Guest essay by Leo Goldstein
NY Times regularly revises its articles after publication. The revisions are substantial, undisclosed, and are nothing like real time updates in developing stories. These are regular articles that undergo dramatic changes that appear as if NY Times editors received a commissar’s call stressing the party line and demanding the article matches it exactly, with the NY Times editors dutifully obliging.
I recently stumbled on one of such revisions. Within hours, the description of Scott Pruitt, the newly appointed EPA head, in the NY Times article went from being an “ally of fossil fuel Industry,” to a “climate change dissenter,” to a “climate change denialist.” Later, I was pointed to a helpful website newsdiffs.org. Newsdiffs archives multiple versions of news articles and shows the differences between them. That article has been revised or rewritten at least six times after its original publication, all without any notice to the readers.
On the topic of climate debate, the most prominent rewrite seen is the replacement of the term “climate skeptic” with “climate denialist.” Also witnessed, is the attempt to do some damage control, like replacing “Obama’s new climate change regulations” that reporters probably heard firsthand from government officials, with “Obama’s new clean air regulations.”
Examples, limited to the climate debate
The following article was completely re-written from its original version on January 14-15. Then, on January 18, the sentence, “Obama’s new climate change regulations are driving electric utilities to shut down coal plants,” was rewritten by replacing the term “climate change” with “clean air,” thus becoming: “Obama’s new clean air regulations are driving electric utilities to shut down coal plants”:
http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/us/politics/in-climate-move-obama-to-halt-new-coal-mining-leases-on-public-lands.html (By CORAL DAVENPORT)
Multiple changes, including changing the word Skeptics to Denialists in the title:
http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1376719/1376823/https%3A/www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/climate/scott-pruitt-epa-endangerment-finding.html (By CORAL DAVENPORT)
The article was revised 14 times:
http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/politics/donald-trump-visit.html
(By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, JULIE HIRSCHFELD, MAGGIE HABERMAN)
Multiple changes, including in the authorship:
http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/science/earth-highest-temperature-record.html (By JUSTIN GILLIS and JOHN SCHWARTZ)
For example, this link shows multiple changes to the body of the article:
The title was completely re-written:
Another title that was re-written:
http://newsdiffs.org/diff/1309853/1309964/www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/science/global-warming-daily-mail-breitbart.html (By HENRY FOUNTAIN)
Multiple substantial changes:
http://newsdiffs.org/article-history/www.nytimes.com/2016/10/15/world/africa/kigali-deal-hfc-air-conditioners.html (By CORAL DAVENPORT)
At the time of this writing, some of these articles are different from their last versions in newsdiffs, and at least one seems similar to the initial version in newsdiffs. Probably newsdiffs monitors the news articles only for short time. Also, NY Times’ website may send different versions of the same article to different readers.
Remember the BBC Scandal in 2008
This brings to mind the well-known BBC scandal, when the BBC changed a published weather-related article to be more climate alarmist after exchanging few emails with Jo Abbess, a climate activist who then gloated about it. (See also JM1 and JM2). One thing that escaped attention: Jo Abbess was active in the local Agenda 21 chapter (Poole Agenda 21) and was connected to other British alarmist organizations. The published email exchange between poor Roger Harrabin and Jo Abbess was just a small part of the pressure and brainwashing campaign that broke the BBC.
Footnotes
Curiously, newsdiffs.org was created with funding from the leftist Knight Foundation largely with the intent to discover content re-writing that’s in favor of conservatives. Newsdiffs.org was covered by the NY Times in 2012. Apparently, NY Times still had some integrity back then. The NY Times has been doing stealthy revising since at least 2015 and seems to increase their frequency and severity after the elections. I will be posting more examples of stealthy content revising and fake news on my site.
Newsdiffs.org monitors only five websites and one cannot easily search in it (I suggest using https://web-beta.archive.org/web/*/newsdiffs.org) but the software is open-sourced and available at https://github.com/ecprice/newsdiffs.
Thanks to H.J. for collaboration in the research and writing this article.
