NYT "public editor" chastises slow coverage of "Downing Street Memo"

[G_j]

http://bluemassgroup.typepad.com/blue_mass_group/2005/05/new_ny_times_pu.html

May 22, 2005
New NY Times "public editor" chastises slow coverage of "Downing Street Memo"

The new "public editor" of the NY Times, Byron Calame, has concluded that the NYT was slow on the uptake regarding the "Downing Street Memo," a secret document containing minutes of a high-level intelligence meeting regarding preparations for the Iraq war. Although the British press reported the contents of the memo on May 1, in the run-up to the British election, the NYT didn't write about its impact here until this past Friday. Mr. Calame writes:

key editors simply were slow to recognize that the minutes of a high-powered meeting on a life-and-death issue - their authenticity undisputed - probably needed to be assessed in some fashion for readers. Even if the editors decided it was old news that Mr. Bush had decided in July 2002 to attack Iraq or that the minutes didn't provide solid evidence that the administration was manipulating intelligence, I think Times readers deserved to know that earlier than today's article.

<snip>
In short, America's "newspaper of record" blew the story on Iraq yet again. What a huge failure on the part of this incredibly influential media outlet.
----------------
NYT:
http://forums.nytimes.com/top/opinion/readersopinions/forums/thepubliceditor/danielokrent/index.html?offset=47&fid=.f555e99/47

New Public Editor Looks at 'Downing Street Memo' Coverage

My name is Byron Calame and I'm the new public editor. While Daniel Okrent doesn't formally put the title in my hands until Monday, the flood of reader e-mail criticizing The Times's coverage of the so-called Downing Street Memo has moved me to lease some space in his Web Journal a few days ahead of schedule.

Some background: The secret minutes of a July 2002 meeting of top advisers to British Prime Minister Tony Blair were published May 1 by The Sunday Times in London. Critics of the Bush administration and the Iraq war have focused on two matters in the minutes. One is the suggestion that Mr. Bush had decided to go to war earlier than he has acknowledged. The other is the statement that the chief of Britain's secret intelligence service had returned from a visit to Washington where he found that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Here's one of the less strident reader e-mails, from Leslie Lowe of New York City:


"After all the mea culpas about the poor job the NYT did on pre-invasion news analysis, I find it noteworthy that the paper has barely mentioned the memo by Matthew Rycroft that rocked the U.K. and nearly cost Blair the election. According to the Rycroft memo, the authenticity of which has not been disputed, the decision to invade Iraq had already been taken as of July 2002 and the 'intelligence' was subsequently cooked to justify what the U.K. Attorney General deemed an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation.

..more..