According to Gawker, Craig R. Whitney, The New York Times' "standards editor," sent out a staff memo this morning in direct reaction to the Times' now-thoroughly-discredited puffball profile of Margaret Jones/Peggy Seltzer:
To the newsroom staff:
Single-source profiles of people who are not already well known quantities are traps we have fallen into twice in the past year or two, and that's too often. Until publishers start fact-checking their own nonfiction books, and that'll be the day, we should remember that profiles of unknown authors should always include reporting from other sources -- not just surrogates of the profilee like agents, publishers, lawyers, etc. -- to verifiy the most important facts. But even when there's no book involved, the same rule applies. If we can't find ways to check key facts, names, graduation claims, etc., we should hold the story until we can verify them, and if we can't, we should be suspicious. Live and learn....
Craig
The most powerful paper in the world gets thoroughly schnookered by a mendacious writer, and the "standards editor" responds with a Gallic-shrug memorandum? Live and learn.
Revolting, just revolting. The NYTimes solely blames book publishers for this fiasco and shrugs off their own culpability with "live and learn??" Unbelievable.
Posted by: Lorin | March 06, 2008 at 04:29 PM
Oh well.
Posted by: Alan Bluehole | March 06, 2008 at 09:37 PM
Oh, maybe there is hope for me when I make it back to the States. I'll definitely need a job and it looks like the NY Times needs fact checkers ;)
Posted by: ExpatJane | March 08, 2008 at 07:54 AM