Footnote by Anthony Watts
WUWT occasionally has changes to articles from time to time, and we have a policy on it:
Stories that have been posted may get edited in the first hour after they first appear. Sometimes errors or mistakes (particularly in formatting) aren’t seen until the post is published. If something doesn’t look right and the post is brand-new, try refreshing in a few minutes. Of course, after an hour if something is still wrong, don’t hesitate to leave a comment to point it out.
The main reason for changing of articles at WUWT is spelling and formatting mistakes, and they usually occur within the first hour. Sometimes simple mistakes are made,in the body or in the title, and commenters catch them almost immediately. A good example is in the story New ‘Karl-buster’ paper confirms ‘the pause’, and climate models failure. The word “sleight” was misspelled as “slight”, and that was fixed right away and noted in the comments with thanks to the commenter who spotted it.
Sometimes, there’s errors related [to] title spelling, such as the article: AL.com thinks ‘global warming’ is increasing ticks in Alabama, except it’s cooled over the last century there
I boobed, and typed AI instead of AL originally so I had to fix that. I left a note at the bottom of the article:
Note: about 5 mins after publication, the title was changed to correct a misspelling.
And on occasion, we have a factual error in the article. These are handled via either strikeouts (if the error is multiple words) or as a word or two in [brackets] if it is a simple fix.
We aren’t perfect here at WUWT, nobody who publishes online is, but I try to make sure that fixes are known to the readers.
We are approaching the world depicted in Stargate SG-1 episode Revisions where all knowledge is accessed using “the link”, a direct neural interface to the central library. Ah, but what The Link giveth, it can also taketh away. These are not the memories you are looking for …
The Times and WaPo are now just unreadable propaganda. I’ve simply blocked them from my news feeds on my Apple devices. Apple loves to push everything leftist through its app. You have to manually pick what you want but it gets rid of the biased crap out there. It’s funny they all think negative propaganda is going to change people’s minds when that’s partly why they lost the election in the first place.
The Washington Post is a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIA, or is that the other way around, or is CIA owned by Amazon or the other way round, or does Jeff Bezos run everything. I believe WaPo ran the very first story on the whole Russian arm waving thing. Hmm. CIA pays Amazon 60 million more for its cloud information contract than IBMs similar bid. Then Bezos buys the biggest house in Washington DC paying a million more than the asking price. Hmmm.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-buys-23-million-mansion-in-washington-dc-2017-1
https://www.blackagendareport.com/wp_under_amazon_cloud
“CIA pays Amazon 60 million more for its cloud information contract than IBMs similar bid.’
What is your evidence of this?
“CIA pays Amazon 60 million more for its cloud information contract than IBMs similar bid.’
What is your evidence of this?
I can’t find the original article where I thought it was $60 mil but other articles are putting it at $50-$54 mil.
http://www.crn.com/news/cloud/240163382/amazon-wins-600-million-cia-cloud-deal-as-ibm-withdraws-protest.htm
Can’t find the original article?
Perhaps it was in the NYT?
“Can’t find the original article?
Perhaps it was in the NYT?”
That’s funny, Gunga! 🙂
“It’s funny they all think negative propaganda is going to change people’s minds when that’s partly why they lost the election in the first place.”
These high-leftists believe themselves to be the anointed intelligentsia, and that the rest of us are just stupid. Not just conservatives, but all people who are not members of the anointed intelligentsia. The propaganda is created more for their own followers than for the those who disagree. Their disinformation is not meant to persuade non-believers. Non-believers are to be demonized. The propaganda is for the multitude of foot soldiers and pawns.
I have sisters who know nothing about climate or atmospheric science, but have no problem dismissing all of my scientific arguments because: “97% of all scientists agree that climate change is a crisis! The science is settled.”
The ‘elites’ continue to use propaganda because it works…for a while. More importantly…what else are they going to do? They cannot speak the truth. That would undermine everything they have worked for. They have to stick with the method that got them this far. They have to keep lying. There problem is that they do not control ALL media. The truth is spreading. The days of the CAGW paradigm are numbered.
