Adam Clymer Defends Editor in Dowd Dateline Dust-Up
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Maureen Dowd.
The former Times political reporter Adam Clymer offered his opinion on datelines in the comments section of our earlier post, in which Andy Rosenthal offered a strong defense to his critics over the Maureen Dowd-dateline row. (Clymer confirmed to Media Mob over the phone that he wrote the note.) He wrote:
Oh, for crying out loud! The Times dateline rules are that you have had to have been in the place you use as a dateline, not that you have to be in it when you write. There is no evidence at all that the rules were not followed.
I know FOX NEWS is biased and some shows full of mis-statements, but I thought better of The New York Times.I used to think the days of The New York Times praising Stalin while he shot everyone in sight and then starved the Ukrainians and peasants, Mao while he shot everyone in sight, and Castro while he shot innocent people and destroyed every independent institution in the country were momentary lapses of good judgement, but apparently Adam Clymer and Andrew Rosenthal have shown ethics and morality at The Times were always a fraud! What is the problem with the Press and TRUTH? To maintain the Datelines have no meaning, what else has "no meaning"? THE TRUTH?
The issue isn't whether she broke any rules or not. Nor is the issue the dateline question alone. Rather, it's that the combo of the dateline, plus the uncredited reporting from the victory party, falsely led readers to believe that she was there, talking to voters, when she wasn't.
This isn't complicated. Either the paper cares that readers came away with this mis-impression, or it doesn't. I really don't care either way. But presumably the paper's editors should.
Our full response to Rosenthal/Clymer is here:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/times_edit_page.php