After Just Seven Months, NYT Kills Off Ethicist's "Moral Of The Story" Blog. Randy Cohen Calls The Decision "Mutual."

The blog "pruning" promised last month by executive editor Bill Keller has begun. The NYT has quietly killed The Ethicist's blog, "Moral Of The Story," shutting it down in November after only seven months in existence.

Randy Cohen, the longtime "Ethicist" columnist for the NYT Magazine and the blog's sole contributor, confirmed to The NYTPicker that it was dead by a "mutual and amiable" decision of Cohen and his editors.

"Having produced 'Moral of the Story' for the term we'd agreed on, my editors and I decided not to continue it," Cohen told The NYTPicker via email. "I quite liked writing it, but I'm eager to devote my non-'Ethicist' time to other sorts of writing and am at work on a play."

The NYTPicker contacted Cohen and NYT spokeswoman Diane McNulty on Friday to inquire about the status of the blog, which Cohen hadn't updated since November 4.

McNulty told The NYTPicker at noon on Friday that she was "checking" on the blog's current status, but had yet to reply with a comment by Sunday evening.

Just last April, the NYT launched Cohen's blog -- devoted to deconstructing the ethical issues behind various news events and trends -- with a major splash on the website's front page. It addressed a multitude of diverse subjects: the nature of religious debate, the David Letterman scandal, where Michael Jackson should be buried, wolf hunting, and the propriety of magazines using Photoshop.

The blog posts often appeared several times in a week with long, discursive essays by Cohen, sometimes including followups addressing the hundreds of reader comments it generated. In August, Cohen took some heat from The NYTPicker -- and later changed his column -- after quoting his ex-wife, Katha Pollitt, as an expert in the column, and not disclosing their relationship.

Rumors have been flying in recent days about the possible closing of various NYT blogs. Keller warned of the prospect of blog cutbacks in November, telling the staff:

Many of our blogs serve a valuable journalistic purpose... But if we find instances where a blog or a vertical is consuming considerable effort and expense with little reward, we're prepared to do some pruning.

Despite the decision to close "Moral of the Story" last month, the NYT has left Cohen's blog up on the NYT website as though it's still in business -- complete with a rotating series of ads that include Toyota, Seroquel, JetBlue and Banana Republic. The final, November 4 post from Cohen explained a new format for commenting on the blog, and gave no hint of its imminent demise.

With Her First NYT Byline, Liz Leyden Offers A Sparkling Refresher Course In A Fast-Fading Art Form: The Metro Feature.

To us, the slow but steady disappearance of the young, hungry NYT reporter delivering the simple, stylish metro story -- of the sort Gay Talese, Anna Quindlen, Maureen Dowd and William E. Geist specialized in before they became media stars -- has become one of the most painful public markers of the NYT's economic decline.

We miss the days -- not so long ago, really -- when a recent arrival like Andrew Jacobs stopped us cold with his hilarious, graceful take on train travelers stranded at Grand Central Station after the final departure. Or when a newly-minted metro reporter named Alessandra Stanley drolly informed us one morning of the identity of T. D'Alessandro, the faceless elevator inspector whose signature we knew so well. Or when Anna Quindlen, before she ever even dreamed of writing novels, chronicled with poetry the futile search for a homeless woman, Alma Siegel, by a volunteer worker whose heart she had once touched:

''I know this woman,'' said a police officer in the Port Authority. ''This is the woman I had sent to Bellevue. Family in New Jersey, right? Some money in it?'' But then he looked closely at the picture and saw that it was someone else he meant.

It has been many, many mornings since the last time we read an article that caught our eye as the debut of a fresh, exciting new byline. But it happened this morning, when we stumbled on the metro feature on A24 about the Waldorf School in Saratoga Springs and its "forest kindergarten," and were introduced to the soft-spoken eloquence of a new NYT byline: Liz Leyden.

As it turns out, Leyden isn't a just-off-the-bus NYT kid reporter. We haven't quite been able to piece together her biography yet, but it appears she spent much of the 1990s as a staff writer for the Washington Post, and has since written for Salon. We also found her name on the website of a Saratoga Springs elementary school where she's a class parent -- so we're assuming she has relocated away from the Manhattan media meltdown you heard tell about in this morning's David Carr column, and is freelancing for the NYT.

We'll guess that in a week or two, Leyden will get a $1,000 check from the NYT for her article today, and no promises of future assignments. We'll happily correct this if we're wrong, but we're under the distinct impression that NYT reporters are getting laid off, not hired.

It isn't that Leyden's story is so special. It's a straightforward account of a group of young schoolchildren who spend three hours outdoors each day. It delivers the requisite supply of expert quotes and anecdotes. But right away, the lede lets us know we're reading the work of a writer who appreciates the cadence of words, and the value of verbs:

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Fat, cold droplets splashed from the sky as the students struggled into their uniforms: rain pants, boots, mittens and hats. Once buttoned and bundled, they scattered toward favorite spaces: a crab apple tree made for climbing, a cluster of bushes forming a secret nook under a willow tree, a sandbox growing muddier by the minute.

And at the end, we relished Leyden's choice not to cave to journalistic convention -- as so many reporters do -- and conclude with a summing-up quote. Instead, she meandered a bit, and left us after the last paragraph with our minds free to form a mental picture for ourselves:

Trails had been worn through the thickets. An old stone wall ran through the center of the trees toward huge tepees the children had built from sticks and vines.

Everywhere, there were things to discover. A branch balanced on a split tree trunk became a seesaw. A teacher sawed thick stumps into logs the children used to bridge bogs. A pit became a monster house, complete with boys standing in the rain shouting warnings: “You don’t want to come over here! You’ll get smushed!”

Piper Whalen, 5, turned toward her own treasure: an enormous fallen tree. She climbed on and lifted her arms. “I’m riding a roller coaster,” she said. “Come on and ride with me.”

The raindrops continued to fall until, finally, it poured, hard enough to splash though the canopy of trees. The children were delighted.

“It’s wet!” exclaimed one.

“My hair is getting a drink of water!” another said.

Piper began to laugh. She stuck out her tongue and turned her face toward the sky.

Leyden won't be winning any Pulitzers for today's story, or maybe even any more assignments. But her debut this morning reminded us of the thrill of discovery -- and of what's too often missing from the NYT these days, as its resources diminish and its supply of new arrivals drops to zero. There's no substitute for fresh perspective and restless ambition when it comes to poetry.

UPDATE: It turns out Leyden is married to the NYT's Albany bureau chief, Danny Hakim, who shared the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for the paper's coverage of the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal. Leyden and Hakim were married on July 14, 2001.

NYT's David ("Not A Reporter") Pogue Gets A New Title. From Now On, Please Refer To Him As "New York Times Visionary."

Readers may remember the media kerfuffle a few months back, when NYT technology columnist David Pogue told an interviewer that he was "not a reporter" and declared in exasperation: "Since when have I ever billed myself as a journalist?"

Well, how about this for billing? In the online brochure for the Kids@Play summit at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next January -- where Pogue will be speaking -- Pogue's bio offers up a new official title:

"David Pogue, technology columnist, New York Times visionary."

This is presented not as marketing hype, but in the official listing of titles and bios for the event's speakers. It appears alongside other official titles, such as" Warren Buckleitner, Editor, Children's Technology Review" and "Jim Gray, Ed.D., Director of Learning, LeapFrog Enterprises."

In Pogue's case, the new title is followed by his official bio, reprinted word-for-word from his website.

Which raises the question: is this a new title that Pogue has bestowed on himself? Will it officially replace "reporter" and "journalist" on his NYT business card? Either way, it must be a comfort to NYT editors to have a official visionary in the building. Not that he ever drops by, of course.

[UPDATE: We received a statement Friday afternoon, in the form of a posted comment, from Robin Raskin, the creator of the kids@play event whose brochure identified Pogue as a "visionary."

"Not to bore you with the details, but the mistake was totally on our side of the fence," Raskin wrote. "David's name/bio and the word visionary came from an overzealous intern."

