NY Times Correction, More Reasons Young People Don't Read Newspapers

The New York Times ran an article titled "1 in 7 freed detainees rejoins fight, report says" which I used to explain a major reason young people do not read newspapers. The article regurgitated a claim by the Pentagon without the slightest bit of questioning or investigative journalism. I, and many others, questioned the legitimacy of this claim, but the reporters that brought us the news did not. Today they had to clarify.

But the article on which he based that statement was seriously flawed and greatly overplayed. It demonstrated again the dangers when editors run with exclusive leaked material in politically charged circumstances and fail to push back skeptically.

And Jill Abramson, the managing editor for NY Times' news, went on...

Abramson said, “The whole game of leaks can be problematical if you aren’t given a document or the time to look at it in a full way.”

Ah yes. No document to back up the claims. This is a completely ridiculous excuse. Two days after the article first appeared, I contacted the Pentagon to ask for a clarification of how they determine whether or not a detainee has rejoined the fight. I received this pdf, which clearly demonstrates that the 1 in 7 number was an "unverified" statistic.

The lack of truth (the lies), in this article were not due to the pentagon withholding the relevant "document" at all. In fact, the Pentagon was more than willing to provide a document relating to the news. And had they bothered to read the document, they would have seen this part:

Definition of “Suspected” — Significant reporting indicates a former Defense Department detainee is involved in terrorist activities, and analysis indicates the detainee most likely is associated with a specific former detainee or unverified or single-source, but plausible, reporting indicates a specific former detainee is involved in terrorist activities.

"Unverified"

In other words, the entire point of the article, the title, was unverified. And yet, the investigative journalists, that we are supposed to bend over backwards saving, did not even take the time to ask for relevant documents. They were not given to them, so they assumed they did not exist. That is why I laugh in the face of anyone that says the death of the newspaper means the death of investigative journalism.

The New York Times needs to run another clarification:

We did not bother to take the time to ask questions of the Pentagon, or to even ask how they determine that a detainee has returned to the fight. Instead, we took the lazy way out. We ran with what they gave us. We owe better than that to our readers.