The LA Times comes in for criticism regularly in the blogosphere, but a couple recent mistakes on their part deserve closer scrutiny. LA-based Patterico shows Times editors removed (from the Reuters wire story) possibly the most noteworthy development in the shooting of the car in Iraq that killed an Italian agent and the newly free Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena – the car’s speed as measured by satellite:
The Reuters story reported that investigators using satellite footage of the incident have conclusively determined that the car was speeding, just as the U.S. has always maintained. On page two of the story, the Reuters news service reported:
CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph per hour [sic] as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.
Thus, the Reuters story reported that there is definitive proof that the car was speeding towards the checkpoint – critical information that tends to justify U.S. soldiers’ decision to fire on the car. But in the version appearing in the L.A. Times, editors cut out the passage reporting that proof.
He goes on to show this was a very deliberate omission by Times editors, because their version of the Reuters piece – judged by certain phrasing changes – is unique, as verified by a Google search.
If this were a lone incident of the Times cutting something relevant, perhaps for space considerations or not wanting to tilt too far to the American military’s say, it wouldn’t be so bad. But Patterico goes through the Times’ reporting on the incident since it happened almost two months ago to show they have given extreme weight to the journalist’s side of the story – that the car “was not going especially fast for a situation of that type”:
It is truly astounding that the paper’s editors now see fit to hide from their readers the fact that satellite footage proves the car was speeding. The paper in the past understood that this is a critical issue in the controversy. What possible justification is there for the suppression of proof resolving that issue?
If they’re worried about the satellite footage turning out to be misinterpreted or just invented, there’s a simply way around that: “Military sources say satellite coverage showed…” At least let people know the military is giving a reason that can be fact-checked. (Via Instapundit.)
The other LA Times error was in a story about the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit’s fight against child pornography distributors and users. The paper reports: “All but one of the offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie.” Blogger Ernest Miller did some old-fashioned reporting (a blogger? NO!):
I called the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit and spoke to Det. Ian Lamond, who was familiar with the LA Times article.
He claims they were misquoted, or if that figure was given it was done so jokingly. Of course, even if the figure was given jokingly, shouldn’t the Times’ reporter have clarified something that seems rather odd? Shouldn’t her editors have questioned her sources?
Nevertheless, Detective Lamond does claim that a majority of those arrested show “at least a passing interest in Star Trek, if not a strong interest.”
At least this time it was a numbers’ screwup, not a wholesale omission. I can’t necessarily blame the reporter in this case, because since I joined the professional journalism ranks a couple months ago, I’ve learned it’s surprisingly easy for editors to change your copy in a way that makes it factually inaccurate when they’re unsure what your meaning is. That’s still a regrettable slip, and possibly an indication the relevant Times editors think Trekkies are so weird that it makes sense they’d have a pedophilia undercurrent. Not necessarily bias – just lazy assumptions that go unquestioned in a culturally homogenous newsroom. Surely there must be one Trekkie in the Times newsroom they could quickly ask, “You hear anything about lots of Trekkies being pedophiles?” At least one Trekkie, in a comment at BoingBoing, is irritated at the Times’ singling out of “Star Trek” fans for this horrible crime. But the story would be far less scandalous if Trekkies were just among the pedophiles, not a core component of them. Creeping tabloidism at the Times…? (Via Kausfiles, which finally has hyperlinks, but not consistently. Slate: We’re Looking into This Blog Thing!)
When I was an intern on Capitol Hill, the LA Times was the only paper we received that went right in the trash. I guess there was a reason for it.
I’m a tech journalist who’s making a TV show about a college newspaper.