A colleague of mine at Mayer Brown — Andy Pincus, generally a liberal fellow and a big fan of the New York Times — reported to me an interesting fact about the New York Times letter-to-the-editor policy, and I thought it was worth mentioning.
Pincus represents the petitioner in AT&T v. Concepcion, a pending Supreme Court case regarding the Federal Arbitration Act. The question in the case is whether it violates the Act for California to refuse to enforce arbitration clauses that don’t permit either class arbitrations or class actions in court, but include incentives that help plaintiffs vindicate their own individual claims. (The briefs are here.)
Three weeks after oral argument, the New York Times editorialized against Pincus’s position, and asserted that “courts applying law of at least 19 other states have reached the same conclusion as California, including five federal appeals courts.” Pincus and his co-counsel sent a letter to the editor addressing this and other statements in the editorial (complying with the Times’ 150-word limit). Two sentences read:
The Times is just wrong in asserting that 19 states ruled arbitration agreements like AT&T’s unenforceable. Courts in six of those states upheld AT&T’s provision; courts in four others upheld agreements less fair than AT&T’s.
A week passed with no response. In the meantime, the Times published a letter from counsel for the other side expressly agreeing with the editorial (“As your editorial correctly explains ….”). Still, no opposing views appeared.
Then the Times did get back to Pincus, asking for approval of an edited version of the above sentences:
You assert that 19 states ruled arbitration agreements like AT&T’s unenforceable. Courts in six of those states upheld AT&T’s provision; courts in four others upheld agreements less fair than AT&T’s.
This revision deleted the statement that the Times was wrong in its interpretation of the views of 19 States on the issue. Pincus responded that the revision was unacceptable and suggested a slight modification to soften the sentence in question (substituting “The Times incorrectly asserts” for “The Times is just wrong”).
The Times (emphasis added): “We cannot say ‘incorrectly’ because that is the province of corrections, in which case I would forward the letter to the corrections editor and it could not be considered as a letter. We prefer to consider your letter a clarification on the editorial. OK to go with what I sent?”
Pincus: “Our letter’s key point is that the editorial was wrong in what it said about the cases. I’m happy to think about other ways to say that — but it is the key point.” Too bad, said the Times: “In that case, I think you should forward the letter to Carla Robbins, the deputy editorial page editor, for possible correction. We won’t be able to consider it as a letter.” And that was that.
Pincus didn’t seek a “correction” because it seems unlikely that the Times would have issued a correction with regard to matters of opinion about interpreting judicial opinions (and of course corrections appear in a generally little-read section; letters to the editor appear on the editorial page). He wanted to argue to readers that the Times was wrong, not persuade the corrections editor of that (since such persuasion was highly unlikely). Yet the Times policy appears to say that such arguments that the Times is wrong are off-limits to the editorial page.
Now the Times is of course entirely free to publish or not publish any letter to the editor it wishes; and naturally, it can publish only a small fraction of those it receives. Still, it seems to me that a “no saying we’re wrong” policy with regard to letters to the editor is not a wise exercise of editorial judgment. And in any case, readers might find it useful to know that this is indeed the Times policy.
loki13 says:
I can understand the stance taken here.
If the point is that there is something factually incorrect with a published piece, then the TImes has a procedure to correct that (and that would allow them to verify your claim). Whether the corrections page is as noticed or not is not really the point- that’s the process.
On the other hand, the writer can make his assertions in a letter to the editor as he chooses. If he’s saying the Times is incorrect about facts, he is choosing the wrong forum. Because letters to the editor aren’t (I assume) scrupulously fact-checked under the same process.
So I don’t understand the complaint- he’s allowed to make the same claim he wants to in his letter. If he wants to say that the facts are wrong, however, he is supposed to do that in a different way. If he is simply saying that it is his opinion that they have misinterpreted the judicial opinions (as seems to be conceded) then he shouldn’t be asserting that the Times is wrong, as a matter of fact.
*sigh* I guess I don’t understand what the kerfuffle is about.
February 1, 2011, 3:37 pmHans Bader says:
Other newspapers permit letters to raise factual errors made on the editorial page all the time.
