Iseman v. New York Times
Re: The settlement agreement between lobbyist Vicki Iseman and the New York Times.
As a journalist, I’d make several points:
1.) Iseman emerged the winner. She didn’t get the $27 million she sought, but she won significant concessions. As a rule, a newspaper does not willingly give plaintiffs a good deal of space in its publication to argue their case in public, yet the Times did. In a note to its readers, the Times also acknowledged that “the article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain or an unethical relationship on behalf of her clients in breach of the public trust.” That too is significant.
2.) Iseman deserved this win; the Times deserved this outcome as well. The newspaper’s claim that it did not intend to imply a romantic relationship between Iseman and John McCain cannot withstand any honest reading of the piece in question. The article did try to communicate through innuendo what it could not substantiate with fact, and in fact the gap between what it implied and what it could prove was significant. That’s just bad journalism. We all make mistakes — I certainly have and I know I will in the future — but that story as written should never have gotten into print.
3.) Legally, the case rode on the question of whether Iseman, as a registered lobbyist, was a public figure or private figure. If the courts had ruled her a private figure, she might have won a significant financial settlement. If the courts had ruled her a public figure, she would have won nothing. Given that gray area, the settlement was a just outcome.
4.) I am a great admirer of the Times. I read it daily. But this story was the latest in a string of high-profile cases in which its reporting outran the facts available. That includes its poorly grounded, sensationalistic reporting of the Whitewater case with Bill Clinton, both in the news and opinion pages; the credulous handling of WMD allegations by reporter Judith Miller during the runup and aftermath of the Iraq invasion; and its railroading of scientist Wen Ho Lee as an alleged spy for China. Again, we all make mistakes. But when you make a series of similar mistakes, you ought to look internally at the cause and address it. As an outsider, it looks as if Times editors are pushing reporters too hard for scoops, or they aren’t insisting that their reporters justify their claims with facts.
UPDATE: I’m told that because of temporary technical problems, only the most recent 100 comments on each blog entry will be viewable. Older comments on the thread aren’t being deleted, they just won’t be posted.
Once we’ve fixed the problem, all comments will be restored. Thanks.
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101 comments Add your comment
AJC/DNC Management
February 20th, 2009
11:16 am
When do the treason trials start?
Barry
February 20th, 2009
11:19 am
Right after the NYT admits it has a problem.
RealityKing
February 20th, 2009
11:35 am
The NYTimes has proven itself to be nothing more than tabloid news..
Joe
February 20th, 2009
11:37 am
Yet another example of the media’s true agenda: Profits.
The Times pushed for scoops in all of the cases mentioned above because if they are known as the guys who get the big story first, they will have more readers and more readers means more ad revenue. The problem is that the editors have overplayed on this, and it’s biting them in the arse.
Paul
February 20th, 2009
11:43 am
Jay
Thanks for a journalist’s perspective. I stand corrected on my stance there are no winners in a settlement case.
BTW – also – Truth won.
DB, Gwinnettian
February 20th, 2009
11:43 am
Jay, I haven’t followed this one at all, I look forward to tracking down a story or two for background.
In other newspaper news, the NY Post (now, that there’s a “tabloid”, RK) has issued a non-apology apology. Click the link if you like, but it’s pretty much what one would expect.
Go NYT go!
February 20th, 2009
11:43 am
Someone needed to balance Bush’s disinformation campaign. What will be the outcome of the litany of those cases (WMD lies, Valarie Plame, etc.)?
getalife
February 20th, 2009
11:43 am
A lobbyist settled without the money does not pass the smell taste.
G
February 20th, 2009
11:55 am
McCain didn’t help matters by stating Palin was his “soulmate.”
Goofy talk.
But the real news is Obama is President and McCain can go off and have as many “soulmates” as he wants, and no one will care what he even means by it.
@@
February 20th, 2009
12:01 pm
That’s just bad journalism. We all make mistakes — I certainly have and I know I will in the future — but that story as written should never have gotten into print.
….and let that be a lesson to you from here on out, jay. Wait a minute! Did you say you plan on making mistakes in the future? Will your liberal readers see them as unquestionable truths supporting their power?
You can count on conservatives to be honest with you.
Mind if I bring something up from downstairs? Every time I return to the computer, you’ve moved on. Nevermind “Tis better to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.”
jay, I’m familiar with one Pearl of Wisdom — liberals make up the vast majority within the community of conspiracy theorists. I think it has something to do with their inability to account for why their lives are so miserable. It will always be because of some conspiracy against them.
Get this! When an article was posted at some radical left-wing blogsite that portrayed the brutal death of Daniel Pearl, at the hands of terrorists, one idiot liberal responded with “His father created the war!”
