Major Mistakes in New York Times Story About Rape

[osrb]

Who really believes this was a mistake? This paper has more lies than congressional records. All they want to do is push there own agenda. It is not enough that they report the news they must make it up too. If someone else had not reported the lie they would have kept it going.

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,261400,00.html

[Kordax]

Bad link.

[Felix]

Regarding the NYT error, there is video of John Gibson at:

My Word for 3/27, "Black Eye for New York Times."

The NYT ran a cover story in its Sunday magazine March 18 on an Iraq female veteran who alleged, among other things, that she had been assaulted by fellow soldiers while in Iraq.


A week later, the NYT posted a retraction, apparently the woman was never in Iraq. The Fox story alleges the editors knew the story was phony before the date of publication, but after the magazine had been printed.

The Fox take on this event is that either money or politics was behind the whole mess, and prefers the political explanation.

I suspect there will be more on this story later.


*edited to provide addtional links

Better link to Fox coverage:

Leventhal column

And, the correction notice in the NYT Magazine of 3/25/07:

Times Correction

[el Gusano]

Heh! All this rampant harassment supposedly going on and they had to fake the story.

[Felix]

El Gusano cackled:

...they had to fake the story.

The NYT did not pull the whole article when they discovered that one of the women interviewed had lied. I think that was a mistake, but she was only one of the women interviewed, and the story covered a lot of material about rape and its treatment in the military. None of the other interviews or background information was tainted by the one interview.

Obviously, those who are skeptical of rape stories from the outset, and those who disagree with the NYT on most everything are having a field day with this event. As I said, the Times erred, and they ought to have bitten the bullet, pulled and edited the story. Even running it a week later would have been better. Costly, due to the ton of high-dollar ads, but they need to be observant of their own standards.

[el Gusano]

It's just that from my experience in the Navy that the vast majority of rape allegations are completely fictitious. Usually as a way to try to get out with an honorable discharge at the expense of someone else. Usually the stories are unraveled by friends of the lying accuser to whom she told the plan and perhaps was witnessed by her as well.

That doesn't mean that the true ones need to be ignored.

But, as long as the NYT and their ilk run junk like this and as long as so many females do this and are proved to be lying (not simply didn't prove the allegations; often proved to be lying), that the real cases will be looked at with a jaundiced eye.

I think the NYT did a lot to further damage the real cases by not pulling and editing this story and the female being interviewed got her 15 minutes at the expense of many other women who have a real story to tell.

[Felix]

El Gusano said:

I think the NYT did a lot to further damage the real cases by not pulling and editing this story and the female being interviewed got her 15 minutes at the expense of many other women who have a real story to tell.

Agreed.

[Thorne]

It's just that from my experience in the Navy that the vast majority of rape allegations are completely fictitious. Usually as a way to try to get out with an honorable discharge at the expense of someone else. Usually the stories are unraveled by friends of the lying accuser to whom she told the plan and perhaps was witnessed by her as well.

Not only in the Navy, but every branch of the Armed Forces. Which is why when something like the Tailhook Scandal from several years ago hits the Service branches extremely hard and gets so much news coverage.

When I was in the Army, actually, while still in Basic, there was a DI accused of sexual harassment and rape of a female recruit. After ruining this guy's marriage of about 15 years and practically destroying his Army career (he was a "lifer" who had over 15 years in and was looking to go the full stretch) it turned out that the female recruit had made advances on him on more than one occasion, had been rebuffed every time, each time more firmly than the last until it reached an Article 15 offense, and at that point decided that she wanted out of the Army, so she got a couple of friends to lie for her and accused the DI. She was given a Dishonorable and (I believe) had to serve a little time. Her two friends were also given Dishonorables. None of which really helped the DI all that much, as he lost his Hat and (initially) lost his E-7 stripe (which he had received upon the start of that round of Recruit Training so that his newbies could see what it was like to get a promotion.

Yeah, the NYT should have definitely researched more.

[osrb]

Yeah, the NYT should have definitely researched more.

They really need just to admit that they are a fiction paper that there stories are a work of fiction and have no basis in truth.

The only way they can change is to fire the entire news staff and restart from scratch.