The Times’ policy is thus not the norm.
Of course, letters criticizing news coverage are less likely to be published than letters responding to the editorial pages, making a corrections section necessary even at those papers that allow letters to address factual errors.
I describe at this link how the Times’ correction section dliberately refused to correct its erroneous coverage of the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter v. Goodyear decision, even when I showed it language in the Supreme Court’s decision that flatly contradicted what Linda Greenhouse and others at the times said about the facts of that very decision.
The Times’ erroneous reporting about that case is then cited by other newspapers to refuse to correct their own parroting of the Times’ factual errors.
February 1, 2011, 3:49 pmHans Bader says:
I have frequently been published in newspapers doing just what Andrew Pincus sought to do: correcting factual errors made by the newspaper.
I have done so in newspapers that were owned by the same company as the New York Times, like the Boston Globe.
In any event, the Times’ correction section is not an adequate alternative to its letters page as a vehicle for addressing factual errors. That’s because its correction section sometimes obstinately refuses to accept that the Times has committed factual errors in its reporting, even when that is plain from the language of the very court decision that the Times has distorted. I explain one such example here.
February 1, 2011, 3:55 pmShelbyC says:
It’s not a kerfuffle. EV thinks refusing to publish letters saying that a paper is wrong is not wise editorial judgment. You disagree. I have to say I agree with EV.
February 1, 2011, 3:57 pmanteus says:
The Times also will not let you note that you’ve only been allowed 150 words to respond to their much longer piece(s) – snarkiness goes only one way
A question — did they include the corrections noted in the letter to the editor among their “corrections”
February 1, 2011, 4:13 pmloki13 says:
No. The Times will publish a version where the writer lays out what he believes to be the truth, in contrast to what the Times asserted.
But if you are making the statement that the paper is incorrect as a factual matter, they have a process for that. They do a correction- which allows them to check the facts.
So what is the complaint, exactly? The edited version lays out the same facts. The writer gets to make his case. And if he wants to assert that the Times is incorrect as a factual matter, he can submit to the corrections department. In fact, maybe he should do both.
Thankfully, we have Hans “Self-Reference” Bader to set us straight. ;)
February 1, 2011, 4:18 pmloki13 says:
“He wanted to argue to readers that the Times was wrong….”
You assert that 19 states ruled arbitration agreements like AT&T’s unenforceable. Courts in six of those states upheld AT&T’s provision; courts in four others upheld agreements less fair than AT&T’s.
This is arguing the Times is wrong.
The Times is just wrong in asserting that 19 states…
This is a factual assertion that the Times was incorrect, and since the Times runs regular corrections, this is something that should be corrected.
Again, I don’t see the problem. I do see the solution- writer gets far more coverage of his pet issue by publicizing horrible Times rejection (which wasn’t a rejection… they were offering to actually *publish* his letter) than by, you know, publishing it. Win!
February 1, 2011, 4:23 pmShelbyC says:
But saying the Times is wrong is not the same as saying that the paper is incorrect as a factual matter, they can be wrong on matters of opinion, or wrong where whether or not it’s a matter of opinion is a gray area. However the paper’s editorial policy treats them as if they were the same. Again, you seem to think this is a wise policy; EV and I don’t.
February 1, 2011, 4:25 pmleo marvin says:
As a long time and still loyal reader I’m embarrassed by the Times’ position on this.
February 1, 2011, 4:30 pmfrankcross says:
I suppose I agree that this is a bad NYT policy, but is this not extraordinarily trivial. You can say exactly what of substance it is you want to say. You cannot use a couple of words, but you can still communicate what of substance you want.
I know not of Hans Bader’s experience but it is unrelated to this example. Because here the NYT is allowing the relevant substance.
February 1, 2011, 4:35 pmSteve says:
If the second sentence began with “Actually,” or “In fact,” it wouldn’t be materially different from what he wanted to say in the first place. Maybe they wouldn’t even let him insert those words.