Before that we had received an email from Pogue about it. He described "visionary" as "definitely not a title I would ever use for myself." Pogue's email blamed the mistaken title on the organizer of the panel he was to appear. He named the organizer and suggested we contact him. But since the "overzealous intern" explanation comes from the event's creator, we'll accept that as the official version of what happened.

By the way, a note to commenters: Relax! We like David Pogue. We think he's funny and good at what he does. Our post doesn't accuse Pogue of wrongdoing, or attack him in any way. We made it clear that we didn't know if Pogue had been involved in the "visionary" thing or not. We were only reporting on the existence of the brochure, which was readily available on the Internet.]

NYT's Bill Keller Blasts "Armchair Experts" Again. Except This Time, Keller Forgets That He Was The Armchair Expert.

NYT executive editor Bill Keller loves to regularly stick it to the "armchair experts" who attack his newspaper.

Keller did it again this past week in his latest "Throw Things At Bill" speech to the staff, in which he said:

One of the armchair experts quoted by the public editor wondered why we don’t eliminate the Sports section. I’d like to be as clear as possible: none of those things is on the table.

But hey, wait a minute...that "armchair expert" was none other than Keller himself!

Here's the line from Clark Hoyt's recent Public Editor column to which Keller referred:

More radical moves, like dropping the sports section, have been rejected because they would undermine the quality of The Times or would not save much money, Keller said.

To be fair, it's entirely possible Keller made the comment while seated in an armchair.

We remembered the line so well because the Sunday morning it appeared, it prompted us to email sports editor Tom Jolly, to find out whether he'd heard anything about a plan to drop his section from the paper.

Frankly, we'd been struck by the fact that Hoyt had attributed the idea to Keller. The prospect of killing the NYT sports section would seem unimaginable, especially to the paper's executive editor.

"All I can tell you is that the idea was never raised with me," Jolly replied via email that morning, when we asked if anyone had ever mentioned the idea.

Ten minutes later, we got an unsolicited followup email from Jolly.

"Just to clarify: That would suggest to me that it was not on the table in a serious way," Jolly wrote.

That second email got us to wondering why Keller would have even brought up the notion of killing the sports section with Hoyt. If it wasn't on the table, why refer to it at all?

So we wrote back to Jolly with a couple of followup questions:

Do you have any idea why Keller would have mentioned sports to Hoyt, even as a move they rejected? "Rejected" implies that it was proposed. And the elimination of sports is the only "radical move" mentioned in Hoyt's sentence, attributed to Keller.

We don't want to make too much of this, if it's truly a non-story. But the thought that anyone at the NYT even entertained the notion of eliminating sports coverage was pretty shocking to us. Was it to you?

Jolly, clearly a courteous fellow, wrote us right back.

"We're in an environment in which all ideas deserve consideration, no matter how radical," Jolly said. "As you might expect, my own belief is that our sports section helps distinguish the NYT from the Journal, which is probably our chief competition going forward."

Good answer. We agree. And so, apparently, does the armchair expert.

Coincidence? NYT Publishes Paean To Sony Movie Execs Who Just Made A NYT "Modern Love" Movie Deal!

First of all, as everyone knows, Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn played a couple at each others' throats -- not a man and a woman who happily complement each other's skills in perfect harmony.

But even if reporter Tim Arango didn't write the ridiculous headline on his Sunday Business puff piece today, "Sony's Version Of Tracy And Hepburn," he deserves ridicule for delivering a poorly-reported, ass-licking paean to the partners who run Sony Pictures.

Tim O'Brien -- the Sunday Business editor who presided over the Amy Wallace wet kiss to controversial dog trainer Cesar Millan two weeks ago -- is fast earning a reputation as the NYT editor to pitch for those who want to place a puff piece in the newspaper of record.

Today's cover story purports to show how Amy Pascal and Michael Lynton, the partners who run Sony Picture Entertainment (the 2,076-word piece never even bothers to mention their actual titles) balance their responsibilities and approaches in leadership that has led to the studio's success.

But in fact, Arango makes no real case for Sony's success or for their collaborative skills. Beyond that, the story doesn't meet the minimum standards for balance in reporting, and reads like an effort to get someone a screenplay deal.

And maybe it was: only last Monday, Variety reported that Columbia Pictures -- under the supervision of Pascal and Lynton -- just made a "first-look" deal with the NYT to produce a movie based on its "Modern Love" columns. Sony Pictures Television has already issued a check to the NYT to develop a TV series for HBO off the column.

Shouldn't those deals have been mentioned somewhere in the piece?

Arango -- who only quotes five people in his story aside from Lynton and Pascal -- didn't appear to interview a single person in Hollywood whose financial well-being isn't at least partly dependent on their relationship with the duo.

He quotes two Sony subordinates --Matt Tolmach and Jeff Blake -- saying favorable things about their bosses; producer Brian Grazer, whose "Da Vinci Code" was paid for by Lynton and Pascal; and Bryan Lourd, a CAA agent whose clients are frequently employed by them.

"You never see any fissures between them," employee Jeff Blake states boldly of his bosses.

In other words, there's not a single quote, either on or off the record, in the story not appearing to curry favor with the pair, who control salaries, budgets and employment for every bold name in the piece. In an industry where it's not difficult to find back-biting critics to go off the record with their complaints, it's a stunning imbalance.

Was there really no one Arango could find, even anonymously, to say something vaguely critical of these two seemingly wondrous Hollywood executives?

Beyond that, Arango has to stretch the facts to represent Sony as a success story. He notes that under their leadership, Sony had its most successful year in 2006. Well, this article is appearing in 2009!

Oh wait. To be fair, in the story's 47th paragraph, Arango notes that the studio's operating income is $305 million in the current fiscal year -- down from $339 million in 2004, the year they took over Sony.

That profit decline comes despite an increase in ticket prices in that five-year period, and the supposed string of hits they've produced in 2009, including the excorable film, "The Ugly Truth." Was that Katherine Heigl crapfest seriously a hit that these two can be proud of?

And we're not even going to mention that Arango -- who devotes considerable space to Lynton's marriage and personal life -- leaves out the fact of Pascal's marriage to former NYT movie reporter Bernard Weinraub. Whoops, we just did.

Arango is about to leave the NYT media/Hollywood beat for a tour of duty in Iraq. Let's hope the foreign desk pushes him for a bit more balance and depth than this sychophantic puff piece offers. Which is to say, any at all.

David Pogue Wins A Free Trip To Disney World -- And Immunity From NYT Freelance Policy. Why Not Give Mike Albo A Break, Too?

Last Friday, NYT technology columnist David Pogue spoke at Epcot/Walt Disney World in Orlando -- his fee, travel and accommodations paid for by the Raytheon Company, one of the nation's biggest defense contractors -- about "the changing social media landscape," as a Raytheon spokesman explained it to The NYTPicker.

Pogue shared the podium with retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a prime target of David Barstow's Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT investigation into the Defense Department's use of military personnel as paid media analysts.

Was Pogue's speech a violation of NYT policies? Probably. His acceptance of a speaking fee automatically goes against the NYT's rule about taking payment for a speaking engagement from anyone other than a nonprofit. No doubt, in this new climate of caution, Pogue probably got prior approval from his editors to take Raytheon's money to line his already fat wallet.

Would the NYT consider firing Pogue for such a thing? Hardly. In fact, the paper does everything possible to allow its high-profile columnist and website draw to keep his job. Even after the NYT's Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, questioned the integrity of his outside dealings, Pogue gets to write Apple support manuals and keep roaming the country, collecting fees from anyone. And even after he told an interviewer recently that he was "not a reporter," he also gets to keep pretending he is one -- identified at the Raytheon confab and elsewhere as "David Pogue of the New York Times."

