According to FBI Director James Comey, the NYT was dead wrong about Tashfeen Malik’s supposed Facebook jihad postings. Erik Wemple:
This is a gigantic deal. The New York Times, after all, didn’t merely report that Malik had made public Facebook postings about her feelings about jihad; it wrapped that contention into what reads as a condemnation of the U.S. anti-terrorism apparatus. The thrust of the story comes through with trademarked New York Times precision in its lede: “Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passed three background checks by American immigration officials as she moved to the United States from Pakistan. None uncovered what Ms. Malik had made little effort to hide — that she talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad. She said she supported it. And she said she wanted to be a part of it.” The balanced investigative piece discusses the “shortcomings” in how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) screens foreigners coming into the United States, as Malik did in July 2014 through a K-1 visa, which allows a foreign national fiance(e) to move to the United States to marry. President Obama has ordered a review of K-1 visas.
As Kevin Drum notes, two of the three reporters responsible for this piece were the same ones who broke the non-story that Hilary Clinton was the target of a criminal referral over mishandling classified email. (She wasn’t a target, it wasn’t a criminal referral, and the emails weren’t classified when she saw them. In other words, totally wrong.)
I don’t know about you, but my cash is taking a trip to England to support the Guardian in 2016.
Mnemosyne
I started going one way when that story broke, but people here who know more about the visa process than me thought it sounded wonky to claim public postings were somehow verboten for viewing or that immigration visa interviews wouldn’t turn something like that up. So I’m not entirely surprised to find out it was classic NYT fearmongering.
boatboy_srq
Wow.
I was a NYT subscriber until last year. I dropped it because I had an e-sub and my ereader stopped synching. I’m suddenly glad my device had more smarts about the NYT.
What is it about US journalism that there’s no reliable mainstream reporting? It cannot be simply that the Powers-That-Be own all the purse strings (that has after all been true almost since the time of Poor Richard’s Almanac).
Germy
Honest mistakes?
Botsplainer
Apuzzo did some other piece of alleged investigative work I caught 6 months to a year ago. Don’t really remember specifics, but I did some checking to see if he was related to birther wingnut Mario Apuzzo. Never could get an answer.
Mike J
The NYT public editor has a recent post applauding the Times for actually pointing out a falsehood without waiting for a correction or follow up article.
Sad that journalism happens so rarely they have to praise those isolated incidents.
beltane
@Botsplainer: I read somewhere on Facebook that Apuzzo is on Vladimir Putin’s payroll. I haven’t been able to verify this, but still, who needs facts anymore.
Elizabelle
Yeah. Don’t know why the NYTimes has become so suspect.
Amy Chozick, assigned to Hillary Clinton, is equally toxic. NYTimes needs to can some folks and bring in credible reporters from smaller papers. The prestige papers — with the view from 30,000 feet and view from nowhere — may be using the same uncredible sources. Since the GOP candidates have gone so rotten and crazy in plain view, why not conclude the sources in the background are as crazy ass and agenda-driven?
How much does the Times want to remind us it was the home of Judith Miller and Jayson Blair (Blair did a lot less damage; Miller was the real black eye).
Apuzzo was part of a Pulitzer-winning team at AP.
beltane
@boatboy_srq: Maybe some of the problem is that all the good journalism gigs go to well-connected dimwits, upper-middle class hacks in need of high paying jobs.
bystander
They ran this article on page 20 today. It’s as if they wrote, “If the FBI is to be believed, our front page story was entirely wrong.”
Plus, Isherwood gave a crap review to a great play, Incident at Vichy. He trashed the comedy Sylvia by saying that as a cat lover, he didn’t relate to a play about loving a dog. Poopscooping is gag-inducing to Isherwood. Of course, everyone can enjoy a good cat box cleansing.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
I know for a fact that the LA Times requires its staff reporters to have an MA in journalism (or, at least, they did in the early 1990s when I had friends getting jobs there). I’d be surprised if the NYT didn’t have a similar requirement.
Elizabelle
@beltane: I wonder. I really wonder. The first class private school education may be buying the NYTimes something that is toxic to accurate reporting. Gilded blinders the reporters (and maybe editors) do not see.
Apuzzo went to Colby College in Maine. Think it’s pretty pricey. He’s married to an immigration attorney (FWIW). Backgrounder from Politico, when he moved from AP to NYTimes. Sounds like a solid guy. Don’t know what’s going wrong now.
? Martin
Someone needs to remind the New York Times that they’re being beaten both in terms of reach as well as in terms of accuracy by fucking Buzzfeed.
Brachiator
@boatboy_srq:
It ain’t just US journalism.
@beltane
The “problem” is taking care of itself. Traditional media is dying, and good copy editors and reporters, and the support people that keep journalism good and honest are leaving the profession in droves. Soon, you will only have happy news, propaganda, and twitter feeds.