I agree that I would rather have my correction prominently featured as a LTE than buried in the corrections section, but gosh, so would everyone. Does it make sense, though, that a letter correcting a factual error on the editorial page can be published in full, while a letter correcting a factual error on page A1 simply ends up as a correction notice? Or should the NYT adopt a policy of publishing all sorts of correction letters, which would ruin the purpose of the LTE area as a space for reader opinion?
The NYT policy actually makes quite a bit of sense. What’s strange is their offer to print this particular correction letter if and only if the author agrees to take out a couple buzzwords. Even without the buzzwords, it’s still a correction letter. They were trying to be nice, I guess, but really they should have just applied the policy. If the editorial was wrong then note it as a correction, as would be done with any other factual error in the paper.
February 1, 2011, 4:36 pmShelbyC says:
I just don’t see how the first example asserts anything different about the facts than the second example. Saying, here he is just arguing that the times is wrong, and there he is arguing that the times is factually incorrect, doesn’t make it so.
February 1, 2011, 4:37 pmLois L. says:
Makes perfect sense to me that a Times
hit pieceop-ed that gets quoted extensively throughout our free/ unmoored press can assert erroneous facts as often and in whichever font it would, and that reader corrections are only to be submitted and, if accepted, often quibbled with in a discreet Corrections section far away from the Editorial pages, because Progressives are a science-based lot who understand the psychological interplay between agitprop and presentation.NYT: “All the prog fits on newsprint.”
February 1, 2011, 4:39 pmloki13 says:
If they are identical, as you indicate, why didn’t the writer just publish it as corrected? (Answer- because not publishing it gets more publicity! ;) )
But as a substantive matter, they are different. The second is an assertion that the Times is wrong. The first is an assertion that the writer think the Times is wrong (as a matter of opinion) and is providing his reasons why.
I also agree with Steve that the Times was being nice and that as formulated, the letter was better handled as a correction either way, but they were attempting to have it published under their guidelines. But it isn’t nearly as exciting to read, “Times tries to bend over backwards to get letter disagreeing with them published as letter instead of as correction, but author refuses in order to release his grievance to like-minded fellows and achieve far more publicity than he could have if he had just published his letter.”
Had they just chosen not to publish it at all (which they do with thousands of letters) I am sure he would have said they were censoring his opinions…
February 1, 2011, 4:49 pmMCR says:
Steve: I think the identity of the letter-sender should be taken into account. As one of the parties the NYT’s editorial is about, his name should be attached to his response.
February 1, 2011, 4:53 pmSteve says:
Because, of course, factual errors in conservative editorials and op-eds always result in prominent and well-publicized corrections, and as a consequence those errors are certainly never ever repeated elsewhere as gospel.
I know it’s fun to pretend that everything is a function of ideology but in this case, uh, no.
February 1, 2011, 4:57 pmCalderon says:
I kind of, sort of agree that the NYT’s suggested edits to the letter are minor.
The bigger issue is that this is another reminder that the media often gets legal issues wrong. Non-lawyers should retain a healthy skepticism whenever they read or see media descriptions of legal decisions or principles.
February 1, 2011, 5:00 pmLois L. says:
Yep, Steve, there are conservative publications that are considered on par with The Paper of Record and which get quoted extensively by MSM and the alphabet news channels.
Surely.
February 1, 2011, 5:09 pmShelbyC says:
Er, You understand that your first category is a superset of your second, right? I think both assertions are stating that the Times is wrong as a matter of opinion and providing the reasons why.
I’m not sure how we can say this based on two sentences of a 150 word editorial,and without knowing more about the nature of why he felt the times was wrong. But given that they editorialized on his case himself, and published a letter from the other side, they come off looking kind of crappy refusing to publish his letter based on a formalistic excuse such as this one, that two sentences of the letter contained material that is arguably better suited for the corrections section.
February 1, 2011, 5:09 pmSteve says:
I don’t think it’s really fair to say they “refused to publish his letter” when they were perfectly willing to publish it with these minor edits. Personally, if my only two choices were publishing my letter with these edits or not publishing it at all, it would not be a difficult call at all.
February 1, 2011, 5:16 pmShelbyC says:
Yes, and the minor edits were, eliminate the parts where you say we’re wrong. If you you don’t think that makes them look kind of crappy, you are entitled to you opinion, I just happen to disagree.
