On February 25, New York Times public editor Byron Calame responded to readers who were critical of the Times‘ coverage of claims that Iran was shipping explosives to Iraqi insurgents. FAIR encouraged activists to write to Calame in a February 16 action alert. The following letter is FAIR’s reply.
Dear Byron Calame,
I was surprised to read your February 25 defense of the Times‘ reporting on the allegations that Iran has been supplying explosive devices to Iraqi insurgents. While your column praises the paper for “healthy levels of skepticism and editing vigilance,” the most important piece under examination—Michael Gordon’s February 10 article—displayed neither.
As FAIR noted in our action alert (2/16/07), Gordon’s article relied almost exclusively on unnamed officials to charge the Iranian government with coordinating these weapons shipments. You found this acceptable because Gordon “described an admirable search for those likely to have differing views,” apparently a reference to Gordon’s claim that he interviewed “civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies.” Diverse sourcing should mean more than merely talking to several different government agencies.
You also wrote on the issue of sourcing, “I do wish, however, that the article had found a way to comply with the paper’s policy of explaining why sources are allowed to remain unnamed.” As FAIR argued, Gordon seemed to have clearly fallen short of the Times‘ policy to explain the motivation behind sources who remain anonymous, as well as the policy that prevents a source from using anonymity “to convey tainted information or special pleading. If the impetus for anonymity has originated with the source, further reporting is essential to satisfy the reporter and the reader that the paper has sought the whole story.”
If Gordon’s article had explored why his sources sought anonymity, he could have noted that anonymous sources can safely make assertions that might damage their credibility if made with their names attached. This would seem to be a factor in this instance; as FAIR pointed out, articles that followed Gordon’s piece (in the Times and elsewhere) reported that the allegations of official Iranian involvement were not backed up by solid evidence. But you tried to argue that the paper showed sound judgment throughout, writing that Gordon’s piece “contained a clear-cut qualification,” which amounted to one line stating that U.S. officials making the anonymous charges against Iran “acknowledge that the picture is not entirely complete.”
But that “qualification” is rendered meaningless when considered against the entire thrust of the article, most specifically Gordon’s charge that a U.S. “intelligence assessment” that was “described” to him explicitly linked the weapons to a “a deliberate, calibrated policy” of the Iranian government, “approved by Supreme Leader Khamenei and carried out by the Quds Force.” This link was not substantiated in subsequent Times reports, and White House officials backed away from making such charges. But you only wrote that this “needed some qualification,” and that if this charge “was based on inferences, readers deserved to be reminded of that.”
This claim was not a mere footnote; it was the heart of Gordon’s report, and it did not seem to stand up. This could explain why Gordon tried to claim on NPR‘s On the Media (2/16/07) that what he “did not assert is that it was being done at the highest levels of the Iranian government.” By any fair reading of his reporting, that’s precisely what he did.
The Times‘ public editor seems to be telling the paper’s readers, then, that if most of the reporting on a subject is fairly cautious or skeptical, the paper is doing a good job. This is like saying that an outlet’s reporting should be judged like a baseball team’s batting average. It is a highly unusual argument for a journalist to make, especially about their own paper’s work.
There is a reason why government officials often release stories to a favored reporter in a prominent outlet before issuing them more generally to the press: The first report often sets the tone for subsequent coverage and creates a storyline in the public mind that later, perhaps more nuanced coverage may not dislodge. It is not a defense of misleading initial coverage to say that later coverage was less misleading. If a New York Times article steered readers wrong, the proper response is a retraction. Surely the Times‘ role in the WMD debacle, in which as you note Michael Gordon played a prominent role, should have taught everyone at the paper that such misleading coverage can have devastating consequences.
Regards,
Peter Hart
Activism Director, FAIR