Meanwhile, it became clear yesterday that the NYT is considering the fate of the very funny and talented Mike Albo, one of its "Critical Shopper" columnists and an occasional travel writer, in light of news that he took a free trip to Jamaica last weekend, courtesy of Thrillist and Jet Blue. Media columnist Jeff Bercovici broke the news on AOL's Daily Finance website under the headline, "Ethics Takes A Holiday," and took the NYT and Albo to task for the rules violation.

[In another absurd overreaction, Bercovici had earlier in the week called for Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli's resignation in the wake of the controversy over his recent confession that he knew those salons were off the record. Dude makes NYTPicker look like a softie.]

Yesterday, in light of Bercovici's reporting and the later linking to his post on sites like Romenesko, the NYT issued a statement suggesting that Albo's job might be in trouble because of the trip, which also had a Newsweek staffer aboard the Jamaica junket. A NYT spokeswoman told Bercovici:

After a further review of the details, we do have concerns about Mike Albo's participation in the Jamaica trip organized by Thrillist. To the extent feasible, we apply our strict ethical standards to all Times contributors, and accepting free trips and other giveaways is at odds with those standards. We will be discussing the situation further with Mr. Albo and his editors at The Times.

Whether Bill Keller and his team realizes it or not, Albo is one of the NYT's great assets. His bi-weekly column is a hilarious take on the world of retail fashion, told from the perspective of a penniless freelancer who stares longingly at cashmere sweaters he can't afford. He's a stylist of the first rank, way better than most of the NYT's full-time reporters who can't even locate the paper bag they need to write their way out of.

Fine. Discuss the situation. Tell Albo he can't do it again. Pay for his trip if it'll make you feel better. But whatever you do, don't make Mike Albo the sacrificial lamb for your hypocrisy. Until you're ready to squarely address Pogue's endless hair-splitting of rules in pursuit of outside income, the NYT has no right to make Albo feel bad for taking a quick, paid vacation from the life of a struggling NYT freelancer.

BREAKING: NYT Accuses Washington Post Editor Marcus Brauchli Of Lying To NYT Reporter About "Off The Record" Dinners.

The NYT is calling Marcus Brauchli, the executive editor of the Washington Post, a liar.

The NYT has reported this morning -- in a brief, buried "postscript" in the corrections column -- that it now has evidence that Brauchli lied last July when he told the NYT that he didn't know the paper's controversial corporate-sponsored dinner parties would be off-the-record.

The NYT doesn't state flatly that Brauchli lied. But the juxtaposition of the two Brauchli statements in the postscript make clear the NYT's position that he misrepresented the truth in interviews with the NYT.

[UPDATE: In an email to The NYTPicker, a NYT spokeswoman stands by the postscript. "The note speaks for itself," wrote Diane McNulty, the spokeswoman. "Information came to our attention after the Sept. 12 article and we decided that this note was warranted." McNulty did not elaborate.]

In a July 3 page-one story, Richard Perez-Pena reported that the Post had abandoned plans to hold high-priced dinners that would bring together Washington lobbyists and Washington Post reporters and editors. The news created a media firestorm around the idea that the Post would sell access to its staff to business interests, and led to the resignation of the Post's marketing executive, Charles Pelton.

At the time, Brauchli told Perez-Pena that he'd been explicit with the paper's marketing department about the paper's right to use information gathered at the dinners -- a distinction that enabled the editor to maintain a discreet distance from the scandal. The July 3 NYT story reported:

Mr. Brauchli said that in talking to The Post’s marketing arm, “we have always been explicit that there are certain parameters that are elemental for newsroom participation” in special events. Among those, he said, “we do not limit our questions, and we reserve the right to allow any ideas that emerge in an event to shape or inform our coverage.”

Brauchli extended that claim to a flat denial of knowledge that the dinners would be off the record, in a NYT story in September reporting the resignation of Pelton:

Marcus Brauchli, executive editor of The Post, and Ms. Weymouth said they should have recognized the ethical issues created by the plan and ended it earlier. But they said they had not known all the details of how the dinners were being promoted — for instance, Mr. Brauchli said he had not understood that they would be off the record — and that those details significantly compounded the ethical problems.

But in this morning's "Postscript," the NYT reports that Pelton's lawyer has provided them a letter from Brauchli to Pelton that proves otherwise:

However, in a subsequent letter to Mr. Pelton — which was sent to The Times by Mr. Pelton’s lawyer — Mr. Brauchli now says that he did indeed know that the dinners were being promoted as “off the record,” and that he and Mr. Pelton had discussed that issue.

The "Postscript" doesn't quote from the letter. However, by placing in its corrections column, the NYT is making the bold statement that the two previous statements by Brauchli to the NYT were false.

This represents a new development in the story. Andrew Alexander, the Washington Post's ombudsman, reported in July that several mid-level managers knew of the ethical problems created by the dinners, but continued to absolve Brauchli of direct responsibility, repeating Brauchli's claim that he was "stunned" by the news. Here's what Alexander reported on July 12:

Brauchli conferred with Pelton about the salon dinners. At one point they showed up at the newsroom desk of reporter Ceci Connolly, who covers health care, which was to be the discussion topic of the July 21 dinner. Subsequently, she said, "Charles asked me for some contact phone numbers and e-mails, which I provided."

Brauchli said that Pelton believed that "in order for these things to succeed, they need to be on background. And I think the language went from 'background' to 'off the record' which, from my perspective now, [is] even worse."

Alexander absolved Brauchli -- and publisher Katharine Weymouth -- of any direct knowledge of the parameters until the story broke on the Politico website on July 2. He reported that Brauchli forwarded Pelton's May email outlining the plans to top newsroom managers, but does not suggest that Brauchli read it himself, or knew in advance that the dinners wouldn't meet the Post's ethical standards.

Why did the NYT not report this news in the paper itself, where the rules of journalism might have applied -- and where a reporter might have called Brauchli for his comment on the discrepancy? Was it hoping to bury the news on a Saturday, when the media hordes might not descend on Brauchli over this apparent contradiction? The NYT's brief statement doesn't address those specific questions.

UPDATE: In Brauchli's letter to former Post marketing executive Charles Pelton -- the basis for this morning's NYT "postscript" accusing Brauchli of lying to the paper -- Brauchli claims that the NYT reporter "apparently misunderstood me."

In acknowledging for the first time that he knew the controversial dinners were off the record, Brauchli said he explained to NYT reporter Richard Perez-Pena that "my original intention had been that the dinners would take place under Chatham House Rule -- meaning that the conversations could be used for further reporting without identifying the speaker or the speaker's affiliation."

Brauchli stated definitively to Pelton in the letter that "I knew that the salon dinners were being promoted as 'off the record.'"

But when Perez-Pena's stories appeared and suggested otherwise, Brauchli made no attempt to clarify or correct the NYT articles. "I should have said something at that point but did not," Brauchli wrote in the letter to Pelton, dated September 25, and published this morning by Politico.

However, in McNulty's statement to The NYTPicker today that "the note speaks for itself," the NYT is clearly stating that it doesn't believe Brauchli's version of events. The postscript made no mention of Brauchli's claim in the letter that he had been misunderstood.

UPDATE: "The letter speaks for itself," says Kris Coratti, communications director of the Washington Post, in an email to The NYTPicker responding to our requests for comment from Brauchli. It's probably not a coincidence that Coratti's comment is virtually identical to McNulty's statement on behalf of the NYT earlier today.

Fake Scoop: NYT Borrows Today's Above-The-Fold, Front-Page "Secret" Iraq Vets Story From Stars And Stripes, Agence France-Presse.

In the third paragraph of today's above-the-fold, page-one story about wounded war veterans returning to Iraq, NYT foreign correspondent Rod Nordland pumps up his reporting by representing it as a scoop.

"The seven-day program, called Operation Proper Exit, has been kept quiet previously," Nordland writes, "partly because returning to a combat zone is considered a delicate experiment."

Really?

Well, it wasn't too delicate for the military newspaper Stars and Stripes to report on it a month ago, on September 13, 2009 in an article called "For The Wounded, One Last Mission." That story, by Seth Robson, recounted the experiences of the soldiers on the initial June trip back to Iraq -- brought there by the Troops First Foundation in an effort to help them achieve psychological closure.

