Host of 'The Daily' Clouds 'N.Y. Times' Effort To Restore Trust After 'Caliphate' December 24, 20205:01 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition - David Folkenflik
NPR
Late last week, The New York Times issued one of its biggest mea culpas in years. The nation's leading newspaper returned a Peabody award and a citation as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize after retracting the core of its hit podcast series Caliphate.
In seeking to restore faith in its journalism, however, The Times may have demonstrated the persistence of some of the problems at the heart of this scandal. The paper's top editor participated in a podcast to help correct the record and to say, as he put it, "we got it wrong."
Yet The Times' 30-minute corrective podcast was hosted by its leading audio star, who was, away from the microphone, simultaneously doing damage control on a controversy that proved close to home. ...
Caliphate made its debut in spring of 2018. It explored ISIS and the lure and threat of terrorism, driven by host Rukmini Callimachi, a much-celebrated Times reporter. It focused greatly on a young-Canadian-Pakistani, Shehroze Chaudhry, who claimed to have been an executioner for ISIS in Syria. The Caliphate team made him the main character in the series, despite clear signs he was lying.
This fall, Canadian authorities filed federal charges saying Chaudhry had lied about being an ISIS executioner. The ensuing front-page treatment from Mazzetti and his colleagues found no evidence Chaudhry killed anyone, joined ISIS or even ever traveled to Syria.
In other words, the narrative propelling Caliphate collapsed. ...
Full storyJames O'Keefe notes on Twitter:
James O'Keefe @JamesOKeefeIII
NYT issuing massive retraction, returning Peabody, Pulitzer citation after admitting to making it all up
Never forget Journalists settle lawsuits and issue retractions all the time. They accuse citizens of doing what they always do!
This one is a doozy!
10:09 AM · Dec 25, 2020·