February 1, 2011, 5:21 pmNaG says:
I must agree that the “alternative forum” explanation provided by loki13 is unsatisfying, because corrections get far less readership than letters. The corrections section of the NYT provides little, if any, context for the error, and the reader is usually clueless from the correction as to whether the error was significant enough to merit revisiting the article in question. A letter to the editor can include the correction in context.
Every editorial page is an exercise in claiming that other people are wrong about something. For the NYT to exempt themselves as a target only shows that they are only comfortable in an echo chamber. It weakens their credibility, but I doubt most of their readership would care.
February 1, 2011, 5:30 pmSteve says:
I agree they would look less crappy if they had simply failed to publish it at all, considering they wouldn’t have even had to give a reason. But it’s odd that you insist on accusing them of doing the precise thing they declined to do, which is “refusing to publish his letter based on a formalistic excuse.”
February 1, 2011, 5:34 pmBrian Thomson says:
In my view the kerfuffle is that the Times will publish a letter that says they are right, but will not publish a letter that says they are wrong. I would find this less objectionable if they enforced a uniform policy that they will not publish letters that comment on the correctness of an article.
February 1, 2011, 5:35 pmJim Miller says:
The Times letter policy is even worse than suggested by this post. Their letters editor, Thomas Feyer, simply refuses to publish letters critical of some of their worst columnists, for example, Frank Rich.
Nor will he publish letters that are not timely. So, if events prove Paul Krugman wrong, as they often do, Feyer will not publish a letter describing Krugman’s mistake.
Why does this matter? Two reasons. The Times often sets the standards for other news organizations though, so far, most newspapers have been more open to criticism.
And the Times has deprived the news organization of an important form of feedback; their editorial writers and their less reponsible columnists — Krugman, Dowd, Rich, et cetera — do not get criticized for their many errors, or their persistent bias, in the letters to the editor.
February 1, 2011, 5:39 pmyankev says:
Pace Douglas Adams, The Times is definitive; reality is frequently inaccurate.
February 1, 2011, 5:49 pmShelbyC says:
Well, given that they published one from the other side, they would still look pretty crappy. And in fact, they did refuse to publish the letter. Nobody denied that they would have published the letter with minor changes, that fact is right there in the OP.
February 1, 2011, 5:49 pmgeokstr says:
Hell no, that’s heresy!
Off with his head!
February 1, 2011, 6:03 pmbillb says:
Isn’t the point largely that a correction would say something like: “On April 1, 2011 the NYT mistakenly reported that 19 states had similar rulings in cases like Doe v. Aeroplane. The actual number was 8 similar rulings. The NYT apologies for this error.”? The value of putting this in a letter to the editor is that the NYT editorial used this factual error to strengthen an argument and pointing it out makes that argument look considerably weaker. This is a point that isn’t conveyed at all by a simple correction.
I think, from a strategic perspective, that it might have been better to negotiate a reasonable change and get the point published than to only have it published here. Popular as they are, I’d be surprised if the VC had more readers than the NYT!
February 1, 2011, 6:06 pmloki13 says:
ShelbyC,
You have now said that the two examples (what they would have published and what they did not publish) are indistinguishable.
So they didn’t “refuse to publish the letter.”
In sum, I’m not entirely sure what you’re point is. They have a policy. They wanted to publish a letter that was against their policy. They suggested an edit that would allow them to publish it, an edit which (you concede) make the letter *not* assert anything different about the facts.
So the author chose to take his ball home, and then complain about it. Which means that it got a lot more coverage than it would have. Good for him! Great PR! Again, my take from this is:
“Author takes advantage of Times policy to create extra publicity!”
Your mileage is varying. :)
February 1, 2011, 6:06 pmgeokstr says:
Heh.
I’ve mentioned here before the book that was written in the early 1970s, which proves this is not a new problem, by a former insider at the NYT, all about the rampant leftwing bias that was already there. It was called:
That was before the alternative media like Fox and talk radio and the internet (thanks be to algore, amen), where we began to learn not only were there actually other sides to almost all the stories, we also began to find out there were lots of important stories that were not even being published by the MSM because they didn’t fit the narrative.
