Crack NYT fact-checkers fooled by, um, spoof e-mail

posted at 8:12 pm on December 22, 2008 by Allahpundit
Share on Facebook | printer-friendly

Turns out not everyone on the Internet is who he claims to be. Who knew?

This letter, like most Letters to the Editor these days, arrived by email. It is Times procedure to verify the authenticity of every letter. In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the email and did not hear back. At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoë’s office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us.

We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.

This is like getting a call from “Barack Obama” and verifying it’s him by calling him right back at the number he leaves with you. In the Times’s defense, the letter does have a decidedly Frenchy tone (“Can we speak of American decline?”), but I ask you: Would the mayor of Paris, of all people, be likely to object to a big break for Jackie Kennedy’s daughter?

Politico has a new story out tonight about Caroline’s work for the NYC school system. Turns out she was almost never on the job, but she did keep in touch by phone, so let’s look forward to that in the Senate. Exit question via Riehl: Is it time to start a dead pool for the New York Times?

Blowback

You must be logged in to post a comment.