I’m inundated with readers’ claiming false facts, shady reporting and phony by-lines at the NYT. I tell them to send their complaints directly to retrace@nytimes.com. On one issue, Adam Cohen has emailed to insist he did too visit Cass Technical High School in Detroit. Cohen’s piece had used the dilapidated state of the school to argue that predominantly minority schools were under-funded. But right next to the school was a new one, built to replace the old one at a cost of over $100 million. Cohen never mentioned what seems like a pretty pertinent fact. The reader went on:
After a few minutes of research on Nexis, I learned that the new facility is budgeted for $114.5 million. To put things in perspective, only two other high schools in the entire United States have ever been built in the $100-million range. The new building is a six-story, air-conditioned glassy building that is laboratory-intensive, with music, art and dance studios. How, I wondered, could Cohen have missed the gigantic construction site right next door to the school that he visited, or the sign prominently announcing that the building under construction is the new Cass Tech? In fact, much of the new building is already standing. How could the prospective move not have come up in conversations with administrators that Cohen supposedly interviewed? … I don’t suppose it is possible, is it, that Mr. Cohen never visited the Cass school in Detroit? It seems worth investigating, doesn’t it? The only other explanations I can think of are (a) incredibly slopply reporting, or (b) blatant bias. Which is it?
Cohen emailed me to say the following:
Re: Your “Email of the Day,” Saturday May 24, 2003: I certainly did personally visit Cass Technical High School in Detroit to report my Editorial Observer, a fact the school principal or the guidance counseler I quoted in the piece can readily confirm. I did all of my own reporting. I wish you had made an attempt to contact me–I’m reachable through the New York Times switchboard–before printing an anonymous letter attacking my professional conduct.
The email attacked no-one. It asked a simple question about what could explain this weird lacuna in Cohen’s reporting, which in the current atmosphere at the NYT is understandable. Cohen still doesn’t respond to the notion that he ignored a huge aspect of the story in order to promote his own liberal bias. As I’ve said before, at the NYT these days, you get to pick between frauds and ideologues. Cohen’s the latter. That’s now what passes for good news at the Times.
NYT CRAPOLA II: “The New York Times reported today that UM president Donna Shalala ‘received authorization Wednesday morning from the executive committee of the university’s board of trustees to negotiate the Hurricanes’ membership in the ACC.” However, a source with knowledge of the discussions said Wednesday night the executive committee did not vote Wednesday, nor did it give Shalala the green light to finalize a deal with the ACC. The source said Shalala and UM athletic director Paul Dee briefed the executive committee on the status of the ACC issue, got feedback and were told to continue their fact-finding.” – the Miami Herald, yesterday.
The Dish 