How progressive bloggers pressured NYT public editor into addressing Acorn “pimp” hoax
UPDATED BELOW
Brad Friedman had heard from someone at Acorn that the New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt had scheduled a meeting with leaders of the anti-poverty organization, but Hoyt’s column that hit the web over the weekend still came as a surprise to the blogger. Friedman, who writes for the progressive Brad Blog, has just spent the last two months leading a movement pressuring the Times into correcting false claims that conservative activist James O’Keefe had dressed as a pimp before entering Acorn offices last year, a controversy that led to Congress attempting to defund the organization. But until Hoyt published his column the public editor had showed every intention of ignoring the issue. In an email exchange with Friedman that took place a month ago, Hoyt declined to recommend the Times issue a retraction, despite overwhelming evidence that the paper of record got many of the facts wrong in the story.
“Under the circumstances, I am recommending to Times editors that they avoid language that says or suggests that O’Keefe was dressed as a pimp when he captured the ACORN employees on camera,” Hoyt wrote in his email to Friedman. “I still don’t see that a correction is in order, because that would require conclusive evidence that The Times was wrong, which I haven’t seen.”
But sometime between writing that email and penning yesterday’s column, Hoyt had a change of heart. In the op ed itself, he specifically links to Friedman’s blog when acknowledging that he was “wrong in defending the paper’s phrasing.” After a careful investigation into the case, the public editor said he’d make a recommendation to issue a correction, but still seemed to assert that the Times got the gist of the story correct. He said that the audio of the video was mostly in context and quoted an official as saying, “They said what they said. There’s no way to make this look good.â€
I spoke to Friedman, who, along with Media Matters and dozens of other bloggers, kept constant pressure on Hoyt and the Times to correct the record. He didn’t seem overly enthused by the piece.
“I’m delighted to see him admit that he was wrong, at least in making excuses for the Times coverage and their cover-up for that coverage, frankly,” he told me. “They really tried to cover up for it and there has been no accountability and still no correction, no retraction, no apologies. The damage is by and large done and probably uncorrectable … [The column] is a step in the right direction and I’m glad to see that he admitted that the paper was wrong and that he was wrong on at least a couple of the points, but he said that, ‘well, we might have been hoaxed, but we more or less got this story right anyway,’ and then he bases his reasoning for that on [interviews with] the hoaxers that hoaxed them in the first place.”
It’s been two months since Friedman first began the drumbeat at the Times, and in those two months he said that the newspaper has published subsequent articles that have gotten parts of the story wrong, including mentions that O’Keefe “posed as a pimp” (others have claimed that even though O’Keefe didn’t wear a pimp outfit he still essentially “posed” as a pimp).
Still, even though the editor was slow to respond, it’d be safe to assume that if it hadn’t been for the constant pressure from bloggers, this matter may have gone longer without being addressed. I asked Friedman if this was a victory for the progressive blogosphere in policing the coverage of more traditional news outlets.
“It shows there’s an opportunity to police the mainstream corporate media failures,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we will actually do it. I can’t speak for the progressive blogosphere, I can speak for myself and a small handful of progressive bloggers who jumped into this. The lessons are not to be learned from me and Eric Boehlert at Media Matters [who also wrote extensively on the issue] and a few others. The lessons are to be learned from the right wingers, who, when they are done wrong, when someone reports a story that adversely affects the right wingers, they yell and scream and go to war, and frankly that’s what progressives need to do. That’s where you need to get your lessons from. ”
But would the column at least result in the Times being more cautious when reporting on O’Keefe in the future?
“I would like to believe that’s the case but I’m not yet convinced. I think it’s still early and I’m loathe to even call it a victory. There’s a lot of accountability to come, both at the New York Times and the scores of other media outlets that reported the same erroneous nonsense.”
UPDATE: Patterico, a right-of-center blogger who has been a critic of Friedman’s and Media Matters’ reporting on this issue, wrote this in the comments section:
This post reinforces Friedman’s false claim that the manner of O’Keefe dress was central to the public’s reaction. Nonsense. The public’s reaction stemmed from videos that showed O’Keefe posing as a pimp for underage prostitutes, and receiving advice and help from ACORN on protecting that illicit business.
Friedman and his co-blogger have spent weeks constructing a false narrative, in which O’Keefe merely posed as Giles’s boyfriend, who was trying to save her from an abusive pimp.
While he did do that, Friedman and his guest blogger do not tell their readers that in office after office, O’Keefe said he wanted to set up a house for Giles and girls as young as 12-14 years old, who would turn tricks in the house and give the proceeds to O’Keefe for his Congressional campaign.