Robson made no mention of any secrecy concerning the mission, and even quoted an email from a vice chief of staff of the Army, identified by name, confirming details.

Yet Nordland, in his story today, said the June trip "was kept secret because no one knew for sure how the soldiers would handle their return."

Huh?

Other stories about the operation are also easily accessible online -- such as a June 20, 2009 account of the June trip by Staff Sergeant Jon Cupp in the online newspaper Newsblaze.

Nordland's story isn't even the only report on the October trip by American soldiers back to the front lines. The Khaleej Tmes, a daily newspaper in Dubai, published a lengthy account on October 13, that makes no mention of secrecy and doesn't imply exclusive access. That story appears to have come from the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news service, to which the NYT subscribes.

There's nothing wrong with the substance of Nordland's story; it's a well-written, emotional account of the pilot program and its effects on the soldiers who went along on the second trip to Iraq. Nordland is a former Baghdad bureau chief and chief foreign correspondent for Newsweek; he now holds the title of foreign correspondent in the NYT's Baghdad bureau.

But it's sad to see the NYT -- whose executive editor, Bill Keller, likes to cite its Baghdad bureau as evidence of the paper's superior coverage -- represent its foreign reporting as unique and page one-worthy when it's not. In this case, Nordland went beyond simply suggesting that his story was the first, or omitting a reference to Stars and Stripes. His story stated definitively that the operation "has been kept quiet previously" as though to suggest his reporting had pierced some sort of military confidentiality.

Do Nordland and the NYT not consider stories in Stars and Stripes, Newsblaze and the Khaleej Times a form of public disclosure? According to Wikipedia, Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, has 350,000 worldwide readers in Europe, the Middle East and Asia -- presumably a few NYT reporters and editors among them. The Khaleej Times reports a circulation of 75,000.

Did Nordland and his editors see the other pieces and choose to ignore them? What led Nordland to state so clearly that the program was a secret, when clearly it wasn't? We've contacted the NYT with those questions, and will update when we get an answer.

Today In NYT Hypocrisy: Sunday Styles Ridicules Others For Misusing The Verb "Curate," While Sunday Business Misuses It On Same Day.

From "On The Tip Of Creative Tongues," by Alex Williams, Sunday Styles, page 1, 10/4/2009:

THE Tipping Point, a store in Houston that calls itself a sneaker lifestyle shop, does not just sell a collection of differently colored rubber soles, along with books, music and apparel. No, its Web site declares, the store “curates” its merchandise.

Promoters at Piano’s, a nightclub on the Lower East Side, announced on their Web site that they will “curate a night of Curious burlesque.”

Eric Demby, a founder of the Brooklyn Flea swap meet, does not hire vendors to serve grilled cheese sandwiches, pickles and tamales to hungry shoppers. He “personally curates the food stands,” according to New York magazine.

And to think, not so long ago, curators worked at museums.

The word “curate,” lofty and once rarely spoken outside exhibition corridors or British parishes, has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling and selecting. In more print-centric times, the term of art was “edit” — as in a boutique edits its dress collections carefully. But now, among designers, disc jockeys, club promoters, bloggers and thrift-store owners, curate is code for “I have a discerning eye and great taste.”

Or more to the point, “I belong.”

From "Where The Hotel Is The Hub," by Brooks Barnes, Sunday Business, page 1, 10/4/2009:

THE Sunset Tower Hotel, once a dilapidated dump but now a power-broker capital in Hollywood, recently hired a detective. After all, a crime had been committed — at least in the eyes of its owner, Jeff Klein.

When US Weekly reported in August that Renée Zellweger and her new beau had guzzled Champagne in a Sunset Tower suite, Mr. Klein had a meltdown. The detective was hired and, soon, a room-service waiter was fired.

“He claimed he only told his mother,” Mr. Klein says. “I didn’t care. Gone!”

A New York society brat turned serious hotelier and restaurateur, Mr. Klein, 39, bought the Sunset Tower in 2004 and has transformed it partly by throwing out the handbook of how entertainment industry haunts are managed, especially in Los Angeles. A ban on media leaks about boldface business deals or celebrity frolicking is strictly enforced. Mr. Klein is also very careful about curating a clientele. Celebrities deemed out of place, including the rapper Sean Combs and Britney Spears, have been — gasp — turned away.

Should You Ever Eat A Hamburger Again? Michael Moss, Who Wrote Today's NYT Blockbuster, Tells NYTPicker Decision Is "Very Personal."

All morning on Twitter, NYT readers mesmerized by today's page-one Michael Moss 4,870-word blockbuster about Stephanie Smith -- the 22-year-old dance instructor paralyzed from the waist down after eating an E. coli-laced hamburger -- have been saying the same thing: no more hamburgers for me!

"Scary. Don't think I'll be ordering a hamburger any time soon." -- Janice Jensen

"Did you read that story? Not that I make it a habit, but I don't see how I can ever feed my son a hamburger again." -- Seth Rogovoy.

"Long, but important story about E-Coli that will make me think twice about eating a hamburger." Joe Drape, NYT reporter.

But is that the appropriate reaction?

Moss's terrific story investigated the lax procedures at processing plants that led to Smith's condition, but it didn't answer the question of whether readers ought to stop eating hamburgers if they want to avoid the risk of E. coli infection. In the fifth paragraph, Moss writes that Smith's experience " shows why eating ground beef is still a gamble. Neither the system meant to make the meat safe, nor the meat itself, is what consumers have been led to believe."

But how much of a gamble is it, exactly?

We emailed Moss (a Pulitzer Prize finalist when he worked at the Wall Street Journal) this morning to ask him whether the takeaway from his story ought to be a decision to stop eating hamburgers. At first he replied that it was a tough question to answer because of "the lack of good data on what precicely the odds are of having 0157 in any one burger."

We pressed, and Moss has since sent us a more detailed response. While not definitive, we reprint it here for readers who may be wondering -- as we were -- just how risky it is to eat a hamburger, in light of his excellent reporting.

"Evaluating the risk of falling ill to E. coli in ground beef is extremely difficult," Moss told The NYTPicker. "There is very little sampling of retail product, and health data is quite weak too, so one cannot simply divide the number of illnesses each year into the number of eaten burgers. And if we did have a good number on risk, then any decision on dealing with that risk is very personal.

"I met meat scientists who will not touch packages of any meat in the grocery store, but rather use plastic bags from the produce section as gloves. They also use bleach to clean their own kitchens after cooking. I also met a senior USDA official who will only eat burgers well done, but his wife insists on eating hers rare. We are running a video on Monday on our cooking test, in which we managed to spread a nonharmful strain of E. coli in my kitchen despite following the safety instructions.

"Whatever the precise risk, I think the question the reporting sought to answer was whether all is being done that could be done to reduce the risk."

Hmmm. Just to be safe, we're going to stick with steak.

Bait and Switch: NYT Takes Away Its iPhone Crossword App From Customers, Keeps The $9.99, And More Than Doubles The Price.

As recently as last Monday, you could pay $9.99 for a NYT iPhone Crossword Puzzle app that had no subscription fees, or time limit. Sweet deal!

But if you did, you just found out that the NYT has just pulled a classic bait-and-switch.

Now the NYT gets to keep your money and your app will stop working in the next month or two. If you want to keep getting the App, you'll have to start over with a monthly $1.99 subscription -- more than double the price.

Beginning last year the NYT's crossword puzzle app offered iPhone customers what seemed like a convenient and reasonably-priced means of doing the puzzle. The $9.99 one-time charge was high by the standards of iPhone apps -- most of which are free, or under $5 -- but it seemed reasonable given the quality of the product, and the unlimited access the NYT appeared to be selling.

