Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (Yet Another New York Times Edition)

The mind boggles:

The Quiet Man - New York Times: The Op-Ed page in some copies of Wednesday's newspaper carried an incorrect version of the below article about military recruitment. The article also briefly appeared on NYTimes.com before it was removed. The writer, an Army reserve officer, did not say, "Imagine my surprise the other day when I received orders to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., next Sunday," nor did he characterize his recent call-up to active duty as the precursor to a "surprise tour of Iraq." That language was added by an editor and was to have been removed before the article was published. Because of a production error, it was not. The Times regrets the error. A corrected version of the article appears below.

In what kind of circus is an "error" like this even possible?

Comments

[howard]

well, when you consider the number of fantasists who regularly appear on the op-ed page, you can see how production editors get confused!

of course, if i were a right winger, i'd blame howell raines, but instead, i'll blame, as the prof implies, a degraded in-house culture that is many people's fault.

[Grumpy]

"In what kind of circus is an "error" like this even possible?"

The same kind of circus that publishes an imaginary story by a reporter on the presidential campaign trail about a candidate's manicure.

But at least that sounded like a joke that accidentally got shuffled into the active folder.

[Barry]

Or, perhaps, an honest quote that the officer is now denying, after a scathing phone call from Rumsfield?

[mihir]

i was wondering the same thing. What the hell is an editor making up quotes for anyway?

[a]

Interesting. It seems clear the money is what is used to enlist more soldiers (from the article: "Retention is going fairly well, thanks in part to re-enlistment incentives that are tax-free when a soldier re-ups in a combat zone."). However when I called US soldiers mercenaries here some posters expressed their indignation. How do you call people that re-enlist for extra cash but claim to serve for patriotism and democracy? Not even honest mercenaries.

[Richard]

This reminds me of the "Mush from the Wimp" Boston Globe headline in 1980.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mush_from_the_Wimp

[POUNCER]

What do you call young married couples who decide whether or not to have children based -- at least in part -- on the amount of the exemptions and the child tax credit?

If those amounts are sufficiently large, I'd guess I'd call them "parents", but you can, if you like, call them "mercenaries" just as easily as you call soldiers by that term...

And here I thought aligning financial incentives with social goals was supposed to be a GOOD use of economic theory.

[mere mortal]

Professor Delong asks precisely the correct question. The answer, however, is almost certainly stupifying.

The only plausible explanation of an editor even provisionally inventing quotes for a news article would be a culture of news writing that allows editors to direct reporters, after the article is submitted, to fish for quotes that serve a pre-decided storyline.

Making the New York Times news section less of a circus and more of a stage show. Whether that is more or less disturbing is left as an exercise for the reader.

- mere mortal

[J Thomas]

Is this believable?

An editor invented the quotes?

I guess it's believable, but shouldn't they fire the editor if it's true?

What's more believable is that the officer really did say precisely that but perhaps not for quotation, and they got confused about what was OK to put in print, and settled on this story as a way out.

Still lying, but how should they handle it?

[Brad DeLong]

Nope. Phil Carter wrote the piece, and sent it in. There was no "interview"...

[J Thomas]

Oops! How could that happen?

OK, next possibility. Maybe it was a parody, the editor was inserting little sotto voce comments as a joke for other editors to read, with no intention that the parody would get published.

Some bloggers do this sort of thing, of course getting the actual quotes clear.

"Although the Army recruited its quota for June,"

By changing the quota down to what they recruited,

"it will probably miss its target for the year."

Probably. Heh heh. He said 'probably'.

"Retention is going fairly well, thanks in part to re-enlistment incentives that are tax-free when a soldier re-ups in a combat zone."

Show me the money.

"The Army has also cycled through hundreds of thousands of reservists and deployed emergency personnel policies like “stop loss” to man its units."

Imagine my surprise the other day when I got my call-up orders.

I dunno. If it wasn't a parody, what possible explanation could there be? The Times pays editors to insert fake quotes and remove them? Makes no sense.