NYT Public Editor Finally Admits ACORN 'Pimp' Hoax Reporting Failure: 'Times Was Wrong'

Clark Hoyt says in Sunday column 'editors considering correction' and concedes paper 'should have' covered report finding no criminality in 'heavily edited' sting videos.

March 22, 2010 |

LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?

Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest Media headlines via email.

"The Times was wrong…and I have been wrong in defending the paper's phrasing."

Even as the New York Times once again misreported the ACORN "Pimp" Hoax on its pages in a report on the community organization's possible declaration of bankruptcy in Saturday's paper, their Public Editor (ombudsman) Clark Hoyt finally admitted in his Sunday column , that both he and the paper were "wrong" in their reports about rightwing dirty trickster James O'Keefe's "pimp" costume, adding that "editors say they are considering a correction."

Considering?! What exactly would be the hold up?

The paper and Hoyt, as The BRAD BLOG has been detailing for nearly two months now, were out and out wrong in their reports about O'Keefe, and what his highly-edited, heavily-overdubbed, secretly-taped videos misleadingly suggested to show, and in their failure to report exculpatory information, such as the refusal to release the unedited raw videos made by the rightwing propagandists, as well as the results of an investigation by MA's former Attorney General [PDF] finding no "pattern of illegal conduct" by ACORN employees as seen in the videos as published by the rightwing media mogul and fabulist Andrew Breitbart.

More than a month and a half after the paper's Senior Editor for Standards, Greg Brock, first attempted to defend the "paper of record's" reporting by pointing to Fox "News" and the accused felon O'Keefe himself in support of their inaccurate reports, as we exclusively detailed here, and more than a month and a half after Hoyt himself offered similar excuses and was shown that he was absolutely wrong, as we exclusively detailed here, the Public Editor offers his extremely reluctant mea culpa tonight in "The Acorn Sting Revisited" [emphasis added]:

Here is what I found: O'Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume - fur coat, goggle-like sunglasses, walking stick and broad-brimmed hat - in which he appeared at the beginning and end of most of his videos. It is easy to see why The Times and other news organizations got a different impression. At one point, as the videos were being released, O'Keefe wore the get-up on Fox News, and a host said he was "dressed exactly in the same outfit he wore to these Acorn offices." He did not argue.

The Times was wrong on this point, and I have been wrong in defending the paper's phrasing. Editors say they are considering a correction.

Hoyt also conceded in his long-overdue admission that the paper erred in failing to ever mention (until a story in today's paper finally!) the independent findings of former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger which were released on December 7th of last year....

The report by Harshbarger and Crafts was not covered by The Times. It should have been, but the Acorn/O'Keefe story became something of an orphan at the paper. At least 14 reporters, reporting to different sets of editors, have touched it since last fall. Nobody owns it. Bill Keller, the executive editor, said that, "sensing the story would not go away and would be part of a larger narrative," the paper should have assigned one reporter to be responsible for it.

Hoyt's hedged comment that "O'Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume" is emblematic of his proclivity throughout the piece to continue supporting the Times deeply flawed reporting and their Senior Editor for Standards' inexcusable attempts to cover-up for same when he was first contacted about it.

There is no "almost certainly" about it. Hannah Giles, the pretend "prostitute", has now twice admitted (once on video tape) that O'Keefe never wore the pimp outfit in ACORN offices. "It was B-Roll," she said. Breitbart has also finally admitted the same, also on video. And if one watches the first video released closely, as I've previously pointed out to Hoyt, O'Keefe is actually seen, briefly, walking into the Baltimore office in normal slacks and shirt. Had the New York Times bothered to do a proper investigation, they'd have noted all of those points immediately.