These facts are clear from the unedited audio and transcripts that have been available since the beginning from Big Government. On a radio show, Friedman admitted to me that he has not listened to the full unedited audio. Hoyt says he has.
That is probably why Hoyt has said Friedman’s characterization of what happened on the videos is “not credible†and motivated by a “partisan agenda.
Even Eric Boehlert, in his rare moments of (forced) honesty, admits that what ACORN employees said on the videos cannot be excused by the issue of O’Keefe’s clothing. Their inexcusable behavior Is why numerous employees were terminated and described themselves as contrite. It’s why Harshbarger admits that no context can explain away what the employees said. It’s why Friedman has to resort to fiction to portray the videos as innocent.
It’s too bad journalists don’t care about what’s true and what’s false.
[...] Simon Owens offers a bit of background on the pressure on the Times to correct its reporting. Possibly related posts: (automatically [...]
[...] Now I have that rarest of things to share now — a happy update. Simon Owens over at Bloggasm has been following the aftermath of the story, namely the pressure progressive bloggers [...]
This post reinforces Friedman’s false claim that the manner of O’Keefe dress was central to the public’s reaction. Nonsense. The public’s reaction stemmed from videos that showed O’Keefe posing as a pimp for underage prostitutes, and receiving advice and help from ACORN on protecting that illicit business.
Friedman and his co-blogger have spent weeks constructing a false narrative, in which O’Keefe merely posed as Giles’s boyfriend, who was trying to save her from an abusive pimp.
While he did do that, Friedman and his guest blogger do not tell their readers that in office after office, O’Keefe said he wanted to set up a house for Giles and girls as young as 12-14 years old, who would turn tricks in the house and give the proceeds to O’Keefe for his Congressional campaign.
These facts are clear from the unedited audio and transcripts that have been available since the beginning from Big Government. On a radio show, Friedman admitted to me that he has not listened to the full unedited audio. Hoyt says he has.
That is probably why Hoyt has said Friedman’s characterization of what happened on the videos is “not credible” and motivated by a “partisan agenda.
Even Eric Boehlert, in his rare moments of (forced) honesty, admits that what ACORN employees said on the videos cannot be excused by the issue of O’Keefe’s clothing. Their inexcusable behavior Is why numerous employees were terminated and described themselves as contrite. It’s why Harshbarger admits that no context can explain away what the employees said. It’s why Friedman has to resort to fiction to portray the videos as innocent.
Can progressive bloggers please now investigate the Friday health care “hoax” memo that John Boehner’s office sent out to the media?
That shouldn’t be dropped. And if it was Boehner – - he should be shamed publicly. This isn’t high school.
head, meet wall:
“The once mighty community activist group ACORN announced Monday it is folding amid falling revenues — six months after video footage emerged showing some of its workers giving tax tips to conservative activists posing as a pimp and prostitute.”
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/22/us/AP-US-ACORN-Closing-Down.html
Whoops, forgot to close my blockquote tag. Only that first line should be blockquoted.
“This post reinforces Friedman’s false claim that the manner of O’Keefe dress was central to the public’s reaction.”
You don’t know how the public or the press would have reacted if O’Keefe didn’t misleadingly edit his videos and Breitbart didn’t lie about the pimp costume.
At a minimum, if the original press reporting had reported the efforts to mislead, and Fox News had not brought O’Keefe on the air in that ridiculous costume, the story would’ve had shorter legs.
All of this starts with the intentional efforts to mislead. That’s O’Keefe and Breitbart’s MO, and the press should remember it the next time they pimp a new story.
If there had been an intentional effort to mislead, it’s hard for me to understand why they explicitly showed O’Keefe walking into ACORN in normal clothing. The very first video released shows this in the very first few seconds.
So it’s a stretch to claim an intentional effort to mislead. My guess: if the political tables were reversed, you’d easily be able to see this. But politics often makes people blind to simple facts.
Find someone you know who was appalled by the videos and ask them why they were appalled. If you know any such person.
What gives Patterico confidence in the transcripts (which prove the audio on the youtube videos is fraudulent — a fact which he neglects to mention).
How does he know the audio is uneditted ? It is easy to edit audio as is demonstrated by the youtube videos.
He asserts that all honest people must trust the Breitbart organization in spite of the clearly fraudulent videos.
This is what Friedman meant when he said (or wrote) “he bases his reasoning for that on [...] the hoaxers that hoaxed them in the first place.†I have deleted your interpolation. I believe that it is an error and that Friedman was referring to the transcripts posted by Breitbart et al.
Friedman’s obvous point is that proof that something someone says is a lie does not constitute proof that other things they say are the truth.
This is the substance of Patterico’s post. I am terrified at the thought that someone who uses such logic is a prosecutor.
Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey, who blogs pseudonymously as “Patterico”, is certainly smart enough to know that what he’s selling is nonsense.
He’s also certainly smart enough to know, when he uses his “unedited audio” red-herring, that that “unedited audio” has never been authenticated. He’s also smart enough to know how easy it is to edit audio, and how disingenuous it is to not note that O’Keefe still refuses, for some odd reason, to release the unedited *video*, so people — such as Deputy District Attorneys — could see for themselves what, if any laws, were broken by anybody.
What we do know, is that the former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger has found in his report [PDF] that O’Keefe and Giles likely broke the law in California where they secretly wire tapped employees. Of course, one of the places they did that is in Dep. DA Frey’s own county, begging the question as to why he is not investigating and prosecuting for a criminal penal code 632 violation, rather than defending the apparent perps here.
Now, with that out of the way, the unauthenticated “unedited audio” and unauthenticated text transcripts that Dep DA Frey is referring to, also shows clearly that O’Keefe did *not* represent himself as a pimp, but rather as the college law school boyfriend of Giles, who he was trying to help save from and abusive pimp who had tried to stalk and kill her.
These are matters of fact found in O’Keefe’s own unauthenticated text transcripts where O’Keefe explained time and again that he was a student, or a banker and that he was trying to save Giles from the pimp. You can read more about that here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7761
As to Dep. DA Frey’s baseless contention in his second comment above that “it’s a stretch to claim an intentional effort to mislead”, apparently he hasn’t bothered to review the evidence. Here are just a few examples from the vast body of evidence I have posted over the last two months showing that all of the key players, O’Keefe, Giles and their publisher and employer Andrew Breitbart most certainly engaged in an intentional effort to mislead.
O’Keefe
On the day that the Brooklyn ACORN video was released, O’Keefe appeared on Fox and Friends on Fox “News” in the pimp get-up that it’s now known he never wore to any ACORN office. O’Keefe sat on the couch in the costume as Steve Doocy introduced him as being “dressed exactly in the same outfit he wore in these ACORN offices up and down the Eastern Seaboard.”
O’Keefe merely nodded during the introduction, made no effort to correct Doocy, and then concurred that yes, this is what most people think a pimp looks like.
That video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL68WFEw2Gk
Giles
On the same day that O’Keefe mislead Fox viewers on the couch about having worn his pimp costume, Giles appeared on Hannity’s show and claimed that the Brooklyn ACORN workers were telling her to hide her money from the government. That was a lie.
She told Hannity: “they’re telling me to bury funds in the back yard so that the government or my pimp can’t come steal the money.”
What O’Keefe’s own unauthenticated text transcripts how is that, in fact, the worker was telling her how to hide the money from the abusive pimp (who was not O’Keefe, but someone else who they called Sonny).
That section of O’Keefe’s own transcript, showing there was no discussion about hiding money from the government, can be read here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7725
Here’s a few of the exchanges from it:
She made an intentional effort to mislead Fox viewers about what had happened in that video. You can read about that here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7725
Breitbart
In his own Sep 21, 2009 Washington Times column, Breitbart inaccurately asserted that O’Keefe “dressed as a pimp” while “asking for – and getting – help for various illegal activities.”
That was a lie. He did no such thing, as even the NYTimes has finally admitted. When Breitbart was later called on that lie, he claimed (see the exclusive video here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7719) that he had been duped by O’Keefe, that he had honestly thought O’Keefe wore the pimp outfit.
Unfortunately, Breitbart had also claimed that he reviewed all the videos and transcripts before any of it was released. If he had done so, of course (as Dep. DA points out above), he would have noticed that, in fact, O’Keefe had dressed as a conservative college student and not “as a pimp”, as Breitbart asserted in his own column. More on that here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7705
Just as O’Keefe and Giles, Breitbart made an intentional effort to mislead. That is just one example each. There are many more. But if the Deputy DA is unfamiliar with them, it’s because he doesn’t wish to be familiar with them. As I believe he has left comments on some of the blog items linked above, I believe we know for a fact that he is familiar with most if not all of the points made above, which brings up the inescapable probability that, in addition to O’Keefe and Giles and Breitbart, Mr. Patrick “Pattericoi” Frey has put forward his own intentional effort to mislead.
It wouldn’t be the first time. It seems to be what he does for a living, instead of enforcing the rule of law in his very own district, where he has witness with his own eyes, both O’Keefe and Giles breaking the laws of the state of California.
I hope that Simon will give as much prominence to my well-sourced reply to Patterico, as he has given Patterico by adding his unsubstantiated comment into the body of the original article as an update.
