• RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    They are the “Newspaper of Record”.

    They can do some reporting and say:

    Vance Falsely Claims That Walz is Was Not a Master Seargeant

    • krellor@fedia.io
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      3 months ago

      What does their tagline have to do with their reporting guidelines?

      And sure, they could run a headline like that and it wouldn’t be editorializing so long as they actually verify the record of his rank. I suspect that they felt the more dramatic claim of abandoning his unit was the bigger story. Whether that is true or not, or the right decision, is a subjective call.

      • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It is not their tagline. They believe that they ARE the newspaper of record.

        They can figure out truth and say that instead of just repeating what they know to be lies.

        If they take themselves that seriously then they have a responsibility to do so.

        • krellor@fedia.io
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          3 months ago

          So interviewing Watz’s unit members and CO is just repeating lies?

          I mean, if you only want to read from sources that make decisions for you, you are free to do so. I value news organizations that report facts and context and let me make up my own mind.

          And many papers refer to themselves as papers of record. It is a term of art in the industry referring to breadth of circulation and independent editorial board. And it is precisely those editorial guidelines that prevent them from presenting one person’s claims against another as true verse false.

          • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            If, as in this case, the claims they are making are demonstrably false, then absolutely!!!

            If you know the claims are not true and present them as plausible, then YOU are lying even more than the person you are interviewing.

            You may not be able to prove their state of mind, but you know your own.

            • krellor@fedia.io
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              3 months ago

              Did you read the NYT article in question?

              The NYT interviewed members from the unit who corroborated Watz’s claim that he decided to run for Congress before deployment orders came through. The leg work I’ve described in this thread was presenting an account of events that contradicted Vance’s claim that he intentionally avoided deployment.

              I’m absolutely baffled by some of the responses I’ve gotten, lol.

              • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Maybe I completely misread your position. My point is that given what they know, having a headline that gives credence to the claim is irresponsible.

                • krellor@fedia.io
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                  3 months ago

                  My very first comment was in reply to someone who called the NYT headline a lie, and I said that just isn’t true. Subsequently, I said that I think reasonable people can disagree about the quality of the headline, but it was factually correct. I e., the headline is that Vance made a claim, which is objectively true. Then, in the body of the article, they share quotes from interviews with Watz’s former unit members that refute Vance’s claim.

                  I don’t know know why or how NYT chooses the exact composition of their headlines or what aspects of a story to highlight, but personally as a regular times reader and subscriber, I didn’t read the headline as giving credence to Vance, and found the article very strongly supportive of Watz’s position.

                  But barring something like a released federal record showing a request for out processing, it still boils down to statements of individuals, which is probably why the times doesn’t directly refute Vance’s claim as false, and instead leans on interviews from the unit and other circumstantial details to refute the claim, because they haven’t had time to authoritatively establish that. They often circle back to such things once they have had a chance to do so, and include it in summary fact checks throughout the political cycle.