public Editor. The Paper’s seeming unwillingness to make corrections to the record regarding “right wing activists” and ACORN place another serious stain on an increasingly stained Times reputation. In an era when the newspaper business is in flux, and journalism itself is under more scrutiny, the unwillingness of The Times to rectify another of the paper’s failings will likely speed its slide, rather than solidify its standing.
Yours,
jon k
Chicago
Dear Mr. Hoyt/NYT,
If FAIR’s report on the NYT’s coverage of the ACORN story and the fabrication of the videotape evidence is correct, then the NYT owes ACORN and the public an extensive apology and explanation, and it needs to work to repair the severe damage done to ACORN caused by an apparently trumped-up “scandal” that the Times helped propagate.
Dear Mr. Hoyt:
The ACORN controversy was, as I suspected all along, more or less a hoax. Editing footage to change what they are saying to the ACORN staff is criminal. For the NYT to take the videos made by a rabid rightist at face value is astounding. Apparently James O’Keefe wasn’t even wearing a pimp outfit in the episodes in question. ACORN has suffered severely and will probably never recover and the ACORN staff members caught in the hoax are, no doubt, personally devastated. A good group has been sabotaged once again by the extreme right. To remedy this, I believe an expose of the O’Keefe scheme by the NYT would be very well-received by your readers.
Sincerely,
Carrie Vanston
Mr. Hoyt,
The only appropriate response to the New York Times megaphoning of the O’Keefe’s rightwing disinformation campaign against ACORN is to correct the story.
O’Keefe’s guerrilla theater propaganda was aimed at destroying a thoroughly constructive community advocacy organization which it should be noted was one of Karl Rove’s key objectives.
The real story that should appear in the New York Times front page is about far right wing propaganda tactics and it’s media allies, and to expose just exactly how the New York Times reporters and editors were so completely taken in by those tactics in the case of ACORN pimp story.
If you cannot report â┚¬Ã…“All The News That Is Fit To Printâ┚¬Ã‚ and make the obvious corrections that are due you will have exposed the New York Times and yourself as facilitators of the right wing media disinformation infrastructure.
Keith
I just read FAIR’s account of the NYT’s handling of O’Keefe’s campaign to smear ACORN. To say I am outraged to see the Times acting like Fox “News” would be a huge understatement. When does the “Responsible” part of Responsible Journalism apply. When a paper publishes stories alleging criminally irresponsible behavior on the part of an individual or an organization, it is incumbent on that paper to publish a correction and offer an apology after it becomes clear the paper had been duped. I had seen TV footage of the purported actions of ACORN workers aiding and abetting child prostitution and tax evasion, but I wasn’t convinced of the authenticity of the video evidence until I saw the Times articles on the criminal behavior of ACORN. I saw the Times headline the other day saying the DA had determined ACORN had committed no crime. I didn’t read it and (stupidly) assumed they were let off on a technicality. I realize that this doesn’t rise to the level of Times front page articles on aluminum tubes that proved Iraq was building centrifuges to refine uranium (for which the Times did eventually apologize), but it does, once again, shake my confidence in the reliability and responsibility of the paper. By they way, I am a decades long subscriber to the NY Times.
Unhappily, Gilbert Steiner
I feel like I have been pimped by the NYTimes. What you printed about the ACORN video portraying a pimp and his whore somehow conning the ACORN staff person is not accurate. I understand that the NYT will not print additional information clarifying both the process and the substance of the truth. It appears as if a great newspaper, one upon which I had great confidence in its integrity and authenticity in reporting the news, has fallen prey to the trend of printing entertainment and calling it news. You might also consider doing a story about ACORN, its history and its mission. There was once a time when the NYT would celebrate community organizing and provide the reader with the details of its purpose, to advocate for social and economic justice. ACORN gives voice to the poor and the marginalized.
Joel R. Ambelang
Jackson, WI
To: New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt
From: NYT reader Margaret Copi, Oakland CA
Re: NYT owes ACORN a correction and apology
March 11, 2010
Clark Hoyt, you were wrong about O’Keefe and his video sting and it’s time for you to strongly recommend that the NYT finally properly investigate the ACORN videos and produce a report that clarifies the record.