But it turns out there wasn't anything "unlimited" about it, and in switching the price plan have annoyed many of its loyal customers -- many of whom are being told their $9.99 purchase only gets them the crossword puzzle until the end of the year. Now, for $1.99, you can buy a 30-day subscription to the NYT crossword puzzle; at the end of that, the NYT will offer customers various pricing options for a subscription renewal.

"I Paid for a Year!" reads the headline of one scathing review on the iPhone app, from a user named Timburwolf. "Ok, hold on. I bought this months ago and I remember it saying it was a subscription App. But I paid for a year and now it says my subscription is up November 1. Is that even legal?"

Other review headlines call the move "despicable!" "appalling" and a "rip off," and attack the NYT for its greed. Many of them demand a boycott of the NYT.

"The NY Times should be ashamed for their devious switcheroo," says a user named Easonia. ""I will delete [the App] and never purchase a NY Times app -- I might never buy a newsstand copy of the paper either. This is so insulting."

In only five days, the App has amassed 49 scathing iPhone reviews, all of which slam the NYT for changing the terms with no warning. All insist that the original App price made no mention of a possible subscription, and made it seem like a one-time-only charge. All have been told that their current App will expire in the next month or two.

The NYT has issued a comment to The NYTPicker that reiterates the pricing history -- first $9.99, then $5.99, and now monthly -- and explains that the reason for the change is that monthly subscriptions only became possible with the iPhone OS 3.0. It was "never unlimited," says NYT spokesperson Diane McNulty. "The price quoted was always for 2009." (For McNulty's full statement, see below.)

Several commenters dispute McNulty's assertion about the app's original time limit.

Right now, the NYT crossword puzzle App gets 1-1/2 stars out of a possible five. The NYT's newspaper app, by contrast, gets four stars out of five, with 22,194 reviews to date.

At the moment, the crossword puzzle is the only element of the NYT's website that exists behind a paywall; readers can pay $39.95 for an annual subscription, or $6.95 a month. The NYT depends on the revenue stream provided by its puzzle, which is one of the paper's most popular features.

This move reflects the NYT's need to milk as much money as possible from the puzzle -- even risking the wrath of its current customers by putting in place a subscription model that will generate far more revenue.

The crossword puzzle business on the iPhone is highly competitive; dozens of options are available, most at a lower price than the NYT. But there's little argument among aficionados that the NYT puzzle is the gold standard. Which, presumably, is why the NYT thinks it can get away with this ham-handed business move.

[UPDATE: Here's the full text of the NYT's statement from Diane McNulty, issued in response to our questions:

Initially when The New York Times crossword app was introduced on the iPhone in March of 2009, it was offered for 2009 at $9.99. Monthly subscriptions were not an option on the iPhone at the time. It was never unlimited; the price quoted was always for 2009. Those who signed up later in the year were given a discount (in June the price dropped to $5.99).

With the new OS 3.0 iPhone, the upgraded version allows for micropayments, so we launched a new version to offer subscribers more flexibility with payment options. It's true the cost has gone up, but it is still a good deal less than the price of the crosswords online, which is $39.95.

With this new version, which has keyboard and performance improvements, we are offering a 30-day ($1.99) subscription, a six-month ($9.99) subscription, or a yearly subscription option ($16.99). These purchases can quickly and easily be made through the game.

Customers who have already subscribed to The New York Times Crossword Daily 2009 will continue to be able to download daily puzzles and will continue to have access to the archive of 4,000 puzzles until the end of the year.

Beyond December 31, 2009, users can choose to purchase a 30-day, six-month or year subscription package. Regardless, users will be able to play the puzzles that originally came with the game at the initial purchase, whether they renew the subscription at the end of the year or not. ]

Thomas Friedman Plagiarizes Self! Columnist Lifts Paragraph From July 4 Piece, Tweaks And Inserts In This Morning's Drivel.

Is it plagiarism when you lift your own language, almost word for word, from a three-month-old column and use it again? If it is, then op-ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman is guilty of journalism's cardinal sin.

This morning's Friedman column, about the greening of China, includes almost an entire paragraph that's essentially identical to one he used in that piece.

From "Can I Clean Your Clock?" published on July 4, 2009:

Well, there is one thing we know about necessity: it is the mother of invention....And when China starts to do that in a big way — when it starts to develop solar, wind, batteries, nuclear and energy efficiency technologies on its low-cost platform — watch out. You won’t just be buying your toys from China. You’ll be buying your energy future from China.

From "The New Sputnik," published this morning:

What do we know about necessity? It is the mother of invention. And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.

We suppose it's possible that Friedman's mind produced the same sequence of words, the same constructions and the same ideas, revised only slightly to make his point this morning.

But we also think it's possible -- we'll even go so far as to say, likely -- that Friedman cut and pasted the paragraph from his previous column and tweaked it slightly for today's piece.

Given that Friedman only has to produce approximately 1600 words of prose a week to earn his substantial salary and prominent op-ed position, it strikes us as awfully lazy to hand his readers warmed-over ideas with near-verbatim language in the span of less than three months.

This should come as no surprise to regular Friedman readers, who've come to expect this sort of flagrant repetition from the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. His columns often repeat old rants and go back to recurring ideas, without much effort to deliver new points of view. To some extent, that's to be expected from a columnist with strongly-held opinions -- note Maureen Dowd's Sarah Palin obsession -- but even Dowd works to find clever new constructions to express the same points.

Self-plagiarism may not be unethical, exactly. Still, it's sad to see a writer of Friedman's caliber and prominence reveal just how little regard he has for his readers.

"I Am Not A Reporter!" NYT's David Pogue Declares, Responding Angrily To Recent Criticism. "Since When Have I Ever Billed Myself As A Journalist?"

Clearly stung by recent attacks over conflicts of interest, the NYT's technology columnist David Pogue used a podcast interview Sunday to respond to his critics, his editors and even his counterparts at the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, declaring defiantly at one point: "I am not a reporter!"

The interviewer, technology writer Leo LaPorte, was sharply questioning Pogue's positive writing about Apple -- and, in particular, a much-criticized upbeat interview with Apple chairman Steven Jobs that was published as a news story -- when Pogue grew defensive.

"Since when have I ever billed myself as a journalist?" Pogue said angrily. "Since when have I ever billed myself as a journalist?....I am not a reporter. I’ve never been to journalism school. I don’t know what it means to bury the lede. Okay I do know what it means. I am not a reporter. I’ve been an opinion columnist my entire career…..I try to entertain and inform."

Recognizing perhaps that the distinction may be lost on his journalist colleagues at the NYT and elsewhere, Pogue added: "By the way I’m suddenly realizing this is all just making it all worse for myself. The haters are going to hate David Pogue even more now."

Evidently angry over a recent NYT Public Editor column by Clark Hoyt that put a spotlight on his conflicts, Pogue also used the forum to disclose that he had been pushing NYT editors for years for better disclosure of his outside work, only to encounter resistance from those editors.

LaPorte had been grilling Pogue on the points raised in Hoyt's column, that the popular columnist might be guilty of an apparent conflict of interest by writing books about new products while reviewing them for the NYT.

That's when Pogue seized the opportunity to point out that his counterparts at other top newspapers -- including one who had criticized Pogue for his conflicts -- were guilty of the same transgression:

In point of fact this is a problem with the industry. And not so much me alone….It’s about context. Dwight [Silverman] admitted to you that he writes for the Houston Chronicle. And he wrote a Windows book at the same time that he was writing about Windows for the paper. ….and Ed Baig, who writes for an even bigger newspaper than I do, he writes for USA Today, the equivalent column, he wrote Macs for Dummies, Palm Pre: The Missing Manual, he wrote an iPhone book at the same time as he was reviewing those. Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal makes, I think The New Yorker said, $1 million a year off of the D Conferences, where Steve Jobs and Bill Gates make exclusive appearances, the very guys whose products he reviews.

So it’s a growing problem. You’d probably have a hard time finding someone who doesn’t have a problem like this. I’m not going to say there’s no visible conflict of interest. Obviously there is one. The only thing I can say in my defense is - our defense - is, does that conflict of interest affect the writing? Does it affect the conclusions?

