As I wrote earlier today, the New York Times has been rightly taken to the woodshed the last two days after a thinly sourced hit piece they did over the weekend on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh fell apart once The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway scrutinized the piece and found a crucial point missing:
NYT Reporters’ essay about a supposed second Yale incident omitted their own book reporting that completely undercuts it: alleged victim denies any memory of it. Journalistically indefensible, though gullible additional reporters are spreading it of course.
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 15, 2019
The paper issued a correction several hours after this was pointed out to them …
BOMBSHELL: New York Times corrects Kavanaugh smear to note alleged victim does not recall any such incident. pic.twitter.com/yigeOyOCzo
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 16, 2019
… but not before the damage was done, and not before numerous Democratic candidates for president jumped on board the “Impeach Kavanaugh” train.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who is no stranger to smears coming from the mainstream media, ripped the Times in a must-read Twitter rant earlier today.
He started off by noting that the Kavanaugh hit piece would have gotten a student an “F” in high school, insinuating the piece should have never gotten past the paper’s editors. Because it did, Cruz suggested this proves the Times has a “political agenda”:
READ stunning NYT CORRECTION. If a high-school freshman did this on a school paper, he’d get an F. This is an outfit that has won multiple Pulitzers; presumably they know how to be actual journalists. It’s almost as if the reporters, editors, publisher have a political agenda…. https://t.co/8YrwOJJTQE
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 16, 2019
There’s just no other explanation but bias, asserted Cruz, as to why the paper omitted the critical information about the alleged victim*:
The correction, written by NYT, reads: “the female student declined to be interviewed & friends say that SHE DOES NOT RECALL the incident. That information has been added to the article.” Please, somebody, try to give an explanation for omitting that central fact other than bias.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 16, 2019
Will any of the 2020 presidential candidates retract or amend their calls for impeachment against Kavanaugh? Of course not, Cruz opined:
Given the NYT “correction,” what are the odds that any of the 2020 Dem presidentials who relied on the NYT story to call for impeaching Kavanaugh (at last count, Warren, Sanders, Harris, Castro, O'Rourke & Booker) will modify or retract their own partisan position? ZERO.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 16, 2019
Cruz is right. There is no legitimate justification whatsoever for why the paper published the article they did on Kavanaugh without noting the alleged victim does not even recall the alleged incident.
As I speculated earlier, I suspect this piece was published for one reason and one reason only: To help Democrats in their efforts to intimidate the sitting conservative-leaning Justices on the Supreme Court to rule on future cases in their favor in hopes that once they do, the media and leftists will finally leave them alone.
Cruz is also right in stating that it’s highly unlikely the NYT would have issued a correction had it not been for Hemingway’s tweet. Stories like these are why it’s very important that conservative new media types keep up the pressure on mainstream media outlets to own up to their mistakes and deliberate falsehoods.
Otherwise, nine times out of ten the fake news will stand as the official media-driven “record” in place of the truth.
*Note from ST: This story has been updated to note the alleged victim’s name has not been made public.
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— Based in North Carolina, Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter. –
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