No wonder the fishwraps and the alphabets are fading fast.
February 1, 2011, 6:10 pmIAdmitIAmCrazy says:
I feel this is not only true for the Times and its readers. It is as if people are not really interested what is but rather which narrative best conforms to their pre-established prejudices.
Arguments are not exchanged to learn something, it is mostly about “who is winning?”
Believe me, I know what I am talking about because trying to do justice to what is said here on Volokh hurts my own preformed prejudices. Having been trained in the Socratic dialogue which some denounce as Alinskyan perfidy, I still live in the illusion that by thinking hard enough about the argument, my libertarian socialist ego will come out of the process “as if hardened like steel” ;-)
February 1, 2011, 6:21 pmdearieme says:
“of course corrections appear in a generally little-read section”: the corrections in the Guardian are often the best thing in it.
February 1, 2011, 6:33 pmShelbyC says:
No, I think we’re agreeing on everything here. The “policy” you refer to appears to be that you can’t use words to the effect of “the times is wrong”. The “point” that the OP is making is that this isn’t a very good policy. It makes the times look unwilling to subject itself to criticism in the eyes of many. Of course, you have said that you disagree that this in an unwise policy.
The “Author takes advantage of Times policy to create extra publicity!” is a different, and equally valid, angle on the story. ISTM that both are correct.
February 1, 2011, 6:53 pmloki13 says:
Dunno that I agree with this. I see letters that disagree with the Times quite often on the letters page. Here’s Jan. 31:
I’d say that is disagreement. It’s just the Times has a policy of correcting factual mistakes in a different manner (through corrections). Now, like the substance/procedure distinction in law, there is a fine line between saying the Times is wrong on a fact and saying that you think the Times is wrong in their opinion, but it is a useful distinction. I happen to think it is a good policy in the sense the Times is striving to get the facts right, and prints corrections of incorrect facts when those are brought to its attention.
The letter writer in this case neither wanted to get his letter published, nor did he want a factual correction. From my reading, he could have gotten his letter published AND sent a separate bit of correspondence requesting a correction. He chose a third way… not that there’s anything wrong with that!
February 1, 2011, 7:26 pmDBJ says:
The first comment does not appear intended to carry a partisan bias. No need to get defensive.
The fact that one reputable newspaper’s editorial board skimps on the facts doesn’t give another the right to.
February 1, 2011, 7:26 pmtvk says:
Would the Times accept:
The problem is that what appears as a factual statement is really an opinion, because it all depends on whether the 19 states unenforceable contracts were “like” the one in dispute.
Pincus and the Times, then, are both presenting their opinions as fact. The Times is quite justified, I think, to say that if Pincus wants to present his opinion as incontrovertible fact, then the editorial page is not the place to do it — it is by definition a place for opinions. The preceding problem is that the Times itself presented its opinion as fact in a news story, and news stories are not places for opinions disguised as facts, either.
February 1, 2011, 8:15 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
Setting aside the dispute over the letter, shouldn’t the LTE editor forward the letter to the corrections department in any case, regardless of what Pincus wants to do with the letter?
February 1, 2011, 9:18 pmDesiderius says:
Bureaucratic means, illiberal ends.
February 1, 2011, 9:33 pmLawfare › New York Times Letters Policy says:
[...] willfully misrepresenting the legality of military detention in its editorials will be amused by this post from Eugene Volokh about the newspaper’s editing of letters to the editor which accuse the Times of error. It [...]
February 1, 2011, 9:48 pmStephen Lathrop says:
It may be exasperating, but newspapers mostly aren’t going to let members of the public have access to their pages to say what the facts are. It imposes an open-ended editorial burden they can’t meet. That’s understandable, but problematic.
One of the biggest problems comes in technical areas of reporting, where reporters will often let credentialed interview subjects make factual assertions, or parrot those assertions as their own factual reporting. But the same reporters won’t permit contradictions from non-credentialed people who may have studied the subject and have a stake in it. As a non-expert, self-presented commenter, about the most you can expect is an opportunity to answer the question, “How do you feel about X?”