Brad Friedman
Do you honestly think that the video was not an intentional effort to mislead, Pattyfrey? I don’t believe you. Almost everything about the video was fraudulent. As you should know, if this video showed any actual wrongdoing, and was anything other than a video that had been deviously edited to give the impression of improprieties, then there should have been indictments on not only those involved, but the organization itself. But… they were cleared of all wrongdoing because the video had been edited to meet O’keefes and Giles (and Brietbarts) agenda. Hmm, but you honestly believe the video was not meant to be misleading? It just happened by accident, or what? Come on, give me a break.
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“He’s also certainly smart enough to know, when he uses his ‘unedited audio’ red-herring, that that ‘unedited audio’ has never been authenticated.”
You might want to be a little clearer about what you claim hasn’t been done. I do know that you, Brad, have failed to take the most basic step any human can take to determine whether a tape is authentic: actually listen to it. When you and I appeared on the radio together, you admitted you have not listened to the unedited audio and compared it to the video and transcripts.
Well, then, why should anyone pay any attention to what you have to say? You admit you haven’t even listened to the evidence!
What’s more, your arguments continually reveal your lack of familiarity with the source evidence. And that’s being charitable.
As to the claim that O’Keefe intended to mislead, you submit a wall of text that notably fails to address my simple argument: if O’Keefe intended to mislead (as opposed to being insufficiently quick to correct someone on a national TV program), why in the world did he DELIBERATELY INCLUDE the footage of him walking into ACORN in regular clothes? Why did he include that footage in the first few seconds of the first video ever shown to the public?
If I wish to hide something, and I am hiding it intentionally, I do not usually proceed by displaying it as prominently as possible.
Until you address THAT argument, your distractions remain exactly that.
If you would like an example of someone who hides something, look at your own posts — where you continually hide the evidence that O’Keefe told ACORN workers he sought to set up a house where Giles and underage girls could turn tricks and give him the proceeds for his Congressional campaign.
Patrick “Patterico” Frey said:
“you admitted you have not listened to the unedited audio and compared it to the video and transcripts.”
While I have listened to some of that audio, what exactly is the point of listening to it? I have read O’Keefe’s own unauthenticated text transcripts of that audio, and, as a broadcaster, I know how easy it is to edit audio in such a way that is almost impossible to detect without very expensive forensic analysis.
So I’m not even sure what you’re getting at, nor why you haven’t demanded they release the raw video, since you’ve argued such terrible crimes were committed. Don’t you want to see justice done for those crimes? Why do u continue to defend those who are withholding evidence from prosecutors?
You’re a Dep. DA, so of course, you should know all of this stuff, yet you keep referring uncritically to O’Keefe release as “unedited audio”, and I have simply asked you (again and again, though you have never answered the question): What steps did you take to authenticate that audio so that you know it is unedited??
You’re a Dep. DA, you know what is necessary to authenticate evidence. So feel free to answer the question here because I’ve asked you dozens of times, and you’ve ignored the question every time.
You use that “unedited audio” as “proof” for all sorts of things, but refuse to answer what steps you have taken to authenticate it. Please let me know. Thanks!
Well, let’s see. What supports the notion that the unedited audio is indeed unedited? O’Keefe says it is. Giles says it is. None of the employees claimed that O’Keefe inserted phony voiceover questions over his real questions. Many employees were contrite. Many of the damning lines appeared on video, where you can hear employees talking about prostitution and see their lips move as they do it. And when you listen to the tapes in their entirety, as you have not (by your own admission), they sound credible and hang together.
What supports the notion that the audio is edited? Speculation from a dishonest partisan who hasn’t bothered to listen to the audio. (That’s you.) And . . . well, that’s about it.
By the way, don’t think people aren’t noticing your failure to address my argument why O’Keefe prominently displayed footage that you claim he tried to hide.
“Why do u continue to defend those who are withholding evidence from prosecutors?”
Actually, that is a flat lie which is your trademark. The Brooklyn D.A. said he viewed the unedited video, and there is no evidence that they have withheld unedited video from any prosecutor; that is simply your made-up lie for which there is zero evidence anywhere, because it’s not true.
By the way, the Brooklyn D.A. said O’Keefe posed as a pimp, something you have repeatedly denied. So take up your beef with him, why dontcha.
Let me get this right, you, Patterico, are claiming that *Brad* is the dishonest partisan? I think milk just shot out of my nose in uncontrollable laugh-spurts… Brad is the one whose trademark is a flat lie? More milk spurts… Saying it won’t make it so, Patty. You’re going to find it much harder muddying up Friedman than most other people because he has a history. That history does not include “lies,” as you suggest. Many people are familiar with him and his blog, and those that are can see your bold-faced lies about him in a heartbeat. Oh, but you are really making yourself look good, so by all means keep at it…. More milky nostril squirts…
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