The New York Times, eschewing bogus journalism, takes on the raft of falsehoods Rudy Guiliani has been peddling to sell his presidential candidacy — and does it without the standard he-said, she-said mincing of words. In “Citing Statistics, Giuliani Misses Time and Again,” reporter Michael Cooper cites “facts” that
are incomplete, exaggerated or just plain wrong. And while, to be sure, all candidates use misleading statistics from time to time, Mr. Giuliani has made statistics a central part of his candidacy as he campaigns on his record.
There’s chapter and verse here. This, folks, is what serious journalism is all about.
on Dec 1st, 2007 at 8:08 am
Is it news when the Times does something right? 😉
But I’ll play contrarian yet again here. Under the theory of faceted information design, it should be one click from falsehoods-of-Guiliani to falsehoods-of-other-candidates. On the Times website, it is not. FactCheck.org’s Guiliani article comes closer.
And under the theory of reputation drives recognition, I still haven’t heard a substantive reply from anybody at the Times to my lengthy TimesSelect study, so shouting to the wind continues…
on Dec 2nd, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Agree Dan. Note also the public editor piece in the times today wishing this were done more often.
on Dec 2nd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Ironically, Clark Hoyt wrote about this very thing in his column today. But, like me, he felt that the Times could do much more:
“The Times, with its own rich Web offerings on the presidential campaign, would do well to showcase a similar fact-checking feature.”
on Dec 4th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Wow, I look like a fool. How strange– when I posted my comment on Sunday, I don’t remember at all seeing Jarvis’s coment there. But let me clarify, when I said “do much more” it was clear that Hoyt was pointing in the direction of making it a database, and not just doing it more often.