And if you think there is a lot of high-paying jobs in journalism, you have not been paying attention to the downsizing, or the attempts of new media to get good reporting for nothing.
Elizabelle
Do you think some anti-govt types might be purposefully misinforming the NYTimes? Twofer: looks like government cannot be trusted to do anything right (screening fiancees and other immigrants), and a black eye for the libtard (not) NYTimes and other media.
beltane
@Mnemosyne: Having an MA in journalism does not mean that someone is a good journalist. It means they had the ability to pass graduate level courses, something virtually anyone of average intelligence provided with a good education is capable of doing. As we see from these examples from America’s most prestigious newspaper, poor performance doesn’t affect career prospects one bit.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Some of these complaints about mainstream media are increasingly sounding like “get off my lawn stuff” from old fogies stuck in an old media rant rut.
scav
@Elizabelle: Sources lie?! How fiendish and unexpected! Unprecedented even. O for the good old days when journalists could be bright-eyed trusting stenographers and didn’t have to verify or suspect ulterior motives.
beltane
@Brachiator: There are probably relatively few high-paying gigs in journalism, making it even more tragic (or suspicious) that these positions tend to be awarded to people who are either agenda-driven or just incredibly dumb and gullible. Either way, we are left with the most influential paper in the country serving up lies and RW talking points on a regular basis.
Mnemosyne
@beltane:
I know that, and you know that, but major newspapers wanted that credential anyway. And, as Brachiator pointed out above, it didn’t do those reporters much good after all since they still got caught in the massive layoffs.
Elizabelle
Check out Cole’s tweet at right re this very topic.
LOL.
Princess
@? Martin: I have a friend who became kind of famous for something recently and a bunch of the big papers and news outlets did a story on her. She posted on FB that of all of them, Buzzfeed was by far the most diligent with its fact checking.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
New media is great as long as you have a massive trust fund at your disposal and can afford to work for free. If you want to actually be able to eat and pay rent and also write, it sucks ass. Look at Grantland and The Dissolve — they were doing great work, but there’s no money in it, so they went belly-up.
Betty Cracker
@? Martin: No one needs to remind any newspaper anywhere in the country that Buzzfeed is kicking their ass in terms of reach. In fact, the drive to produce click-worthy content might explain the decline in accuracy.
D58826
@Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne: The staff with the experience and biggest paychecks were laid off and only the rookies were left to fill the gap. Getting a ‘good’ source in media savey political Washington is your ticket to the Sunday talk shows. Unfortunately they might not have they multiple sources that they can fact check against.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know about the accuracy or lack thereof of any part of Buzzfeed, except one. They have a foreign correspondent based in Berlin who covers Russia, Ukraine and other former USSR countries, a subject area I know a little about, and he has been consistently well-sourced and accurate. In fact, much of the timeliest and best reporting during the upheavals in the winter of 2013-2014 was done by “new media” folks.
JMG
Once upon a time when I was in the newspaper business, your past work was your credential, not an academic resume. Reporters at the top papers got there by doing a damn good job at smaller papers. Now they tap prestige school undergrads for internships and put them into a pipeline for future work when the reporters of tomorrow are 19 and 20. Being spoiled makes them less diligent and above all, less skeptical. After all, the powers that be in every institution they’ve ever been in have been swell to them/
Frankensteinbeck
Wait, you mean the government is not constantly scanning my private internet messages?
boatboy_srq
@beltane: Can’t quite buy that: I knew some very talented folks doing journalism undergrad who fit that mould, and they’re either overworked and underpaid at nearly-invisible NPR or other outlets, or doing something entirely different having given up on the discipline. NYT isn’t in a position where they have to take the talent they can get.
cmorenc
@scav:
That people will lie to your face to manipulate you is something every fresh-out-of-law-school young attorney working criminal or domestic relations cases learns their very first month in practice, if they’re exposed to clients. There’s no excuse for folks in the journalism profession to not absorb this crucial element of experience into their education.
Mike J
@cmorenc:
Back in ye olend dayes, we were told, “if your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
Mai.naem.mobile
Testing
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
Sure, but Buzzfeed is doing it right by having the people creating click-worthy content completely separate from the news operation. At least I don’t think the people doing cute cat videos and asking children about antique technology are also reporting serious news.
Mike J
@Roger Moore: Meanwhile, NBC will have a three week old story they found on youtube about cute cats on every newscast.
Botsplainer
Apuzzo’s sources are at the Sy Hersh level of anonymous bullshit.
Cacti
I’m disinclined to give the NYT any benefit of the doubt.
War is good for their bottom line. Why wouldn’t they want to lie the country into more wars?
It’s not like they haven’t done it already.
Calouste
@boatboy_srq:
Same as it ever was.