Pogue went on to discuss the specifics of his recent Steven Jobs interview in the NYT -- a piece that ran in the news pages, and that later became controversial for its failure to push the Apple chairman on seemingly misleading statements he made about the new generation of iPod Touch.

According to Pogue, Apple public-relations executives made Jobs available only to technology columnists, not business reporters. Before explaining his own experience interviewing Jobs, he noted sarcastically to his interviewer that his colleagues -- Mossberg and Baig -- didn't even bother publishing their own Jobs conversations.

POGUE: By the way, what did you think of Walt Mossberg’s interview with Jobs and Ed Baig’s interview with Jobs the same day?

LAPORTE: I didn’t actually - I didn’t actually read them, I read you instead, David.

POGUE: Yeah. Because they didn’t write them, they didn’t write them at all.

Pogue went on to explain that when Apple granted him the ten-minute interview with Jobs, his editors came to him with a request: "So my editors ask me, by the way we’d like to do a news story about this why you were there, can you ask these newsy-related questions and we’ll use quotes from it for a business story. And they gave me some questions that they hoped that I could pass along."

Afterwards, some bloggers criticized Pogue's failure to ask Jobs tough questions in the conversation:

"John Dvorak went on Twitter and said “David Pogue is a disgrace to journalism," Jason Calacanis said “No one in the tech business takes you seriously, it’s a joke that the New York Times employs you.” They were just unbelievably harsh. And one guy on the David Pogue blog said, “You should have nailed Jobs’ ass to the wall." And I’m kind of like, dude that is not how you get - I mean, yeah maybe I should have, but is that my job?

[NOTE: In a Twitter post last night, Pogue acknowledged that the "John Dvorak" he'd mentioned in the interview turned out not to be real: @realDvorak dissed me on Twitter; I scolded him on TWiT podcast; turns out it was an impostor! My apologies to the real @therealdvorak!!]

As for his NYT editors, Pogue revealed that he had suggested to them several times previously that he disclose the fact that he wrote the Missing Manuals, only to have them reject the idea.

"I’ve frequently said why don’t we disclose the book in the column and for nine years that’s been shot down because it’s like, “Dude, you can’t advertise yourself!” It’s like putting a plug in the column," Pogue said. "And you know what? I am sorry to tell you guys this, but now that the plug is going to appear in each column it’s going to raise the book sales."

Pogue also said he had "offered repeatedly" to the NYT that he recuse himself from reviewing the three products he covers in the manuals -- the iPhone, the Mac 0S 10 operating system, and Windows.

"I’ve said I could take those weeks off from the Times, you could get someone else to write it," Pogue said. "Their feeling is that at this point readers are sort of expecting my voice and they know me."

In the wake of Hoyt's column two weeks ago, the NYT has now instituted a disclosure policy that forces Pogue to mention the Manuals when reviewing a product, and added a disclosure statement from Pogue on the NYT website.

As for Pogue's protestation that he is not a journalist or reporter, the Hoyt column was clear on that point -- it referred frequently to Pogue as a journalist, and made clear that the NYT considers him one in its judgements of his ethical standards.

It is a distinction that, apparently, remains yet to be fully worked out between the NYT and one of its most successful contributors. Pogue -- a freelance contributor to the NYT since 2000 -- delivers a weekly column and video that is often among the most widely-read features in the NYT.

But Pogue argues that readers aren't troubled by the conflicts, and respect the independence of his opinions. "Apart from the snarky bloggers, most readers seem satisfied that I’m being evenhanded," Pogue said.

"Look, I have to keep doing the books," Pogue told LaPorte. "That’s how I put food on the table."

Is MSNBC Looking For A New Political Talk Show Idea? If So, We’d Like To Suggest “Hairball With Gail Collins."

We know you always like to be goofy and fun, but honestly, Gail -- we just don't like reading about those tiny balls of hair that dogs cats and rabbits create with their saliva, swallow and then vomit up. At least not when we're consuming our morning commentary!

This morning, the wacky op-ed columnist has put the somewhat off-putting descriptive to use yet again, this time to label health-care legislation. In the past two years, she has also invoked the term as a metaphor for the war on terrorism, the financial crisis, the legislative bottleneck in Albany and, of course, the farm bill!

Here's a a hairball sampler from the work of Gail Collins, who it's safe to assume has a slight obsession with dogs furry animals and their nasty habits. No question she'd write a far livelier and more descriptive account of raising a puppy than Jill Abramson's popular web weekly serial, "Scout: The Early Years, In Which I Train My New Dog To Transform My Image From Scowling Editor Into Person Who Loves Animals."

It is a great tradition in Albany that no important bill ever emerges by itself. It gets mixed with pork and pet projects and lobbyists’ to-do lists until Bruno, Democratic Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver and the current governor sit down to create one huge hairball of a deal.

Spitzer was supposed to change that. But now here we are. Last week Senator Bruno was striding around the state like Rocky Balboa, while the governor was telling Danny Hakim and Nicholas Confessore of The Times that his wife had started asking, “What was wrong with going into the family business?” (High-end real estate.)

The hairball is back.
--"The Education of Eliot," July 28, 2007

The farm bill is one big hairball of accommodations and trade-offs, and cheers to McCain for taking a principled stand against it.
--"McCain's Superfuture," May 17. 2008

--Let’s also give thanks that we are not widely respected economists ourselves. Because God knows what they’re going to do with this hairball.
--"Count Those Blessings," November 27, 2008

Out of all the problems we have run into in dealing with the giant hairball that is known as the Bush War on Terror, one of the weirdest is the reaction to President Obama’s plan to close down Guantánamo.
--"When Did Cowboys Get Wimpy?" May 22, 2009

The student loan bill actually has very little in common with the great hairball that is known as health care reform. For one thing, so far, it seems to be moving through Congress rather nicely.
--"Someday, A Bill Will Pass," September 17. 2009

Of course, it's always possible Collins is just laying the groundwork for a future MSNBC political talk show. We have to admit, "Hairball with Gail Collins" has a nice ring to it.

UPDATE: Turns out it's cats and rabbits that vomit their hairballs, not dogs. Thanks to commenters -- who apparently know far more about self-licking animals than we do -- for helpfully pointing out the error, corrected above.

Was The NYTPicker Unfair To Dan Barry On His Column About The Homeless Man Who Turned Out To Be A Child Rapist?

An anonymous reader offered an eloquent comment this morning on our post yesterday about Peter Applebome, defending columnist Dan Barry and charging that we'd been unfair to him in our July 31 post.

In that post we reported what Barry had not, that the leader of the homeless community he'd written about that day was a twice-convicted child rapist. We also noted that days before Barry's column appeared, the homeless group had already moved away from the spot he'd written about -- and that the entire story had already been widely covered in the local press.

Today's commenter told us something we didn't know: Barry had posted a defense of his decision to omit the background of the homeless leader, John Freitas, as a comment on the NYT's website. Frankly, it never occurred to us that Barry would respond in that forum -- it's extremely rare for a NYT reporter to use the comments section to address questions from readers.

Okay, we admit it. We never even looked.

In that comment, Barry told readers he knew about Freitas's child rape conviction. But after mulling the issue and discussing it with his editor, Barry said he decided that "the nature of his criminal past wasn't relevant to the matter at hand."

"I felt that if Mr. Freitas were a Boy Scout leader or someone seeking public office, then perhaps his past would be relevant," Barry told readers. "But he was a homeless man living under an abandoned bridge in Providence, with this disturbing crime 25 years behind him."

Barry noted Freitas's arguments against including the details, which were that it would change the focus of the story, and that there were no children allowed in the homeless camp.

Barry also said Freitas told him that because the crime had happened so long ago, he was no longer required to register as a sex offender. But according to an article in the Attleboro, Ma. Sun-Chronicle from March 21, 2008, Freitas had turned himself in to authorities after failure to register -- itself a felony crime -- had landed him on that state's list of Ten Most Wanted Sex Offenders.

