The original version of an NYT story on President Obama’s visit to the dover Air Force Base included a paragraph characterizing the trip as a staged event, “intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste.” At some point, however, this paragraph was removed from the story, and yet there is no indication that any change was made, as Ed Morrissey reports on Hot Air.
As with a similar incident at the Washington Post, the NYT may well have had a legitimate reason for the change. For instance, the paragraph may have been unsourced conjeccture on the part of the reporter, and thus an unfair characterization of the White House’s intent. I am certainly willing to give the White House the benefit of the doubt on a matter like this. But whatever the reason for the change, the NYT should have disclosed that changes were made and that it had decided to excise information included in the original story. As I wrote before:
This is not the first time I’ve noticed the web site of a prominent news organization failing to disclose that it had edited the web-based version of a story after initial publication. . . . Is this now common practice? If so, it seems to be a major failing. Responsible bloggers routinely disclose anything more than the most minor stylistic and typographical revisions to published posts. I would think newspaper websites could do the same. Indeed, shouldn’t newspapers at least match the disclosure norms observed by bloggers? After all, they’re the real journalists.
Kevin says:
Has it ever not been common practice? Even the dead tree versions of newspaper articles often change without notice between various editions or print runs. Why does this continue to surprise anyone? Should it really bother you?
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October 30, 2009, 12:26 pmruuffles says:
How exactly would you “stage” something like that? It’s not something he regularly does, flying to a military base during the middle of the night. Are you suggesting the soldiers were brought specifically at that time, just for the president? Or perhaps they’re empty caskets for show?
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October 30, 2009, 12:27 pmdisconnect says:
So far, media-as-business has completely dropped the ball on technology (lobbying against VCRs, artificially raising prices of CDs to increase their margins, failing to have a hand in designing digital music delivery). Why should this be any different?
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October 30, 2009, 1:03 pmMikee says:
“How exactly would you “stage” something like that?”
I would have the press be made aware of it, down to having them watch the President’s salute to the coffins, so it could be reported that for the first time, a President had attended the Dover ceremonies of returning war dead. I would have photographs and video recording of the event taken, to use later in political circumstances, effectively using dead US servicemen as props for the President. I would publicize the President’s visit heavily, to present the appearance of solemn recognition of the war dead, which solemnity is belied by the overt publicity surrounding the event and the anti-war rhetoric of many, many voices in the current administration and in the President’s party.
Any more questions?
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October 30, 2009, 1:25 pmruuffles says:
Too bad none of that would change the actual event.
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October 30, 2009, 1:29 pmruuffles says:
Here, I’ll use m-w.com for you
The only part that you’ve argued is “staged” is the President’s attendance.
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October 30, 2009, 1:31 pmJames T. Carrington says:
Oh ruuffles, don’t bother with him. This is the classic weak-on-something defense that does not have a win condition. If the Commander in Chief didn’t visit or disallowed photos (like Bush, Wilson, Truman, Johnson, etc?) then he doesn’t care about the dead and is pro-dead-servicemembers. If he does visit, then they are only props to him and his sinister anti-war policies. Clearly I wish Obama was more of a warmonger, ready to use my live servicemember friends as props to support my foreign policy views, instead of using the dead servicemembers as props to point out the actual consequences of a poorly-run war.
And the CAMERAS! my God, it’s like they are just following the President around, and his every word, event, utterance, signature, decision, pretzel, and hot dog are all of some interest to the 300 million people he leads...
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October 30, 2009, 1:43 pmOren says:
I think this mistake here is in thinking that the website is equivalent to the newspaper. It’s a preprint, subject to revision as they go to press.
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October 30, 2009, 2:14 pmMac says:
Bush never made it a photo op. Cameras were forbidden. Obama only got one family to agree to a picture, out of 18, I believe it was. Why was he even asking? Can’t he do something as Commander-in-Chief that he should do without getting his picture taken? It is repugnant that he even asked.
Bush, met with every family of a fallen service member and did so without cameras. Has Obama bothered? I don’t know. Have not heard one way or the other. Does anyone know?
As to the thread, it seems they should acknowledge the change and explain why it happened. It leads to suspicion that the White House or someone else with an agenda was involved to change the story to cast Obama in a more favorable light. With this White House, one wonders if they threatened the NY Times with being “cut off” and “punished” like Fox News?
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October 30, 2009, 2:18 pmDennis N says:
Whether it’s a preprint or a parallel isn’t importsnt. It’s their media. They are free to do with it, pretty much what they wish. Electronic media is just that much easier to modify and takes an additional step to secure a hard copy.
I don’t have any right to expect honesty from the media, why should I expect self-consistency?
It’s a tempest in an inkwell.
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October 30, 2009, 2:21 pmEMB says:
The NYT website seems to regularly revise headlines of breaking news (and thus likely stories as well, though I probably wouldn’t notice). I guess I assumed they were just posting drafts of stories/headlines on the website to get something up asap and that once the print version came out the next morning the website would match the newspaper (except that corrections would be included at the bottom of each story, rather than in a subsequent paper).
If you think of the NYT as a news website, revisions without comment may seem irresponsible, but they most likely think of themselves as a newspaper with a web site, which makes revisions before going to print seem perfectly reasonable.
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October 30, 2009, 2:26 pmAppalled says:
That perhaps explains why it’s commonly done, but it doesn’t excuse it. When a dead-tree newspaper put out a new edition, the old one didn’t suddenly disappear, but that’s what happens with online newspapers, unless somebody just happens to preserve a copy. There’s no good reason that I can think of why online media shouldn’t archive all previous versions of an article, available from the article’s page. Wikipedia does that now.
