Posted by
Katie Favazza on Sunday, December 31, 2006 6:59:45 PM
From Byron Calame, the New York Times' Public Editor [emphasis my own]:THE cover story on abortion in El Salvador in The New York Times
Magazine on April 9 contained prominent references to an
attention-grabbing fact. “A few” women, the first paragraph indicated,
were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That
reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article
concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the
sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks.
It turns out, however, that
trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy
had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the
“recently born.” A three-judge panel found her guilty of “aggravated
homicide,” a fact the article noted. But without bothering to check the
court document containing the panel’s findings and ruling, the
article’s author, Jack Hitt, a freelancer, suggested that the “truth”
was different.
Please take some time over the holiday to read through the entire column. It's not very often that anyone affiliated with the New York Times will admit that the paper did something wrong--or that any of us right wing nut jobs could ever be right about anything. Mr. Calame later writes:
Complaints about the article began arriving at the paper after an anti-abortion Web site, LifeSiteNews.com,
reported on Nov. 27 that the court had found that Ms. Climaco’s
pregnancy ended with a full-term live birth. The headline: “New York
Times Caught in Abortion-Promoting Whopper — Infanticide Portrayed as
Abortion.” Seizing on the misleading presentation of the article’s only
example of a 30-year jail sentence for an abortion, the site urged
viewers to complain to the publisher and the president of The Times. A
few came to me.
And later still:
I asked Mr. Whitney if he intended to suggest that the office of the
publisher bring the court’s findings to the attention of those readers
who received the “no reason to doubt” response, or that a correction be
published. The latest word from the standards editor: “No, I’m not
ready to do that, nor to order up a correction or Editors’ Note at this
point.”
Again, please just take the time to read the whole article. And if you have a few more minutes to spare, contact Byron Calame to thank him for writing this important piece.
Email:
public@nytimes.com
Phone:
(212) 556-7652
Address:
Public Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036-3959
I intend to keep his contact information handy so as to address future NYT concerns. I encourage you all to do the same.