It should also be noted that according to the Sun-Chronicle account, Freitas was convicted of child rape on two different occasions -- once in the late 1970s, and again in 1985.

But never mind that, or the question of whether Barry's reporting was stale, or whether his references to a singing tea kettle and the blowing March winds were silly and overwrought.

The points raised by our anonymous reader today are more interesting. The commenter calls our criticisms of Barry "gratuitous" and then concludes:

Either this "team of journalists who prefer to work in anonymity" neglected to do its own research and was unaware of Barry's explanation or they discount his words as those of a self-serving liar and take it as a given that the reader would agree. For my own part, I find it hard to believe that Pulitzers and Polk awards flow to sloppy and incompetent journalists and I bear in mind that Barry's reputation for integrity is so highly regarded that he was asked lend it to the Times in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal when it had none of its own.

Well, we've reconsidered Barry's original article, his reasons for not including the reference to Freitas's criminal background, and the points raised by our thought-provoking commenter today. And for what it's worth, here's where we stand.

For one thing, we never called Barry's integrity into question. "Integrity" means adherence to a moral or ethical code, and we never said or implied that Barry had violated the ethics of his profession, or done anything immoral.

At the same time, we don't consider awards -- even the Pulitzer -- as a permanent badge of immunity from criticism or investigation. Many readers may remember the scandal involving Janet Cooke, whose Pulitzer Prize led to revelations that she had fabricated much of the story that won her the award. We're obviously not comparing Barry to Cooke, but we believe no reporter has the right to rest on their laurels, or use them as an excuse for sloppy journalism.

Among other things, our post criticized what we believed was his failure to thoroughly report his story. We stand by that criticism. It's a fact that his column was old news by the time it appeared, and that local news outlets in Providence had reported that the group had moved -- changing the whole point of his piece. We also believe that Barry made a mistake by accepting Freitas's own version of his story, with regard to his need to register as a sex offender.

As a side note -- we stand firmly by our position that too often, Barry repurposes already-reported local news, like this story, for a national audience, instead of finding fresh topics to explore. We're also not big fans of his purple prose, but that's a matter of personal taste.

As for the broader question of whether Barry made the right decision, well, that's a judgment call. We agree with Barry in theory that people ought to have a right to rebuild their lives after serving a prison sentence. But at the same time that doesn't entitle them to have their record wiped clean by the NYT.

Maybe other readers will disagree. But to us, child rapists don't inspire the same spirit of forgiveness we feel for young people who rob banks and convenience stores, and who serve their time. Maybe it's okay to forgive, but it's a hard crime to forget.

Whoops! Peter Applebome Forgets To Use Google, Writes Puff Column On Firefighter Impersonator And Alleged Ground Zero Thief.

Once again, a NYT columnist has neglected to use Google, and ended up writing a puff piece about someone with a shady past.

Peter Applebome's feel-good "Our Towns" column yesterday about Michael Bellone, the "honorary firefighter" who bought a firetruck as a memorial to 9/11 victims, missed a few pertinent details about the supposed hero -- including his 2005 arrest for criminal impersonation, possession of stolen property and grand larceny. Among other things, Bellone was accused of stealing equipment from the NYC Fire Department at Ground Zero in the days after the World Trade Center attacks.

Applebome presented a totally sympathetic picture of Bellone, who he said had been a bar bouncer in 2001 when he went to Ground Zero to offer his help. According to Applebome, Bellone -- who had emergency medical technician training, and who spent many days as part of the 9/11 rescue effort -- now lives in Syracuse on permanent disability with only 13% lung capacity. The story describes in detail Bellone's fond feelings for firefighters, and is pegged to his effort to find a firetruck to "remember the men" by engraving on it the names of the 343 firefighters who died on 9/11.

But in fact, Bellone isn't the good samaritan Applebome presents. Bellone appears to have had an unhealthy obsession with the New York City Fire Department for years that culminated in his 2005 arrest.

Bellone has a history of misrepresenting himself and his charitable group -- TRAC, or "Trauma Response Assistance For Children" -- as affiliated with the Fire Department, and has even been accused of dressing in a firefighter uniform to falsely suggest he was a firefighter himself.

In 2004, the New York Post reported that Bellone and his group was warned by the Fire Department to stop using its name on promotional materials for TRAC, and to stop selling artifacts he was representing as 9/11 souvenirs, such as victims' shoes and eyeglasses.

"The fire marshals have opened an investigation into this group," a department spokesman told the Post, adding it "has no right to imply it works for or acts in any official capacity." The spokesman added that the group's members "are not authorized to wear fire department uniforms."

The Post also reported that TRAC owed $200,000 to a graphics company for printing a Ground Zero book, and had failed to pay more than $20,000 for hotel rooms and airplane tickets in connection with TRAC activities. At the time, Bellone conceded to the Post that he owed money but attributed the problems to "mix-ups."

"We're just a group of guys who want to share our experiences from Ground Zero and show kids that hope can spring from a horrible tragedy," Bellone told The Post. As for the allegation of misrepresenting themselves as firefighters by wearing uniforms, he said: "If someone got that idea, I apologize."

On September 27, 2005, the New York City Fire Department announced that Bellone had been arrested on charges of grand larceny, criminal impersonation and theft of stolen property. An investigation had found a department air tank, harness, regulator and mask in Bellone's possession that had been reported missing from the FDNY's Mask Service Unit on October 1, 2001.

"It's very ghoulish," a fire department source told the Daily News. "[Bellone] may have helped firefighters at the time, but now he's making a living on this." (The NYTPicker hasn't yet been able to learn the outcome of the criminal charges brought against Bellone by the city.)

Bellone has even misrepresented aspects of his involvement at Ground Zero. In a self-published book about the recovery efforts, Bellone and his co-author claimed to have retrieved three of the four missing black boxes from American Airlines Flight 11 at the site, and given them to FBI agents who told him to keep quiet about it. According to Counterpunch, an investigative website, the FBI said those claims were false.

None of these details made it into Applebome's story, of course; it appears that, like his colleague Dan Barry, he neglected to use that popular investigative journalism tool known as Google. However, it should be noted that Google exists only for reporters interested in basing their columns on more than a single interview.

Did Stephen Farrell Ignore Official Warnings On Reporting Trip's Dangers? British Paper Reports Military Anger At Farrell Over Deaths.

Does NYT correspondent Stephen Farrell bear some responsibility for the deaths of his interpreter and a British soldier in the raid that freed him from captivity this week?

That's the implication of an article in yesterday's Daily Telegraph, one of England's most respected daily papers, which raised serious questions about Farrell's decision to report from the Kunduz region last week -- a choice that resulted in his kidnapping and a pre-dawn raid Wednesday by British commandos that freed the 46-year-old NYT correspondent, but resulted in the deaths of his interpreter and a British soldier.

Under the headline, "Army anger as soldier killed saving journalist who ignored Taliban warning," the Telegraph reported yesterday:

Afghan police and intelligence officers repeatedly warned journalists including Mr Farrell that it was too dangerous to go to the site. Kunduz is a notorious Taliban northern stronghold and was one of the last holdouts of the regime when it was toppled in 2001.

Farrell and his interpreter were kidnapped on Saturday on the reporting trip to the Kunduz province, where they were investigating civilian casualties in the wake of a deadly NATO airstrike the day before.

The telegraph quotes two British military officials, both anonymously, suggesting that the operation -- and resulting deaths - could have been avoided if Farrell had heeded the warnings not to report in the Kunduz province that day.

One, described as a "senior Army source," told the Telegraph:

“When you look at the number of warnings this person had it makes you really wonder whether he was worth rescuing, whether it was worth the cost of a soldier’s life. In the future special forces might think twice in a similar situation.”


A second comment from an unnamed "military source" to the Telegraph was even harsher:

“This reporter went to this area against the advice of the Afghan police. So thanks very much Stephen Farrell, your irresponsible act has led to the death of one of our boys.”