“The ‘elites’ continue to use propaganda because it works…for a while. More importantly…what else are they going to do? They cannot speak the truth. That would undermine everything they have worked for.”
Good point! 🙂
Re your remarks concerning Apple, I have long had the feeling that it is, in general, a lefty go-to company for electronics. Am I wrong about this? In universities, in Canadian gov bureaucracies and many other non business organizations it seems to be wall to wall Apple. In business, on the other hand Apple tends to be the exception. I’ve never seen anything written on this so I’ve wondered if my perception is correct. I cast no assertions on you, chilemike. Just curious. Even more curious, why would one of the world’s biggest corporations have such a corner on the market?
Generally speaking, Gary, you are correct. While many fiscal conservatives use Apple, they, like the majority of Apple users tend to be more socially “liberal” than PC users. One estimate I saw was ~58% of Apple = “liberal” and ~38% of PC users = “liberal” (self characterization).
Why?
Aside from the often tech-challenged libs (well, look at the cars they tend to choose to buy!) simply choosing Apple because it sounds “organic” (something else they’ve often been brainwashed into buying due to their lack of science knowledge) it is simply:
branding.
That’s all. Saavy advertising has pushed Apple as the Subaru of the tech world.
http://www.ecofuturedevelopment.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/SubaruAndTheEarth.jpg
Doing right by the planet isn’t just important to us, it guides every decision we make as a company.
Subaru
(Source: http://www.ecofuturedevelopment.com/top-5-companies-showing-true-corporate-responsibility-or-not/ )
Apple is the holy brand.
(Note: it appeared from the internet articles I scanned that Samsung is now attacking this directly and trying to position itself as the “socially responsible” blah, blah, blah, (barf!) brand.)
********************************
Again: (not at you, Gary, at hasty readers) I am NOT saying NO conservatives buy Apple. I am NOT saying NO liberals buy PC’s. I am NOT saying Apple does not make good products. I am ONLY talking about why there is a strange-but-true liberal-conservative buyer demographic phenomenon here.
I read an article this morning (Sorry, I looked for the link and couldn’t find it) about the current head of Apple getting a reward for supporting free speech. The article mentioned that just a month ago, Apple removed the app for downloading the NYT from the Chinese version of the App Store at the request of the Chinese government. Many lesser news sites had already been removed.
Rush Limbaugh uses Apple computers.
I happen to prefer Microsoft because I could build my own, and Microsoft made it so easy.
I tried to delete my account at the Washington Post but there was no button, cell or anything to click on. So I went directly to the ombudsman, as the “helpdesk” link didn’t work (as did the “unsubscribe” button for a newsletter not – not that I had voluntarily subscribed). The reply came swiftly – from the internet provider: “E-mail undeliverable”.
Where art thou, ombudsman@washpost.com?
The ombudsman is located at:
bezos@amazon.com
This is why the Amendments to the US Constitution remain in the text at the Archives and can only be repealed by further amendments. Truth is a vanishing commodity today. Our Founding Fathers knew better.
Na… Like Wikipedia, they probably just use William Connolley as post-publishing editor. Balance and accuracy ‘left the building’ ’bout the same time Elvis did.
On our campus the New York Times is given away to the students for free. Luckily millennials no longer read paper copy, but rely on Facebook instead.
At free, they’re still not getting their money’s worth!
What…! Facebook is their go to for knowledge! I’ve been worried about a totally uneducated generation which is the end game of Nouveau Monde Elites. These kids don’t have the least inkling of what is being done to them. The finishing touches on this goal is the very clever creation of safe places so they can protect themselves from other viewpoints, information and knowledge. They are taught to be afraid of such uncleansed and non sanctioned information. A would be speaker has ‘trigger’ words underlined so students aren’t upset. I would never have believed that this would work, but there you are.
NYT for free:
I have had a feeling that the idea of “boycotting” these distorted media, and of cutting cable, are not going to end the use of these media to solidify the “progressive” agenda by these overlords.
The government subsidizes CNN, so they could lose many viewer but still remain viable.