Anecdata:
When Margaret Thatcher died a few years back, my reasonably well-informed then girlfriend was rather surprised that people in Britain were literally dancing in the streets on hearing that news. She had only ever heard in the news of Maggie as that nice old ladyfriend of Reagan. Where it would have been extremely hard for anyone living in London in the 1980s, let alone a foreign correspondent, not to notice that a large section of the British public absolutely reviled Thatcher, hated her guts. But that never was mentioned in the media in the US apparently.
Betty Cracker
Maybe there’s something uniquely corrupting about covering politics or topics related to it (e.g., national security) — an obsession with access, maybe? There’s still a lot of first-rate journalism being committed at struggling dailies nationwide. The NYT also produces a lot of excellent coverage on a variety of topics.
Can’t remember where I read this, but someone once said we’d be better off if the political media covered domestic politics and politicians as if they were reporting in a foreign capital. Might be worth a try.
@Gin & Tonic: I initially considered Buzzfeed media junk food, and certainly a lot of the content is cutesy shareable crap by design. But they do some real reporting too, as you note. They had a lengthy piece about a massive retiree boomtown in Florida, something I know a little about due to proximity and relatives who actually live in such places, that was really well done.
Patricia Kayden
Oh noes! Not the “liberal” NYT!
I guess we have to read everything with a huge dose of salt. There should be consequences for printing and circulating lies.
Calouste
@Cacti: The NYT definitely doesn’t deserve any benefit of the doubt. Remember that article a few months ago where they compared Trump and Carson to Sanders and Corbyn (UK Labour leader)? As if those two doofusses could hold a candle to two politicians with more than three decades of elected experience.
cmorenc
@Mike J:
BB King sang it even better: “Nobody loves me but my momma and she might be jivin too”
cmorenc
Matt McIrvin
@Calouste: Did Elvis Costello ever get the chance to tramp the dirt down?
Calouste
@Patricia Kayden: I read all the American media with a huge dose of salt. But the Guardian, Al Jazeera, der Spiegel etc. have reliable reporting.
Matt McIrvin
@Calouste: …Though I know from personal experience that it actually went both ways. I visited London during the Thatcher era and I remember young people being surprised that not all Americans idolized Ronald Reagan.
Peale
@Frankensteinbeck: I do think it prudent however that if we are going to have people immigrate to to this country that we ask them to bring in their personal correspondence and a list of all e-mail accounts with passwords, plus screenshots from their last 2 years of Snapchat, WeChat or FaceBook Messenger conversations. Grindr, Hornet or Blued history for those of a homosexual stripe.
Mnemosyne
@Matt McIrvin:
Beat me to it.
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: You beat me to it. Such a beautiful melody, with such cruel lyrics. Didn’t catch on until about my third listen. Go Elvis C. (Love God’s Comic too.)
Elizabelle
Tomorrow is Friday. In the midst of holiday prep and activities. Close to the shortest day of the year …
What news dump might we see?
plosin
@cmorenc: Or Sonny Boy Williamson: “There’s a lot of people talkin’, but mighty few people know…”
catclub
@Elizabelle: More emails on the Hillary server? Reporting on juicy bits included in the big bills about to be shoved across the line?
Elizabelle
@catclub: Defense Sec Ash Carter has helpfully stepped up there. He’s been using private email too, albeit kinda briefly.
Otherwise, maybe some fluffing of that handsome nice young Paul Ryan. He’s growing a beard, donchaknow?
Adds even more to his gravitas and wonkiness …
sparrow
@Calouste: As someone living in a major Greek city during the June crisis (when capital controls went in place and the greek finance minister looked like he was bluffing/pseudo-bluffing/seriouslyconsidering euro exit, I can tell you the Guardian coverage was sensationalistic and garbage most of the time.
gene108
@Calouste:
There’s right-wing worship of Tatcher in the U.S. that dominates coverage, but the problem Americans have with understanding the role of a Prime Ministers, especially in Britain where the monarchy has been relatively intact for centuries (compared to Russia or France, for example), is that the Prime Minister is not the Head of State and does not get that level of respect.
In the U.S. the President is both the head of government and the head of state, so we are a lot more deferential to our Presidents, even the ones we hate, than the Brits will be towards any Prime Minister.
Even when Ronald Reagan or Richard Nixon died the people, who loathed them did not “dance in the streets” because we just have a default level of deference for anyone in that office.
Schlemazel
Why are Democratic officials not harping on NYT like the GOP does? Start calling it a GOP rag & point to these stories as proof it is not a friend to Liberals. It’s probably too late to hope for honesty but stop letting the BS being pinned on liberals.
scav
@gene108: Somehow ‘mercans seem almost more deferential to authority (more than just the president / head of state) than many Brits — look at question time. Might be wearing off, but there was a large streak of just not talking about messy things and facade-construction. Not that Middle England etc. can’t be similar, but there’s something weirder going on than let’s all be nice to the President.