Transcripts of the original, instead of the heavily edited and voiced over version O’Keefe distributed, show that O’Keefe did not portray himself as a pimp to the ACORN workers in Brooklyn, but told them that he was trying to help his prostitute girlfriend. In part of the exchange, O’Keefe and his accomplice seem to be telling ACORN staffers that they are attempting to buy a house to protect child prostitutes from an abusive pimp.
Why did the NYT suspend usual rules of good journalism throughout the months the Times covered the story? It made a major mistake: believing that Internet videos produced by right-wing activists were to be trusted uncritically, rather than approached with the skepticism due to anything you’d come across on the Web. O’Keefe and the Web publisher Andrew Breitbart refused to make unedited copies of the videotape public, and with good reason: A more complete viewing, as the transcripts show, would produce a much different impression.
NYT comes across partisan all right, part of a misguided effort to smear ACORN. Why?
NYT needs to print an explanation, correction, and apology to ACORN.
Thank you for your attention.
Here’s the text of the email I sent to FAIR in response to their action alert:
Dear FAIR,
Instead of bothering Mr. Hoyt to do what’s right, why don’t we just spam as many NYT email addresses as we can until the message reaches NYT CEO Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. who may then, possibly, take action, though it’s unlikely that Mr. Hoyt is distorting the truth without Mr. Sulzberger’s or some other top dog’s blessing, but that’s a chance we’ll have to take. (Wow! Was that ever a run-on sentence!)
But who knows? There may yet be a high-ranking NYT editor who is not also a right-wing lapdog and who may sincerely be unhappy with Mr. Hoyt’s unethical behavior and try to do something about it.
Frank Sellers
And here are the email addresses I CC’d on the email:
public@nytimes.com; news-tips@nytimes.com; thearts@nytimes.com; bizday@nytimes.com; editorial@nytimes.com; foreign@nytimes.com; letters@nytimes.com; metro@nytimes.com; metropolitan@nytimes.com; national@nytimes.com; sports@nytimes.com; washington@nytimes.com
Copy, paste and you’re done!
posted to public@nytimes.com:
Please recommend that the paper investigate the ACORN videos and produce a report that clarifies the record.
Don Porter, Schenectady, NY
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:36:35 -0800
From: Peter Langston
To: public@nytimes.com
Subject: Was the Times completely duped by the O’Keefe/ACORN Hoax?
And worse yet, is the Times still afraid to admit its gullible reporting and
correct the record?
Come on, Mr. Hoyt, do the responsible thing and act like a legitimate news
source — correct your mistakes and apologize to ACORN!
-Peter Langston
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
I am a home subscriber to the NYTimes upset by your reluctance to print a retraction in the matter of the NYTimes reporting on the now infamous ACORN video sting operation. I was misled as a reader in multiple articles in your paper. I resent the fact that I have to learn about your error and the deliberate doctoring of the video (clearly a story worth of column space in its own right) from sources outside the NYTimes. Please explain why this is so.
Nothing is gained by trying to save face. My home subscription may very well be lost by a failure to retract misleading information and to print full coverage of what amounts to criminal slander against ACORN and by direct association the campaign of President Obama. Are you really too busy for this story?
Best regards,
J Decker
[address redacted here]
Why do you write that James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles “DRESSED UP AS” a pimp and a prostitute?
You wrote:
“As conventionally reported in the Times and elsewhere, right-wing activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles dressed up as a pimp and a prostitute and visited several local ACORN offices, where office workers gave the duo advice on setting up a brothel, concealing a child prostitution ring and so forth.”
Don’t you think that dressed that way showed their true colors?
Jim, in the alert, the Times’ coverage is labeled a “mistake”.
To me, a mistake connotes an act having unintended consequences. Don’t you think the Times’ fully intended its spin on this to have the resulting effect?
