Personal Injury Law

New York Times wins, sort of

By Edward Bills

The New York Times’ fended off a defamation suit over an article about Sen. John McCain and a lobbyist.

The editor of the New York Times said how proud he was of one of the paper’s campaign investigations of John McCain. While another top Timesman praised the same story as “a powerful examination” of a politician’s apparent blindness to ethical concerns.

The self-back slapping from the Newspaper of Record after its success in a $27-million defamation case without paying a dime to the plaintiff, Washington lobbyist Vicki Iseman, or admitting doing anything wrong.

But winning a case is not the same as winning high journalistic ground.

Nothing changes the fact that the Times’ story about McCain and the lobbyist simply had overreached and, once again, showed that journalistic ethics is an oxymoron for the Times and that quoting anonymous sources just isn’t right.

Full post as published by Bodily Injury Blog on February 20, 2009 (boomark / email).