‘Ya think he/she might have been cornfused? …thinking that maybe Richard Perle was Daniel’s father?
Meet Daniel Pearl’s REAL father.
At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.
The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, “Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza,” to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph — another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.
Danny’s picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.
Daniel Pearl was a JEW, and for THAT alone, our liberal academics found justification in his beheading.
Liberals often lose their heads to less than rational thoughts.
Peter
February 20th, 2009
12:03 pm
Soul mate…Sex Mate……. perhaps at his age he was “Confused”…….?????
Perhaps more “Faulty Intelligence”….that is the “Republican Way” ……… After all !
Paul
February 20th, 2009
12:03 pm
Management
Treason trials? You mean Sen Feinstein?
Dusty
February 20th, 2009
12:07 pm
Jay Bookman, I commend your conclusions on the ethics of journalism.
But…when did you develop them? Just after the last election?
Dave R
February 20th, 2009
12:13 pm
DB, grow a pair, would you? The NY Post cartoon needed no apology, except maybe to the owner of the chimp. Unless you were brought up as a bed-wetting liberal, this cartoon was NOT racist. It used a combination of a current event and the acknowledgment that the stimulus package was not drawn up by anyone intelligent (we all know who drew up the stimulus plan, and it wasn’t President Hope & Change). As usual, liberals need to have something to “feel” offended about, so they eagerly jumped on this cartoon as racist.
Even Edwin M. Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War, called his President “the original gorilla”. The one thing you don’t read about in the newspapers of the time then is a great hue and cry about him being racist. They understood that gorilla, chimp, etc., means less intelligence because THEY ARE ANIMALS, not humans.
And of course, there weren’t a great deal of entitlement leeches out there during the 1860’s as there are today. And no bed-wetters (except those who were incontinent).
On the Iseman thing; she should not have settled. Anything that could further bankrupt that most bankrupt of “newspapers” would be the death knell for irresponsible journalism, and would straighten up every print shop across the country. Something long overdue.
Q. What do you have with 10,000 unemployed reporters?
A. A good start.
rose
February 20th, 2009
12:15 pm
No, the editors push hard for results. They want the stories that sell. They do not want the paper showing a front page headlines of something nice and simple in living, it has to more complex. A doom and gloom, or a shock story will get the money at the newstand. And these days it is politics. If a reporter cannot find ‘their’ own niche in the story of the hour, they make upone. The editor does not care so much, it will sell.
The paoers have had a rotten time with their cutbacks and their are plenty of editors who will want anything to save the paper, to sell the paper, no matter whose expense is lossed in the process.
Newspapers use to be about news, let’s face it, it is business, big business for most. Honest editors are hard to find.
So will the newspaper industry thus, look to DC for a chance to bailout, should they go under? Everyone else does. But I do suggest, they drive their own ‘older’ autos to the Capital before they ask for any $$.
Red Foreman
February 20th, 2009
12:15 pm
Who cares? Must be a slow day at the AJC!!!
Better watch out Jay, the HR people might be coming to see you with the infamous “Red Folder”…
rose
February 20th, 2009
12:15 pm
Excuse my missing the spell check……
rose
February 20th, 2009
12:17 pm
Nay, we need the opinion page too much, don’t ya think?
CommunistAJC
February 20th, 2009
12:29 pm
Bookman,
well done, comrade. Well done.
RealityKing
February 20th, 2009
12:30 pm
I would much rather discuss the Washington Post’s cartoon and how its sooo racist to call or portray the president as a monkey. Well.., this president anyways.
Joe
February 20th, 2009
12:31 pm
Dave R,
White people were never compared to monkeys are considered less than full people. Black people were, and in some circles, still are. THAT is why the NY Post comment was racist. Plus, the chimp attack and the stimulus package have NOTHING to do with each other, and it’s obvious that the chimp is supposed to represent Obama.
No, it’s not being hypersensitive not to want to be called a chimp.
Thank you for proving that Eric Holder is correct.
rose
February 20th, 2009
12:34 pm
You must admit, it was a cartoon out of taste, there seems to be quite a few of them these days
Joe
February 20th, 2009
12:35 pm
Oh, and Dave R? The only people who want to elimate journalists are those who support tyranny rather than democracy and liberty.
The press is SUPPOSED to be about holding those in power accountable for their actions. What it’s become in the last 40 years or so is a platform for advertising (at best) and a mouthpeice for those whom it’s supposed to keep in check (at worst). If anything, we need to take them to task and demand that they perform their job in their intended role, which is as a tool for the people instead of as a tool for their corporate or political masters.
rose
February 20th, 2009
12:36 pm
Does anyone thng Burris will go to jail? Orat the least really resign?
