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The New York Times Just Memory-Holed This Devastating Obama Admission
By
Sean Davis, co-founder of The
Federalist
18
December, 2015
The
New York Times Just Memory-Holed This Devastating Obama Admission
"Obama
indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully
appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San
Bernardino."
A story
published by
the New York Times late Thursday night caused some major media waves.
The story, which was written by reporters Peter Baker and Gardiner
Harris, included a remarkable admission by Obama about his response
to the recent terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.
By
Friday morning, however, the entire passage containing Obama’s
admission had been erased from the story without any explanation from
the New York Times. Here’s the passage that was included in the
story when it was published Thursday night, courtesy of CNN’s
Brian Stelter:
Brian Stelter
Obama needs more cable news in his media diet? Revealing comment in a private meeting with newspaper columnists...
In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments. Republicans were telling Americans that he is not doing anything when he is doing a lot, he said.
The
version of the New York Times story that was published early Thursday
evening indicated that Obama knew he was out of touch with the
country on terrorism, and he thought that was due to not watching
enough television. Obama critics immediately
pounced on
the stunning admission from the president, expressing shock that he
would claim that a lack of TV time was the real reason for him not
understanding Americans’ anxiety about terrorism.
As
of Friday morning, however, the passage containing Obama’s
admission was gone. Newsdiffs.org, a web site which captures changes
made to online news stories, indicates that the
major revision to the NYT story happened
late on Thursday night, several
hours after the
story was published (text with a red background and strike-through is
text that was eliminated from the story; text with a green background
is text that was added to the story since its last revision):
Obama needs more cable news in his media diet? Revealing comment in a private meeting with newspaper columnists...
Phil Kerpen
NYT: Oh that part embarrassed the boss? So sorry, we'll delete it ASAP.
http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1038606/1038812/www.nytimes.com/2015/12/18/world/middleeast/president-obama-national-counterterrorism-center.html …
2:28 AM - 19 Dec 2015
The
unexplained deletion of that major passage wasn’t the only
significant change made to the story since it was first published.
New York Times editors also changed the story’s headline four
separate times, according to Newsdiffs.org.
Each headline revision either put Obama in a better light or put the
GOP in a worse one.
The
original headline when the story was first published was “Obama
Visiting National Counterterrorism Center.” Less than two hours
later, the headline was “Obama, at Counterterrorism Center, Offers
Assurances On Safety.” Then the headline was changed to “Frustrated
by Republican Critics, Obama Defends Muted Response to Attacks.”
Two hours later, the headline was once again revised to “Under Fire
From G.O.P., Obama Defends Response to Terror Attacks.”
The most
recent headline revision,
which accompanied the deletion of the passage where Obama admitted he
didn’t understand the American public’s anxiety about terrorism,
now reads, “Assailed by G.O.P., Obama Defends His Response To
Terror Attacks.”
Sean Davis
@allahpundit WaPo characterized the exchange the same way, so NYT/WH can't claim off record/out of context.
The addition (116 words) was much longer than the deletion (66 words) of the section that made Obama look bad.
4:44 AM - 19 Dec 2015
Baker
and Gardiner, the two reporters who authored the NYT story, have yet
to explain why Obama’s admission about being out of touch with the
public on terrorism was deleted from their story.
UPDATE:
The New
York Times claimed
in a statement late Friday morning that its deletion of the Obama
passage was not “unusual” and that it was merely “trimmed for
space in the print paper”:
T. Becket Adams
Statement from NY Times re: deleting that passage about President Obama not recognizing anxiety over terrorism.
The
problem with this explanation is that it doesn’t make any sense
when you review the
first major online revision,
which Newsdiffs.org archived
at 10:21 p.m. EST.
In that version, only one substantive revision was made: the
paragraph about Obama not watching enough cable TV was removed and
replaced with two paragraphs about Obama’s plan to combat ISIS.
The
section that was removed contained 66 words. The section that was
added in its place contained 116 words. If the New York Times was
indeed “trimming for space” in that particular revision, it will
need to explain why its revision to that section added 50
words.
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