I do think that’s one of the reasons for the decline in following for traditional media. Many, including the Times, seem to have more allegiance to journalistic forms and processes than they do to the truth. It feels sclerotic, and it’s obviously headed downhill. I wish it weren’t so, because we all need more good journalism, and the web isn’t providing it, and maybe can’t.
February 1, 2011, 10:02 pmtheobromophile says:
Although I’m no fan of the Times, I’m sad to hear that this is the their policy.
Nothing against the corrections section, but there’s something about, “This is factually incorrect, here’s the context, and it matters because” that is much stronger than “Nine, not nineteen, courts struck down arbitration provisions akin to those found in AT&T’s contracts”. The numbers thing makes people think, “Who cares? Misprint.”
February 1, 2011, 10:04 pmLee Walker says:
I think their “can’t say we’re wrong” policy is meant only to apply to statements of fact.
Let’s say there is a bus crash, and the Times reports that 20 people died. If you were at the scene and you know for a fact that actually 27 people died, and you wrote in with a letter saying the Times was wrong to report 20 people died… then they would ask you to forward it to corrections and could not consider it as a letter.
Now, I think your case was different to that. As you stated, this wasn’t such a simple matter of “how many people died” because counting up the 19 states (or however many) involves a matter of opinion in interpretation of judicial rulings.
It appears that the editors did not realise that the letter wasn’t attempting to just state a simple bald fact. Instead, it was expressing an opinion about something.
To give an example. Let’s say that the Times ran an editorial, where the editor said “I think Obama is really great!” I am sure that a letter to the editor in response which says “Gee, your editor is way off the mark. I think Obama is a drop kick!” wouldn’t fall afoul (at least of this apparent “no corrections” policy).
February 1, 2011, 10:07 pmHank says:
A few years ago I sent a letter to the Times because its Ethicist had given someone advice to commit an illegal act under NYS law. It never saw print either. Now I understand why.
February 1, 2011, 11:02 pmnick056 says:
David wins the thread. What is the Times doing identifying a correction letter and saying that if the writer makes a semantic change, it doesn’t need to be forwarded to corrections after all? (In principle I agree with processing all assertions of factual inaccuracy through Corrections, because that’s what a correction is. These corrections should limited to matters of fact and posted on the Op-Ed page to dissuade writing falsehoods in Op-Eds and columns.)
I do feel sympathy for the person writing on behalf of the Times here in that he guessed this would never get out of Corrections because it did not seem like a purely factual question, but tried to work within the policy and get the letter published anyway. Still, if the letter-writer stood behind a claim of factual innaccuracy, it should’ve gone to Corrections.
February 1, 2011, 11:04 pmShelbyC says:
What you keep dodging is that it appears that they also have a policy of treating any assertion following the formula “the Times was incorrect” as a factual mistake.
February 1, 2011, 11:21 pmJohnPaTRICK says:
It is no wonder that readers and subscribers realize the continued increase in slant employed by the NYT for political purposes. I call it lying, some call it propaganda. No wonder people are no longer subscribing.
February 1, 2011, 11:30 pmDoesn’t everyone know the NY Times is infallible? « doubleplusundead says:
[...] the Volokh Conspiracy they are discussing the difficulty of getting a letter to the editor published if you assert the [...]
February 2, 2011, 2:21 amneurodoc says:
Most of the discussion here has focused on the differences between what ought to be published in the NYT’s LTEs and what in its not at all conspicous “corrections” section. But there’s something else at play beyond fact-checking requirements and procedures. That is that the NYT is all too “human” in liking its prerogatives and not liking to be corrected in other than a whisper. So yes, “it appears that they also have a policy of treating any assertion following the formula ‘the Times was incorrect’ as a factual mistake.”