AJC/DNC Management
February 20th, 2009
12:36 pm
You’re absolutely right, Dusty, whenever I see the words “journalist,” I just assume he’s referring to his job as obama cheerleader.
I never considered that he was being serious.
Isn’t that just ridiculous?
CommunistAJC
February 20th, 2009
12:38 pm
Joe,
NYPost didn’t claim that Obama was a monkey. Nancy Pelosi was the person the cops were talking about. She co-authored the bill. People like you are so quick to point the finger and call someone racist. No one said a word when cartoonists drew Condi Rice as Aunt Jamima.
And no, Eric Holder is not correct. White people, as you so elegantly put it, don’t want to talk about race because we have better things to think about. We, white people, don’t sit around contemplating about how we can piss of black people. Until blacks can stop calling everyone racists then we won’t get anywhere. I’d love to talk race issues with you. Again, I’m not insulting you or anything.
CommunistAJC
February 20th, 2009
12:41 pm
Joe,
I get angry at comics that make fun of any race. It’s mean and uncalled for. I left out in my previous post that the cartoon was aimed at Nancy Pelosi.
CommunistAJC
February 20th, 2009
12:43 pm
By the way, I just heard the Rep Clyburn just said that the four governors who don’t want to take the stimulus money are racist. Now Joe, how are we supposed to talk about race when people like Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and many democrats call people racists for anything they do?
caz1158
February 20th, 2009
12:44 pm
@@-I salute you and your son! Dave R-your dead on!!! DB-Is your world always so gray & confused?
CommunistAJC
February 20th, 2009
12:45 pm
Joe, how are we supposed to talk about race?
Rep. Clyburn has strong words for Gov. Mark Sanford
COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – Representative James Clyburn held a roundtable meeting to discuss how the newly-signed stimulus package will affect South Carolina.
He said not only would it create jobs, but also repair roads and bridges around the state.
Clyburn also had some strong comments for Gov. Mark Sanford on why he thinks he opposed the stimulus.
“The governor of Louisiana expressed opposition. Has the highest African-American population in the country. Governor of Mississippi expressed opposition. The governor of Texas, and the governor of South Carolina. These four governor’s represent states that are in the black belt. I was insulted by that,” Clyburn said. “All of this was a slap in the face of African-Americans. It had nothing to do with Governor Sanford.”
Clyburn also said that the money is there, and its up to the state to use it to create the jobs.
A spokesman from the governor’s office says, “Representative Clyburn is no stranger to playing the race card, because he has no defense for the runaway spending and the deficits contained in this so-called stimulus bil that will hurt our economy. Spending money at the federal level that we do not have represents a future tax increase on all South Carolinians, regardless of their color – and in the process of doing so, he’s ripping off everyone he claims to represent.”
rose
February 20th, 2009
12:47 pm
The stock market is gOiNg DoWn…….Beating the all time low again.
When is it going to level out??Ever?? It is beating the all time 6 year low.
caz1158
February 20th, 2009
12:52 pm
If the cartoon had said”now who will they get to SIGN the next stimulous package bill”" then I would agree with my LOST friends on the left. I do agree using the term “racism” is overused.And because of that the issue will not go away. Using it incorrectly stirs up fires on both whites & blacks!
StimBill
February 20th, 2009
12:52 pm
Back to the stimulus bill/package and all of its offspring, seems the only people who support it expect to get something from it (at the expense of those who are responsible and work for a living)…
CommunistAJC
February 20th, 2009
12:58 pm
DB, Gwinnettian,
uh, be careful with balls comments, DB, Gwinnettian. Bookman will get mad at you. Pretty funny stuff.
Dave R
February 20th, 2009
1:16 pm
Joe, I agree that the press is SUPPOSED to be fair and impartial when holding people accountable, but that would require journalistic ethics, which many of today’s practitioners lack. (sorry, Bookman, you too)
The First Amendment that guarantees a free press was written in a time when ethics were much more valued than they are today – in all walks of life. It takes a moral and ethical people to live under the U.S. Constitution, which is why it has been hijacked by liberals (mostly) AND conservatives for so long.
And Eric Holder is an idiot who should get out more.
Jay
February 20th, 2009
1:29 pm
DAVE R, it’s a matter of historic fact that the American press of the late 18th and early 19th century was far more partisan and assaultive and irreponsible by today’s standards.
It was, in fact, pretty much like the Internet today regarding its lack of ethics and standards.
DB, Gwinnettian
February 20th, 2009
1:29 pm
“Bookman will get mad at you. Pretty funny stuff.”
Done got mad at me already, looks like. Well, the invitation still stands, even though I can’t actually extend it in a manner I’d like.