Now, I see how the NYT is remaining viable: they apparently are reaching out to universities to buy and distribute the paper. –Just like I get a “free” USA Today with my stay at any of several nice hotels.
I think these progressive totalitarian globalists – Bezos, Gates, etc., Soros, etc. would and may now be bankrolling the mainstream media because they need this MSM to promote their view of the world.
From the evidence usually offered up, are they ABLE to read?
The NYT lost what little integrity it had long before 2012! It has been a liberal outlet for at least decades, along with WaPo. The only reason for reading either is to know what the schemers are up to.
The newspaper business is hard these days. Layoffs are the order of the day. That means fewer editors.
In olden days, not that long ago, an editor would vet a story and its headline and there wouldn’t be much need to fix anything post-publication. These days, the story just goes up unchecked.
The changes addressed in this article are not about mistakes. The revised editions are not more accurate. They are more slanted! This isn’t about a lack of editors allowing factual errors to slip by. This is about an abundance of spin-doctors altering the news.
IMHO, a competent editor would have got the propaganda right the first time. 🙁
jclarke341- You are correct , sir!
It is difficult for the NYT, because they may publish a perfect story story today, and then the needs of their little politco-media klatch may change tomorrow and they will have to sneak back in and re-write in order to meet those new needs.
The saddest part of this issue is that the NYT is no longer a “paper of record”. There is no expectation that what was written during a news cycle is what a researcher might find years later.
The global elitists and their useful idiots would have gotten away with it all, if it weren’t for that pesky internets that Allen created, how ironic.
Who is this ‘Allen’ creature?? It is my understanding that an ‘Algore’ created the Internet!
That’s why the NY times is called fake news (they stopped using the term when caught faking it).
But the web site (Kudos for finding it!) probably scrapes the target websites periodically, so cannot possibly catch all changes (but most), Given how often the NY Crimes changes their stories, there are probably a few changes that are missed. At least they have the first and last versions.
If it’s changed, such scrapings will catch it. Unless it changed, then was changed back between scrapings.
What might happen is that two separate edits might get counted as a single edit if they both occur between scrapings. However both edits will show up in the difference report.
That is what I was referring to. You just said it clearer than I did. Thanks
NYT -Turning whine into vinegar
On-line news organizations should mark any parts of a story that have been revised, with the original version and an explanation provided for each revision.
That would constitute integrity.
Who was the guy who said that climate scientists were going have to decide for themselves about where the dividing line between being honest and being effective should be?
Is this a guessing game? I have no freakin’ idea.
MarkW is probably referring to this:
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2009/02
“It is entirely appropriate that it is Schneider who should be resurrecting a diagram that was considered by scientists as ‘too vague or subjective’ for AR4, but which nevertheless ‘vividly shows’ how close to disaster we are. After all, in a notorious unguarded moment, he did once make this telling comment to a reporter:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both. [Quoted in: Schell, J., “Our fragile earth,” Discover, 10(10):44-50, October 1989.]”
end excerpt
Courtesy of the wonderful search engine link provided in an earlier post
defyccc.com/search/
Maybe some web version of Microsoft Word’s “Track Changes” option? They could set some kind of tell-tale to indicated an article has been revised and you could choose to view changes or not.
You are both assuming that the NYT is interested in integrity. I’d like to remind people that the NYT has been lying to people since, at least, they ran an article on how the Ukraine was just fine under Stalin while the reporter knew damn good and well that Stalin had appropriated the ENTIRE harvest in an attempted genocide.
You’re right, Rhoda, the New York Times has been lying for a very long time.
“… the reporter knew damn good and well that Stalin had appropriated the ENTIRE harvest in an attempted genocide.”
There are very few of us left who know that. The students are not taught inconvenient history; rather they are indoctrinated. (and the students pay for their own indoctrination)
Someone once said something to the effect that he who controls history controls the future. The government schools and the main stream media control history.
Rhoda:
They become interested in integrity when their own shoddy practices come back to hit them squarely in the balls. Hopefully their revisionism becomes an issue.