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October 30, 2009, 2:59 pmArthurKirkland says:
Pro-war rhetoric — particularly involving an attack against the wrong country, or a botched occupation, or a half-baked, seven-year drift in Afghanistan — has little to do with solemnity. If anything, the pro-war voices have been cavalier about death, dismemberment, families stretched to limits, and the other costs of mishandled military action.
Newspapers have changed content between editions for decades, if not centuries.
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October 30, 2009, 3:38 pmTNeloms says:
Bush was criticized for not changing the policy of not allowing photos, because it was seen as not allowing the press to visually depict the losses of the war. Whether you agree or not, it was for this reason that Obama changed the policy. I don’t think many people believe that he changed it so that he could do photo ops.
Your logic is funny here. You complain about the press covering these types of things, and then you say that you haven’t heard one way or another whether Obama has done it. So you recognize the importance of the government allowing the media to cover things, and also the importance of the media covering this particular thing?
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October 30, 2009, 4:23 pmBill Woods says:
Back in the Carter administration, a story went out with the headline, “Mush from the Wimp”. In later editions, it was changed to something banal.
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October 30, 2009, 4:35 pmDavid Welker says:
I think the issue with alerting readers to every change is that it would not be aesthetically pleasing, especially as I believe there are probably a lot of changes made at an outfit like the NYTimes.com.
And honestly, I could live without some of the alerts about updates and edits by bloggers too. I don’t really care to be alerted for most corrections. If I was reading Eugene Volokh’s book, Academic Legal Writing, I only care to see the final version, although I am absolutely sure he absolutely screwed up somewhere and had to edit something important before the final version was ready.
I suppose this is all about how you conceptualize what your doing when you publish a blog post. Is it a finished product, or a work in progress? I would say a work in progress, at least for a while. I wouldn’t want the NYTimes.com to be editing articles from a week or a year ago, because those are finished products. But I really don’t care if the article changes on the same day it comes out, because it is a work in progress.
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October 30, 2009, 4:52 pmMac says:
TNeloms says:
Really? Why did he even ask the families if he could get his picture taken with the caskets then? The policy was changed, yes, but the families have to give permission for photos. They denied him that permission, at least, all but one did. That should tell you something. Bush managed to meet the families without turning it into a photo op. One would think Obama could as well.
Mac wrote:
TNeloms says:
Are you deliberately being obtuse? My logic is not funny. We knew Bush did these things even though there were no photos. There was a press before there were cameras, you know. I don’t need a picture of Obama with grieving family members and caskets to know whether or not he is meeting with the families. Simple words will suffice. No words have been written, to my knowledge, on the subject. I was asking if anyone else knew. Or do you think we only “read” comic books and without pictures, nothing really happens?
I continue to find the motivation for the change more of a question than the change itself. I do think they should have explained it. To not do so looks bad.
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October 30, 2009, 5:36 pmRyan Waxx says:
How dare you criticize the NYTimes. Don’t you know that unlike Fox, they are a real news organization? So disappearing things overlay critical of the administration... and therefore not real news... is only to be expected.
It’s just a shame they can’t disappear even more news that isn’t real news, like the ACORN scandals.
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October 30, 2009, 5:37 pmAppalled says:
Wikipedia has even more changes, and there’s no aesthetic problem at all. There’s just a button on the page for accessing previous versions. If you’re simply not interested in previous versions, you never have to click on that button. However, the minority of people who might want to see how the page was changed can do so. There’s no reason why big media organizations couldn’t do the same.
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October 30, 2009, 7:40 pmfrankcross says:
When a professor makes changes between a ssrn posting and a final document, should that be formally recognized?
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October 30, 2009, 8:24 pmArthurKirkland says:
If Professor McConnell is right, he should have picked a better forum for his argument. The argument is seeking support during the Halloween season, wearing a lame right-wing-rant costume. That doesn’t mean he is wrong, but it will take more than an anti-Obama opinion in the Wall Street Journal to persuade most people.
If Professor McConnell is right, the problem should be addressed.
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October 30, 2009, 9:00 pmMark Field says:
Unlike Reagan.
That’s assuming Bush ever went. I’ve seen no evidence of that. Perhaps there’s a photo...
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October 30, 2009, 10:16 pmSarcastro says:
The lack of evidence Bush visited dead troops is just proof of his modesty!
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October 30, 2009, 10:42 pmBill Woods says:
I doubt Bush met with every family, but he met with a large number. Cindy Sheehan is one well-known example. He also frequently met with wounded soldiers in Walter Reed, without cameras.
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October 31, 2009, 3:07 amLarryA says:
OTOH the TV news reports I saw mentioned Bush’s no-cameras philosophy favorably as compared to the footage of President Obama. Whatever you think of the difference, that’s the first time I’ve seen the MSM favor Bush.
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October 31, 2009, 3:13 amGuy says:
Every family? I’m really gonna need a source for this, My googling only finds that Dan Bartlett supposedly said he writes a note to each family, and I’m having trouble finding a reliable source even for that. It’s pretty hard to believe that even that is true, unless we’re counting a form letter with a photocopied signature as having been “personally written”. If it is true, I don’t envy Bush’s hand cramps.
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October 31, 2009, 3:26 amDerHahn says:
Guy says ... If it is true, I don’t envy Bush’s hand cramps.
How many American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are you assuming?
The most recent figures I find put the number to date at around 5000, which includes almost a year during which Obama has been CIC.
Giving Bush 6 years (2002 to 2008) and crediting him with all the deaths, that’s 2 to 3 letters a day.
I doubt that would cause any one’s hand to cramp.
Just because you think something would be difficult doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
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October 31, 2009, 10:19 amSFC B says:
Strange. I go seven years without seeing that particular wording “drift in...”, and the same day I read a quote from President Obama using that same phrasing, here it appears in the comments on the VC.
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November 1, 2009, 3:11 am