Farrell's own extensive account of his ordeal, posted yesterday on the NYT website, makes no mention of advance safety warnings from Afghan officials. He only acknowledges the warnings of one local of an ominous Taliban presence as they worked (emphases added):

A crowd began to gather, time passed and we grew nervous. I do not know how long we were there, but it was uncomfortably long. I am comfortable with the decision to go to the riverbank, but fear we spent too long there.

I said, “We should go,” almost exactly as Sultan said the same thing.

An old man said we should not tarry. The driver went to the car. Even as we were carrying our gear bags to the car, villagers shouted, “Taliban,” and scattered away from the river. Our driver fled, with the keys. His instincts were immaculate — he survived.

Sultan and I fled a shorter distance, stopped and tried to gauge where we were running, and from whom. Should we stay and hope they did not cross the river toward us, or flee straight across unknown fields and run the risk of being cut down by Taliban in the field ahead of us, shooting at anything that moved?

We hovered, and got caught.

As for any advance checks by Farrell regarding security risks associated with the reporting trip, the reporter had only this to report: "The drivers made a few phone calls and said the road north appeared to be safe until mid- to late afternoon."

But the Telegraph article yesterday describes what appear to be previous admonitions from Afghan police and security officials that were apparently ignored by Farrell when he proceeded on Saturday, and that aren't mentioned in any NYT account of the episode.

While stopping short of placing full blame for the deaths on Farrell, the article did quote by name a former special forces soldier with the British Army who had harsh words for the Kabul-based correspondent:

Tim Collins, a former SAS officer, said the journalist had a “big thank you to give to the people who gave their lives to make up for his mistakes”. He said: “These soldiers were doing their job but I would say Stephen Farrell would be wise not to crow to loudly about his experience because his incompetence has cost a life. Unfortunately in journalism you do come across people who believe they are infallible.”

In an interview with NPR's "The Takeaway" on Wednesday, NYT executive editor Bill Keller said that the NYT may re-examine its safety protocols in light of the Farrell kidnapping.

"The first thing we're going to do is have Steven come out and do yet another security review," Keller said. "The situation has gotten more and more perilous, not so much in Kabul but once you get out into the countryside. We had set up some new protocols for reporters traveling out in the field, and we're going to take another look at those now to find out whether they're strict enough."

NYT'S Jill Abramson Admits NYT Blew Van Jones Story. "We Should Have Been Paying Closer Attention," She Says.

In a late-afternoon posting on the "Talk To The Times" website, NYT managing Editor Jill Abramson admitted that the paper was "a beat behind" on the recent controversy over now-resigned White House environment official Van Jones.

After attributing its failure in part to a short-staffed Washington bureau over the Labor Day weekend, Abramson said that was "not an excuse" and that "we should have been paying closer attention" to the events as they unfolded.

The NYT took a beating on Twitter and from the right for its failure to properly cover the events leading up to Jones' resignation; the story was being widely covered on Fox News, but mostly ignored in the so-called MSM, or mainstream media. Abramson's admission reflects a rare mea culpa for the NYT.

In brief: Jones had become a target of attack this summer after it was reported that he had signed a "9/11 Truth Statement" in 2004, which suggested the Bush administration may have allowed the World Trade Center attack to happen, as a pretext to launch its war on terrorism. It had also been reported that Jones referred to Republicans in Congress as "assholes."

As right-wing commentators ratcheted up their calls for Jones to resign last week, the NYT failed to pick up on the story. It first covered the Jones brouhaha on its Caucus blog on Saturday. The news of Jones' resignation made it to the front page on Monday.

Abramson responded to six questions from readers raising the same question: why so late? She noted that Jones was "not a high-ranking official" as another reason the NYT was so late to the story. But in essence, her reply to readers was a clear admission that the paper missed the mark in its coverage.

Who knows, maybe Abramson has just gotten all soft inside now that she's spending so much time with her new puppy, Scout. Whatever the reason, it's fun to see the usually-boosterish managing editor admit to an actual mistake for a change.

NYT Front-Page Story Accuses Writer Of Comparing Barack Obama to Saddam Hussein And Kim Jong-Il. Trouble Is, He Didn't.

In a page-one NYT story last Friday on the controversy over President Obama's planned schools speech, reporters James C. McKinley Jr. and Sam Dillon (pictured, at left) accused Canadian author Mark Steyn of comparing Obama to Saddam Hussein and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

Trouble is, he didn't.

Here's what the NYT reported:

Mr. Obama’s speech was announced weeks ago, but the furor among conservatives reached a fever pitch Wednesday morning as right-wing Web sites and talk show hosts began inveighing against it.

Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, speaking on the Rush Limbaugh show on Wednesday, accused Mr. Obama of trying to create a cult of personality, comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader.

But here's what Steyn actually said on Limbaugh's show last Wednesday, as transcribed by The NYTPicker:

What [Obama]'s going to do, apparently, is he's going to tell them to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the President. Which I find slightly unhealthy. It's all part of the cult of personality. Obviously it's not -- we're not talking about the cult of personality on the kind of Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein scale.

Clearly, Steyn's actual words convey a meaning quite different than what the NYT reporters represented. While he did raise the notion of a "cult of personality," he was obviously not comparing the president to those leaders, except to suggest a clear, obvious difference in scale.

The implication of the NYT's report is that Steyn was linking Obama to those legendary despots, which seems to us incorrect and unfair. By leaving out the fact that Stein was in fact differentiating Obama from them, the implication strikes us as considerably different than what Steyn intended with his words -- particularly given the context of the article's overall point.

Interestingly, the mistaken McKinley/Dillon reference has been picked up in David Carr's "Media Equation" column today, in which Carr writes: "During the school dust-up, a commentator on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show said the president was building a cult of personality analogous to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il." Clearly that's not correct. It also underscores the point that the McKinley/Dillon story -- Carr's apparent source -- misrepresented Steyn's quote.

Of course, the term "cult of personality" obviously reflects a criticism, which seems to us precisely why Steyn drew the distinction from more infamous such cults. Indeed, the NYT's own Paul Krugman used the same term in reference to Obama during the 2008 campaign, saying, "I"m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality." Obviously, Krugman didn't intend for readers to think he was comparing Obama to Hussein or Kim Jong-il, either.

Mark Steyn lightly tweaked the NYT for the mistake in a weekend column in the National Review, laughing it off with a self-deprecating comment about the pain of being identified as "a Canadian author." We admire his muted reaction, considering the harsh tone of the NYT's reference.

Normally we don't address factual mistakes in NYT articles here. We don't consider ourselves in the business of pointing out basic NYT errors -- plus we just don't have that kind of time on our hands. Besides, we all make mistakes.

But in this case it seems hard to understand how top NYT national desk reporters like McKinley and Dillon could get a quote like that completely wrong, particularly when quoting a national radio show that millions hear.

And when it comes to accusing someone of comparing Barack Obama to widely-reviled foreign leaders in a page-one news story, you'd think -- or at least hope -- NYT reporters (and their editors) would be responsible enough to make sure it was bring reported correctly.

We've emailed NYT national editor Suzanne Daley and NYT spokeswoman Diane McNulty twice in the last 24 hours for comment on how this mistake got made. We'll update if and when they respond.

UPDATE: On Tuesday, the NYT ran a correction on the McKinley/Dillon story:

An article on Friday about criticism of President Obama’s plan to address schoolchildren on Tuesday referred incorrectly to remarks by Mark Steyn, a Canadian author and political commentator, on the Rush Limbaugh show. (The Media Equation column in Business Day on Monday also included the incorrect reference.) Mr. Steyn made extensive reference to Saddam Hussein’s cult of personality in Iraqi schools, and said an attempt to create a “cult of personality at grade-school level” should have no place in the United States, but said he was not accusing the president of a “cult of personality on the kind of Kim Jong-il, Saddam Hussein scale." He did not explicitly compare the president to Saddam or the North Korean leader or say that Mr. Obama’s efforts were “analagous” to theirs.