The WaPo is not much different in this regard. Even when they are so “generous” as to allow a reply, that reply is unlikely to be published if it challenges too directly a position the WaPo has taken. For example, a couple of decades ago, the WaPo editorialized in support of the editors of Duke’s student newspaper who chose to take the money of inveterate Holocaust denier Bradley Smith and run his mendacious lies as a full-page ad. A young friend of mine was a Duke undergrad at the time and was allowed an op-ed piece to respond to the WaPo editorial praising the student editors as champions of “free speech.” Though he did an excellent job of it the first time, he had to rewrite it several times so as to avoid anything that looked in the slightest like criticism of the WaPo’s editors before they would publish it.
February 2, 2011, 5:15 amDennis Nicholls says:
I once noticed a glaring error in a NYT front-page (web version) story about European weather. The author stated that the JET stream influenced Europe: I emailed the author directly and said that perhaps he meant to say the GULF stream influenced Europe. He wrote me back to thank me and the NYT immediately posted a corrected version of the story. However the corrected version was never identified as a “corrected version”.
February 2, 2011, 5:21 amneurodoc says:
It may be that web versions are not static like the print version, and minor factual mistakes like the one you called their attention to are simply corrected without note of the change. In any event, I think they’re happy to make such corrections/changes since doing so comports with their “paper of record” reputation and is no cause for embarrassment.
February 2, 2011, 5:51 amneurodoc says:
My late father was wont to say from time to time, before his granddaughter matriculated there, “You can always tell a Harvard man, you just can’t tell him much.” I think something like that pertains in the case of the august New York Times.
February 2, 2011, 5:55 amDesiderius says:
Loki13, please step away from the Pravda.
The tragedy is that Pinch’s Tie-dyed Girrl is in many ways a great paper – the adolescent mind is uniquely prolific – but his nearly complete trashing of Punch’s grown up sense of fairness and propriety has forfeited the respect that his Grey Lady earned, and well.
Deadweight loss.
Here’s hoping the Douthat generation takes over soon.
February 2, 2011, 6:00 amThe Other Side Time says:
[...] The Volokh Conspiracy » New York Times Letter to the Editor Policy … In the meantime, the Times published a letter from counsel for the other side expressly agreeing with the editorial (“As your editorial correctly explains . ”). Still, no opposing views appeared. Then the Times did get back to Pincus, [...]
February 2, 2011, 7:21 amdcuser says:
Underlying problem (and I say this as a liberal lawyer, who usually agrees with the Times on policy matters) is that the Times editorial page is somewhere between stupid and dishonest when it comes to discussing legal doctrine. There is no “maybe” about this issue. Either arbitration clauses have been upheld or not. If a letters editor learns that the editorial was flat-out wrong about something, then her job is to make the correction appear in print somehow — whether by publishing the letter that points out the error, or by forwarding the issue herself to the corrections department. Otherwise, the Times editorial section will have no higher standards (and no greater reliability) than, say, the execrable and notoriously unreliable Wall Street Journal editorial section.
February 2, 2011, 7:58 amFloridan says:
Do we know that this “other side” letter was published as orignally submitted?
February 2, 2011, 9:16 amloki13 says:
It has nothing to do with love of the Times. I just really like rules. Civil procedure rules. Choice of forum rules. Conflict of law rules. Letter to the editor rules.
Must be my swiss/german heritage. :)
February 2, 2011, 10:39 amdaily links 02.02.11 « increasingmu says:
[...] Letters to the editor at the New York Times cannot say the New York Times is wrong. [...]
February 2, 2011, 1:28 pmGrimmy says:
In other words, as long as they’re not exposed as clueless, partisan drones.
February 2, 2011, 2:18 pmSomeone has made the important point that, if one reads the corrections page at all, it will not readily register that their editorial argument has been weakened. Thus their credibility is maintained.
They are of course free to follow any policy they choose. It’s too bad they’ve chosen to follow Pravda’s (the original).
shmoe says:
It’s pretty easy, the solution. Just use Obama-speak. “There are some who say that 19 states ruled arbitration agreements like AT&T’s unenforceable. Those people are wrong.”
February 2, 2011, 2:26 pmASR says:
Simple fix:
February 2, 2011, 2:36 pmContrary to your assertion that 19 states…
Calls them wrong without the expressed words.