And while I agree, obviously, that this has been an attempt to destroy ACORN for its work with poor folks, am I mistaken in recalling that the org fired some of the persons in question – which would seem to indicate either that they were sacrified to quiet the baying hounds of the corpress, or that they did indeed engage in unethical conduct in some form.
Can you set the record straight on that?
To Clark Hoyt:
Since your paper jumped on the Fox News bandwagon in promoting the fraudulent
videos produced by O’Keefe and Giles, causing severe damage to Acorn, it is only fair that you investigate the case and print a corrective explanatory article to inform your readers of the hoax. It was so obvious they were phony: a scrawny white guy dressed like a jerk.
You are wrong in what you did, and should apologize to Acorn, a respected organization that performs valuable services in our communities, and to your readers, who were duped by your multiple articles vilifying Acorn. The right wingers have been going after Acorn for years: that alone should have made you suspicious!
Perhaps you should get another job, as you are obviously a failure in this one. A public
editor needs good judgement, which you apparently lack.
Thankfully, Acorn has now been totally vindicated by a judge as being innocent of the
charges. That alone makes your apology a necessity. And the right thing to do.
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
I received the following email from FAIR today.
I subscribe to the Times and followed your paper’s reporting on this issue.
As it turns out, the NYT was correct to be initially cautious in its reporting on this issue.
And you were wrong to goad the paper into more aggressively towing the Fox line.
And thus the NYT was wrong not to perceive this accused felon’s video for what
it was; an attempt to destroy an organization whose sole purpose is to better
the lives of and empower the most disadvantaged among us.
Why can’t your paper admit its mistakes?
Julian Fernandez
Dallas, Texas
Mr. Hoyt,
There seems to be discrepancy/confusion about the tapes showing Acorn helping a pimp with his “work”.
What is the real story?
The average person doesn’t have the time or resources to investigate, sooooo, why don’t you?
It would be a breath of fresh air if there was an unbiased investigation about what took place.
Was it a legitimate conservative sting or was it a manufactured hoax.
Please, check it out and publish your findings.
Thank you for any help you might be in getting the truth to the public,
Francis R. McGrath
Mr. Hoyt,
Well, with your help, the New York Times has wound up looking clueless, partisan, and untrustworthy by reporting (and now, not reporting) on the phony ACORN sting. Please, fulfill your professional obligation to serve the public trust, help yourself, and investigate the ACORN videos — simply produce a report that clarifies the record.
To: Clark Hoyt, Public Editor
I am extremely disappointed by the Times’ failure to acknowledge & correct its damaging errors in the coverage of ACORN. This organization has been very important in supporting underserved & underrepresented communities, & has long been attacked by right-wing opponents. However, it is very sad to see that the Times joined in these attacks, by promoting the importance of misleading videos, spliced together to give a false impression that ACORN employees had aided a ludicrously-outfitted couple, impersonating a pimp & a prostitute, in tax evasion for criminal activities. Although it has now been well established that the videos do not represent the reality of what happened in the ACORN offices, & ACORN has been legally cleared, the Times has failed to acknowledge its role in this blatant, destructive attack.
Our legislators showed real cowardice in abandoning ACORN without due process, & the Times joined in– it’s now time to correct the record. The communities that relied on ACORN’s support in so many ways, from fighting foreclosure to getting out the vote, have been poorly served, & those who took part in tearing down ACORN must now take responsibility for helping to re-build its crucial services. Please step up.
From DEMOCRACY NOW!:
Judge Instructs Fed Agencies to Resume ACORN Funding
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/12/judge_instructs_fed_agencies_to_resume
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
It’s about time the news be given to us accurately and that reporting of the news not be based on rumors and suppositions. I would like to see the Times redeem itself by admitting it made a mistake and clear the name of the ACORN group. What is going on this country anyways? When newspapers begin to spin the news out of control and create their realities it’s the rest of humanity that suffers from not hearing the truth and lies that are perpetuated and where admissions are never made. When we hide the fact that errors have been made we all lose face every single time it happens.
All I want is the facts and the truth!!! OR has the TImes lost touch with that!!!
Sincerely,
Geri Keams
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