@Rhoda R
My reply was in the broader context of Killer Marmot’s post which did not limit itself to the NY Times. Other on-line sources may have greater integrity.
I wonder what coverage they will have on the book burnings of non-AGW approved settled science climate change books at schools and libraries?
NYT infiltrated and going going gone . A brand in full collapse .
Don’t forget the current CEO of NYT, Mark Thompson, had plenty of experience in running an organisation that distorts facts, as he was CEO of the BBC. He hasn’t change his spots.
I suspect rogue employees on the website, putting in things that the copy editor would not approve. These updates probably are not a priority for editing.
What…! Facebook is their go to for knowledge! I’ve been worried about a totally uneducated generation which is the end game of Nouveau Monde Elites. These kids don’t have the least inkling of what is being done to them. The finishing touches on this goal is the very clever creation of safe places so they can protect themselves from other viewpoints, information and knowledge. They are taught to be afraid of such uncleansed and non sanctioned information. A would be speaker has ‘trigger’ words underlined so students aren’t upset. I would never have believed that this would work, but there you are.
Could be (in some instances) residue of testing . . Been lots of talk about how to better influence people’s perception of “scientific” (particularly CAGW) issues/stories . .
Thanks, Mr. Goldstein.
I take it all Watts Up articles are fact checked, errors in published articles corrected and acknowledged and all mentioned in an item have the chance to comment?
I’m pretty sure that whatever else it might do, the NY times does that….
“I take it all Watts Up articles are fact checked, errors in published articles corrected and acknowledged and all mentioned in an item have the chance to comment?”
Didn’t you read what Anthony had to say about that, Griff? It’s right there at the bottom of the article. He answers all your questions.
What, Griff actually read an article he’s commenting on?
We already know that he never reads the articles that he cites as proof of his positions.
That’s pretty good evidence he didn’t read it.
Back to basics, Griff. Read before commenting.
Hmmmm. They did eventually purge Jason Blair for his “misdeeds”.
Get a Gripp, Griff. The subject isn’t fact checking, it’s stealthy revisions. Step on another rake.
http://s28.postimg.org/bfijguaq5/stepping_on_rake_cartoon.png
Footnote by Anthony WattsWUWT occasionally has changes to articles from time to time, and we have a policy on it:
Stories that have been posted may get edited in the first hour after they first appear. Sometimes errors or mistakes (particularly in formatting) aren’t seen until the post is published. If something doesn’t look right and the post is brand-new, try refreshing in a few minutes. Of course, after an hour if something is still wrong, don’t hesitate to leave a comment to point it out.
The main reason for changing of articles at WUWT is spelling and formatting mistakes, and they usually occur within the first hour. Sometimes simple mistakes are made,in the body or in the title, and commenters catch them almost immediately. A good example is in the story New ‘Karl-buster’ paper confirms ‘the pause’, and climate models failure. The word “sleight” was misspelled as “slight”, and that was fixed right away and noted in the comments with thanks to the commenter who spotted it.
Sometimes, there’s errors related [to] title spelling, such as the article: AL.com thinks ‘global warming’ is increasing ticks in Alabama, except it’s cooled over the last century there
I boobed, and typed AI instead of AL originally so I had to fix that. I left a note at the bottom of the article:
Note: about 5 mins after publication, the title was changed to correct a misspelling.
And on occasion, we have a factual error in the article. These are handled via either strikeouts (if the error is multiple words) or as a word or two in [brackets] if it is a simple fix.
We aren’t perfect here at WUWT, nobody who publishes online is, but I try to make sure that fixes are known to the readers.
Rate this:
Footnote by Anthony Watts
WUWT occasionally has changes to articles from time to time, and we have a policy on it:
Stories that have been posted may get edited in the first hour after they first appear. Sometimes errors or mistakes (particularly in formatting) aren’t seen until the post is published. If something doesn’t look right and the post is brand-new, try refreshing in a few minutes. Of course, after an hour if something is still wrong, don’t hesitate to leave a comment to point it out.