Paul
February 20th, 2009
1:32 pm
Pleasant weekend, all -
Joey
February 20th, 2009
1:34 pm
Jay;
This was a pleasant experience. As it usually is on those rare occasions when Jay Bookman the Journalist pops in for a few minutes. Metro Atlanta and the AJC could use more of that Jay Bookman.
DB, Gwinnettian
February 20th, 2009
1:36 pm
As for the NY Post (Reality King, note that it wasn’t the Washington Post) ‘toon itself, my take, if anyone cares, which I doubt —
Ron Reagan was talking about his initial reaction to it, and I admit mine was identical to his. I didn’t see anything especially racist about it, just grotesquely insensitive and unfunny, given the gruesome nature of that chimpanzee attack.
Viewed as charitably as possible, the ‘toon seemed to be saying that anyone who’d authored the stimulus bill should be shot dead. Given the past encounters I’ve had with the NYPost, going back to before Rupert Murdoch owned it and it was just a generally reactionary, low-class rag (and an occasional guilty pleasure), I can’t say I’m surprised they’d run it.
Dave R
February 20th, 2009
1:42 pm
Jay, sorry to burst you’re historical bubble, but back then, opinion was opinion, and news reporting was news reporting, and people understood the difference. These days, there is no appreciable difference between the two.
CommunistAJC
February 20th, 2009
1:44 pm
DB, Gwinnettian,
Ron Reagan is the ballerina, right? The guy who judged dog shows and overnight became a a journalist or whatever he likes to be called.
gttim
February 20th, 2009
1:46 pm
A correction Jay: The NY Times has given up a story on it WEBSITE that she and her lawyers can write. That doesn’t cost anything. She filed a 27 million dollar lawsuit and settled for a web link that will include the NY Times version. She did not even get money for her lawyers. Seems like she lost to me.
tcoach
February 20th, 2009
1:47 pm
Joe, your 12:31
How is obvious that the chimp is Obama? He does not have on clothes (therefore not revealing it sex) Also I thought Reid and Pelosi wrote the Bill, especially since Obama did not read the whole thing.
It does seem like hypersensitivity as well. There have been other presidents drawn as monkies, apes gorillas. I judge and criticize based on decisions and actions, not on color, but apparently some criticisms and name calling can only be used by and against certain people.
Seems like you may be the one who has a racial problem.
Jay
February 20th, 2009
1:49 pm
Dave, you’re just flat-out wrong.
I know you won’t take my word for it, but would you take Thomas Jefferson’s? I mean, he was there.
“I deplore… the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them… These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief… This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.” –Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46
“Our printers raven on the agonies of their victims, as wolves do on the blood of the lamb.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1811. ME 13:59
“From forty years’ experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816. ME 14:430
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:224
“As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers.” –Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. ME 11:118
“Advertisements… contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” –Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819. ME 15:179
“The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.” –Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807.
Dave R
February 20th, 2009
1:53 pm
And newspapers back then printed opinion, as well as news. Sorry. Was there some blurring of the lines? Of course. But nothing like the insidious nature of the media we have today.
RealityKing
February 20th, 2009
1:59 pm
Evidently, what is need is a fairness doctrine. Oh my…
Ted Striker
February 20th, 2009
2:00 pm
Jay — This piece is nicely done. I’ve observed that truth is your compass — and your views are expressed in relation to that standard.
Have a good day, everyone — regardless of political leanings.
DB, Gwinnettian
February 20th, 2009
2:01 pm
Dave R., not only are you about totally off about newspapers of the 16th-early 19th century, you can’t even get right the real “blurring of lines” issues faced by readers today.
Yes, there is most decidedly a blurring of editorial and news (and news analysis, a legitimate journalism genre) these days. But it’s not the newspapers’ fault; it’s the fault of news amalgamators like yahoo, google, and of course the scum merchants like Drudge, Nutmax and the like. to those outlets, all “news” is just a linked story. There might be an identifier that it’s from a newspaper’s opinion page once you get to the link, but until you actually get there, it’s just listed as another “news” story.
That’s not the newspapers’ fault, not at all. And it’s pretty cheezy of you to continue to assert that it is.
Furthermore, my invitation to get to know intimately “the pair” I’ve already got, and thus have no need to “grow”, still stands, even though Jay would prefer I not say so quite so explicitly as before.
Dave R
February 20th, 2009
2:11 pm
DB, you keep mistaking me for someone who walks the conservative line, which is why you’ll never be able to score points against any argument I make.
We all know you need to complain about something; whether it is Bush, conservatives, Republicans, racist cartoons (not), or anything else under the sun.
Just make sure you can be intellectually honest and make sure you READ and UNDERSTAND before replying. Both actions can be very frustrating to the left.