Urso says:
Yep. I also think it’s interesting how the the NYT employee assumed that him saying “the Times is wrong” on a legal is a factual statement – as lawyers, we don’t think of it that way. You read a case one way, I read it another, but it’s generally a question of interpretation. What he’s really saying in the letter is that the NYT’s analysis of the cases was wrong. I think the employee just didn’t comprehend the distinction between the two here.
February 2, 2011, 2:45 pmMurgatroyd says:
Bingo. Why is the newspaper’s policy either/or? Why shouldn’t the Times print the letter and note the error in its Corrections column?
February 2, 2011, 4:09 pmFat Man says:
Look we are talking about the house organ of the Democrat party here, not a serious newspaper.
February 2, 2011, 10:26 pmDesiderius says:
loki13,
“I just really like rules.”
Once again the contrast between your pseudonym and personality does not fail to amuse.
If you like rules, you’re in the right place. As for me…
“Must be my swiss/german heritage. :)”
Celtic/Native American. Hmmm.
February 2, 2011, 10:49 pmDesiderius says:
(Richard?) Floridian,
“Do we know that this “other side” letter was published as orignally submitted?”
I was wondering this as well. Would be an interesting data point.
February 2, 2011, 10:52 pmloki13 says:
Now Desi, if you know your mythology, you know that the only way Loki was able to get away with all his treachery was because he had long periods of good behavior.
February 2, 2011, 11:55 pmneurodoc says:
Exactly! Huge difference between burying something in the corrections section along with other errata like wrong name spellings or incorrect middle initials and showcasing it among LTE where it will get eyeballs, even if so many LTE in the NYT are such a waste of one’s time to read. (Is the NYT product more meretricious in any component part than in its LTE, which are rarely more than banal echoes of the NYT’s tres “progressive” editorials?)
February 3, 2011, 5:30 amneurodoc says:
Which organ of the Democratic Party would that be, do you imagine it to be that to which a cardiologist or a neurologist would minister? Surely, you do not consider it to be one for which a proctologist or urologist might be needed.
February 3, 2011, 5:36 amnhrpolitic13 says:
While it seems the peak of trivial stupidity – (vanity?) – for the Times to refuse to print the statement “you’re wrong,” I’d point out that in fact the letter as edited does make the same point, as even as edited it points out the relevant contradiction asserted by counsel.
February 4, 2011, 10:45 amI suppose it’s also possible that the Times’ editorial standards strive for civility, and that the editor considers a direct and extraneous “you’re wrong” where the underlying statements adequately convey that message to be editorial fluffery in violation of the standard. If still a somewhat silly justification for the policy, I can (sort of) see why an editor might *think* that was a good idea.
Ed Driscoll » Never Give Up! Never Surrender! says:
[...] Volokh, a professor at UCLA law school, wrote on his blog The Volokh Conspiracy Tuesday about a friend of his, Andy Pincus, who had written a letter to the editor at the New York [...]
February 4, 2011, 6:29 pmNew York Times Repeatedly Makes False Claims About Supreme Court and Court Rulings | OpenMarket.org says:
[...] law professors wrote at The Volokh Conspiracy about the New York Times’ refusal to print a letter to the editor pointing out a mistake in a recent Times editorial about federal appeals court [...]
February 14, 2011, 11:03 amAlbatrosspro says:
I absolutely agree with Mr. Volokh. A corrections section makes sense for regular news pieces since it is an admission on the part of the writer/editor of factual error. Opinion pieces, by their nature, are different, and function differently within the newspaper. Opinion pieces are not purporting to be factual accounts of events but rather interpretations of facts. This, in fact, heightens the importance of getting the underlying facts straight (i.e., “interpretation” of misinformation is simply misinformation). In the end, through this policy, the Times adopts a de facto policy of assuming a monopoly on underlying factuality since only “interpretation” is up for debate. The Times forces its responders to concede a priori factual correctness, and draft letters as mere “interpretive” disagreements. This is an insult. It’s like attending a meeting where someone makes an incorrect point and, when you try to correct them, are told to “take it up with the corrections bureau”. The words bureaucracy and arrogance come to mind.
February 14, 2011, 4:42 pm