Monday, September 10, 2007

The Times Is a Terrible Thing to Waste   [Michael Yon]

General David Petraeus's first day of testimony was completely accurate, and consistent with my recent experiences around Iraq. Everything he said during the public hearing on Monday was measured, cogent, and demonstrably accurate. That his reputation was attacked in an entirely inaccurate full-page advertisement in the New York Times is a smear on the reputation of the New York Times. That the advertisement was placed by a political organization of poor reputation is beside the point. To the point is that numerous parts of the text were wholly inaccurate to the point that a candid person might call them lies. A more generous person might call the authors ignorant. But again, the authors are from an organization with a naked political agenda and their methods are at times even juvenile. The responsible parties are those at the New York Times who accepted money and prostituted their pages to print tabloid-level rants.

There are some excellent writers from the New York Times who have covered Iraq: Rich Oppel; Dexter Filkins; John Burns; Michael Gordon. Gordon is doing excellent work there now. But it was New York Times editors who permitted their star writer Jayson Blair to lie to Americans and drag the paper’s reputation down. After that scandal, I refused to read the Times for several years. It was writers like Oppel, Filkins, Burns, and Gordon who started rekindling my faith that they could do an excellent and responsible job. But one more advertisement like the one that was published on 10 September – the one that Times editors must have known to be filled with falsities – and I will not read the New York Times again for a long time to come, if ever. The fact that this particular political organization wrote and paid for a blatantly inaccurate and deliberately misleading ad is not surprising — it's consistent with their reputation. Any look at the real facts will show that General Petraeus's reputation isn't at risk here. The man is solid and is a truth teller. It is the reputation of the New York Times which is in danger for allowing such absolute inaccuracies to be proclaimed on their pages.

The New York Times is a big and powerful name, but there is only so much more burden it can bear.

— Michael Yon is an independent reporter whose work is reader-supported. To make the investment in his future journalism, contribute here.

09/10 10:19 PMShare