JPL
@efgoldman: According to the public editor
NYT editors deciding whether to correct San Bernadino/social media story challenged by Comey. Likely to be determined today (as it should). link
catclub
@Elizabelle: Slate has an article saying there are good things for scientists in the new bill. (EPA excluded.)
JPL
I hope the authors name their source or get fired..
Mike J
@JPL: Don’t hold your breath. You can’t burn sources because if you do, who’s going to feed you lies next time?
JPL
@Mike J: Well getting fired is okay. If the NYTimes doesn’t correct the article, you can be assured that Sullivan will write a scathing article about it.
Peale
The question remains, however, if searching and attempting to find and interpret the public social media postings of applicants is worthwhile and effective.
JPL
@Peale: Only in the sense that it would catch the incompetent terrorists.
Elizabelle
@JPL: Link? I could not find that statement about NYT review? Have checked public ed’s page a few times this afternoon….
JPL
@Elizabelle: I included a link to her twitter page.. It’s at the end of my comment at 57. I should have highlighted it some way, sorry.
Links used to be highlighted though…
Mike J
@JPL:
I would prefer to catch incompetent terrorists before they get enough practice to get good. I have no problem with looking at publicly posted stuff.
different-church-lady
2013: THE GOVERNMENT IS READING ALL OUR PRIVATE COMMUNICATION!!!
2015: Wow, the New York Times is a bunch of idiots for not realizing the government can’t read all our private communication.
JPL
@Mike J: True..
Years ago, stores knew the sticky security bars would only deter the unlikely to steal anyway ones.
Villago Delenda Est
Yet another in a long series of major NYT errors that the NYT will fail utterly to acknowledge, or take any action against the hack employees who made them.
Elizabelle
@JPL: thanks
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108: I assure you that when the deserting coward dies, I will dance in the streets.
The sooner the better, too. Preferably after being processed in Den Haag.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
I am a little surprised at the lack of screeching by the usual suspects. Maybe they can’t get to the site with the redesign in progress.
I did see one of them with a probably accurate take on who the leaker was: somebody at NSA who’s cranky that they’re not supposed to be reading people’s Facebook pages and claiming that it’s *totally* vital to our nations security to watch cat videos in Farsi.
Brachiator
@beltane:
That’s really not how it works.
The Times is losing influence and is not immune to the problems plaguing old media. And sadly, increasingly, younger people give less than a rat’s ass about the NY Times or any other newspaper.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: Well, it is true that young people are increasingly getting their misinformation from a variety of sources other than old media, yes.
geg6
@gene108:
Speak for yourself. I waltzed up and down the street and driveway to my house both times. I still do a little jig whenever I think of them rotting away.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
And Grantland had at least one contributor who had won a Pulitzer while at the Boston Globe.
Old media is dying. New media can’t get off the ground. It ain’t a good situation, and those ranting about the “mainstream media” appear to be willfully ignorant of the larger problems.
different-church-lady
QFT. And anyone talking up “citizen journalism” as the answer is an idiot.
Hungry Joe
@Mnemosyne: No. that is flat-out wrong. The L.A. Times did not, and does not, require an M.A. in journalism. I know because I was a reporter for a couple of decades at a large, nearby paper (the San Diego Union-Tribune) and had friends who were reporters at the Times. Not one of them had an M.A. in journalism. An M.A. in journalism might (or would, at one time) get you promoted to an editor’s slot, or might get you a job teaching journalism somewhere. But reporters? Nah. Not considered important. And not only did I not have an M.A. in journalism, my B.A. was in anthropology — I never took so much as a single class in journalism. Nobody cares, as long as you can write and meet deadlines. And, oh yeah, not get stuff wrong or make shit up.
different-church-lady
@Hungry Joe:
So, still more rigorous than the New York Times then?
Hungry Joe
@different-church-lady: That rag?
Mnemosyne
@Hungry Joe:
I don’t want to name names of specific people but, yes, at least one person I knew personally (she was my editor at the USC paper) was told she could not get a staff position at LAT without an MA, so she went back to Ohio and got one. Not sure where the disconnect is here, but I know this for a fact. This was just after Bush I’s recession, if that helps.
Oh, and I had to pee in a cup to get my LAT internship, so that was lame.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: Though a bit of the melody always reminded me of “Isn’t She Lovely”. I don’t know if it was intentional or not.
TriassicSands
When IS Rupert Murdoch going to get around to buying (aka ruining) The Guardian? Or does he think that the influence all his other properties have already has a profoundly negative effect on news coverage everywhere?
Joey Maloney
@scav: Like, back in the 90s when NYT reporter James Gerth broke the sensational Whitewater scandal?
Sondra
@Mnemosyne:
So it’s shades of Judith Miller again. Ain’t that a kick in the head? You’d think helping to start an unnecessary war was enough of a lesson wouldn’t you?