The main reason for changing of articles at WUWT is spelling and formatting mistakes, and they usually occur within the first hour. Sometimes simple mistakes are made,in the body or in the title, and commenters catch them almost immediately. A good example is in the story New ‘Karl-buster’ paper confirms ‘the pause’, and climate models failure. The word “sleight” was misspelled as “slight”, and that was fixed right away and noted in the comments with thanks to the commenter who spotted it.
Sometimes, there’s errors related [to] title spelling, such as the article: AL.com thinks ‘global warming’ is increasing ticks in Alabama, except it’s cooled over the last century there
I boobed, and typed AI instead of AL originally so I had to fix that. I left a note at the bottom of the article:
Note: about 5 mins after publication, the title was changed to correct a misspelling.
And on occasion, we have a factual error in the article. These are handled via either strikeouts (if the error is multiple words) or as a word or two in [brackets] if it is a simple fix.
We aren’t perfect here at WUWT, nobody who publishes online is, but I try to make sure that fixes are known to the readers.
One fact is certain: G… doesn’t check the facts – that is, maybe sometime he does, to winnow out the inconvenient ones.
He does get his information straight from the sources though – the alarmist and profiteering lobby and propaganda outfits.
If he had read and would read the NYT now, he couldn’t write his last sentence with a straight face; I, for one, could feel his smirking-vibration.
How old is he?
Imagine that giffiepoo!
There is already a proper process well established in the professional and graduate world for properly handling errors at print time.
Or at any time, to be exact.
Where did NY Times issue their corrigenda?
To consider the world properly; Libraries around the world will archive physical copies of the original print issue, virtual original issue copies, microfiche and perhaps microfilm.
NY Times secretive ongoing adjustments of articles turns the original library copies into utter falsehoods.
Look under any article posted on WUWT, giffiepoo. WUWT posts and keeps a corrigendum. Even for errors discovered days later.
Don’t worry giffiepoo; everything you think is erroneous is not. Real science keeps the truth and falsehoods forever. You will be in your dotage some day giffiepoo and your relatives will still laugh at your paid for advocacy as Piltdown man and Lysenko levels of stupidity.
Must be nice to go down in history as one of the d_mbest fools ever born. Molehill glory, where teachers use abject idiocy to teach future generations hw to think and practice real science.
I haven’t noticed so much the later revisions to articles, after all how many times is the average reader going to read an article. But the NYT clearly has a warmist bias to their climate articles and I’m certain that the writers that cover the climate beat are instructed to write articles with a warmist slant. If the articles are revised after publication my guess would be that the revisions come from senior editors or people higher up in the executive ranks.
I really don’t see anything sinister about it but rather view it as the NYT enforcing their world view, sometimes a bit after the fact. The best thing WUWT readers can do is to continue to watch for it and point it out when it occurs. The NYT is not going to change what it’s doing to satisfy WUWT denisons, but catching and exposing their game will get their attention and drive home to them that they can’t get away with this kind of manipulation without getting caught at it..
The Time will also publish an article and claim climate change causation in their headline, when the article itself might have very little to do about climate change. A month or so ago, there was an article in the Sunday Times about Mexico City, written by someone not on the climate team. The article was about the perennial water problems of a city that has exploded in population and that is built in an arid part of Mexico. Only late in the article was there a perfunctory mention of climate change being part of the problem.
I found the article fact-based and quite interesting. The influence of the climate police seemed to be in the headline, not in the body of the article itself. This is irritating but rather harmless, in my view.. If the NYT wants to promote a point of view outside of the editorial page then I guess they have that right. But in doing it they’re surrendering their claim to objectivity and damaging their reputation in the process.
Actually, I suspect that there is a lot of outright bribery going on in the news business. And I think there are enormous sums of money involved and that it is common. Paying off the editor or the reporter is cheaper than advertising and more effective. Look at a certain car company.
Maybe ole Tucker Carlson can get a New York Times editor on his show and ask him to explain why they did these changes to their articles after the fact.
“I haven’t noticed so much the later revisions to articles, after all how many times is the average reader going to read an article.”
