The New York Times appears to be trying to save face now that it’s been exposed for running a patently fake smear piece on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
For instance, individuals at the left-wing paper have been busy highlighting the fact that the smear piece was published in the paper’s opinion section versus its raw news section.
“People familiar with how things went down told me that [the authors of the piece] initially pitched their scoop to the news side, but the top editors ultimately felt that there wasn’t enough juice to warrant a story there, let alone a big page-one treatment,” Vanity Fair reported Monday.
(Note that Vanity Fair magazine tends to be as far-left as the Times.)
Extraordinary https://t.co/8yHrLL0wGY pic.twitter.com/dkPraFOCir
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) September 17, 2019
It’s unclear what difference this makes, especially given as most newsreaders are in a hurry and thus typically fail to distinguish raw news from opinion, as noted by a Times alum.
“It’s all the same,” the unnamed former Times worker explained to Vanity Fair. “Your average reader is not gonna really know or care where it is. They played it up pretty big, and I have to tell you: When I first read it, I had no idea it was in the Review.”
“I tapped on a link, and at the top it said ‘News Analysis.’ And I also didn’t know it was a book adaptation, because I didn’t even get to the end. I get the point of view of the activists. They want the Times to further their agenda, but that’s not the Times’ job.”
The piece was written by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, two so-called journalists who’d based their column on the information contained in their just-released book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.”
Published Sunday, the original piece accused Kavanaugh of having once thrust his penis in the face of a woman at a drunken college party. The accusation was based on the words of Max Stier, an attorney who’d previously served on then-President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense team.
Of course, the Times’ smear piece didn’t list Stier’s history. Instead it described him as simply someone who “runs a nonprofit organization in Washington.” And in their book, Pogrebin and Kelly likewise described him as simply “a respected thought leader on federal government management issues in Washington as the founding president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service.”
Now fast-forward to Sunday evening, when the Times issued a stunning correction admitting that the actual victim who’d allegedly experienced the alleged assault/harassment couldn’t corroborate it.
So…alleged victim would not speak to the @nytimes AND doesn’t recall this alleged incident? But the paper didn’t include this sort-of crucial information.
Just a minor correction, huh? Journalism much, NYT?
I wonder why our President calls fake news the “Enemy of the People”? https://t.co/MX1av577B0
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) September 16, 2019
But by then the damage had already been done — and countless congressional Democrats and Democrat presidential candidates had begun calling for Kavanaugh’s impeachment.
Two days later, it now seems that neither Pogrebin nor Kelly are willing to take responsibility for their shoddy “journalism.”
Speaking Monday on MSNBC about the lack of corroboration, which to be clear was omitted from the original story, Pogrebin and Kelly tried to pass the blame for this colossal error onto the paper’s editors.
“It was in editing — done in haste in the editing process as you know for closing the section,” they said to MSNBC host and known conspiracy theorist Lawrence O’Donnell.
“I think what happened was we had her name and the Times doesn’t usually include the name of the victim. And so I think in this case the editors felt like maybe it was probably better to remove it. And in removing her name, they removed the other reference to the fact that she didn’t remember it.”
Listen to some of their statement below:
Source: MSNBC
Their claim was that they’d personally intended to include this key fact in their story, but it was removed before publication by their editors in a bid to protect the alleged victim …
However, renowned journalist and commentator Mollie Hemingway has disputed this claim. On Tuesday she posted a tweet pointing to a recent NPR interview in which the two “journalists” had touted Stier’s allegations but again failed to point out that the allegations are uncorroborated.
Look:
Tonight, Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly blamed their New York Times editors for omitting the most important detail in their Kavanaugh story. But they also went out of their way to omit the detail in their NPR story today. Deception begins at 29:55 https://t.co/8zuAPYIBbO
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 17, 2019
In response to a question about any other women coming forward, the authors excitedly tell Max Stier story, never mentioning that they never spoke to the woman or that she denied it through several friends. Difficult to blame this on editing.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 17, 2019
But there’s more. According to Patrick Howley, an actual journalist who’s worked for the likes of Breitbart, the Washington Free Beacon and The Daily Caller, Pogrebin and Kelly are both Democrats.
“RECORDS SHOW New York Times anti-Kavanaugh reporters Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrebin are both REGISTERED DEMOCRATS and Pogrebin’s husband Edward Klaris is an Intellectual Property Lawyer — totally conflicted when it comes to Supreme Court. Klaris also professor at Columbia Law,” he tweeted Monday.
RECORDS SHOW New York Times anti-Kavanaugh reporters Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrebin are both REGISTERED DEMOCRATS and Pogrebin’s husband Edward Klaris is an Intellectual Property Lawyer — totally conflicted when it comes to Supreme Court. Klaris also professor at Columbia Law.
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) September 16, 2019
— Patrick Howley (@HowleyReporter) September 16, 2019
DONATE TO BIZPAC REVIEW
Please help us! If you are fed up with letting radical big tech execs, phony fact-checkers, tyrannical liberals and a lying mainstream media have unprecedented power over your news please consider making a donation to BPR to help us fight them. Now is the time. Truth has never been more critical!
Vivek@bizpacreview.com
V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.
- Biden snubs Netanyahu thus far after big election win, but call expected ‘soon’ - November 6, 2022
- RNC chair flips CNN ‘election denier’ narrative: Dems are ‘inflation deniers… crime deniers’ - November 6, 2022
- Tudor Dixon goes scorched earth on Stephen Colbert after ‘apology’ for doubting Muslim parent is real - November 6, 2022
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