It might get a little awkward if one quotes an article, and then the posted url reads differently. I guess people in the future shouldn’t depend on their memory of what an article said, because it might no longer say exactly what you remembered it to say, and might change the whole meaning.
In Anthony we trust (but verify). 😉
” In God we trust, all others pay cash”
Thanks, check is in the mail.
I reveal my true identity and it seems mods outrank gods.
God
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
April 19, 2017 at 6:06 pm
Well, Clipe, just to offer a little commiseration (if THIS comment makes it through!), I just got tossed into the spam bin (no “in moderation” error message –shrug). I just tested the only possible “bad” word. Nuthin’. Oh. Well. 🙂 Glad you are here.
Don’t scream: I pray for you almost every day. 🙂 (seriously!)
@ur momisugly Clipe,
You’ve been here long enough to knows who’s running the show 🙂
Hey Janice,
Long time no talk, good to see your comments.
Good to see you, too, James. I was thinking about you the other day, for it was you (along with John F. Hultquist) who so warmly welcomed me to WUWT in mid-April, 2013. Thank you! (again) I hope things didn’t get TOO impolite the other day, lol. 🙂
Take care,
Janice
@ur momisugly Clipe,
You’ve been here long enough to knows who’s running the show 🙂
That might be a stretch, but we could certainly do worse.
“That article has been revised or rewritten at least six times after its original publication, all without any notice to the readers.”
So we need to save the article, not the url, if we want a good copy of what we read. The dishonest news media doing more dishonest things.
Yeah, it kind of makes citing a source rather difficult when the source keeps changing. Future cites from the NYT will require a date stamp. 😉
“Apparently, NY Times still had some integrity back then.”
No.
Not only no — but hell no.
some integrity – the key word is some
The NYT adopting Stalinists practices shouldn’t surprise as others have noted the NYT Moscow correspondent in the ‘20s and ‘30s Walter Duranty, according to George Orwell’s advice to the British Foreign Office, was probably a paid Soviet agent and not to be trusted.
This sort of of ‘historical revision’ is typical of ALL Establishment mouthpieces. It matters not whether the Establishment concerned is Left, Right, Up, Down, etc. The idea of the Press representing a check on the abuses of Government (I know — a lot of CAPITALS here) only has a chance of working when the presses are owned and operated by individuals who are either disconnected from the political Establishment or who, while having some connections, disagree with its aims.
In the past, when access to even recently written information was not so easy, embarrassing-after-the-event articles could often be quietly ‘forgotten.’ Historical revisionism has been detected in chiselled hieroglyphic records on Egyptian walls. People just have to be realistically aware of what can happen and maintain a healthy level of intellectual scepticism.
The article is illuminating, but should not be surprising. It brings to mind the reported reply of John Swinton to a proposed toast to an independent Press at a congregation of newspapermen around 1880:
“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
“There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
“The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?
“We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks: they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
And with that, I recommend to you the very long You Tube documentary, “Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick.”
Do you see rich people under your bed every night?
“It brings to mind the reported reply of John Swinton to a proposed toast to an independent Press at a congregation of newspapermen around 1880:”
Mr. Swinton nailed it. A perfect description of our current western news media.
The poster is misrepresenting the facts. Changing a few terms here and there, or even a few sentences, is not “completely rewritten”. Try not to be so hyperbolic, it’s not necessary.
“The issue is that the articles should be marked as amended.”
Yes, and links should be provided to previous versions.
Changing “climate dissenter” to “climate denialist” in a title is a huge revision.
“Completely rewritten” means just that: more than 50% of the original version was removed, and more than 50% of the content of the later version was not in the original one.
I have presented the facts correctly, and provided links for everybody to verify them.
NYT aren’t the only ones. Washington Post does it, too. Articles are often revised long after publication. This is why I do not trust online media. One can not “unprint” a newspaper so news organizations needed to ensure the content was correct and once printed, it lived forever. With online content, what a story says today can be something completely different tomorrow. Researchers in the future looking through our archives will not get an accurate picture of what our people were hearing when events unfolded.