Fox News Turns Kavanaugh Scandal into New York Times Attack

An article in the New York Times over the weekend contains a third allegation of sexual misconduct, previously undisclosed, against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The report was then updated to clarify that the new allegation was not as corroborated as readers of the first version of the story might have been led to believe. Fox News takes advantage of the review to rule out all allegations of sexual misconduct that Kavanaugh faces – and this, in a misleading way.

In the past 24 hours, Fox News hosts and reporters have described changes made to the story of Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly by the New York Times as a "fix" at least a dozen times. This great clip sequence illustrates how the network frames things:

But there is only one problem: the Times has not actually corrected anything.

Making a "correction" to a story indicates that something was wrong in the facts. The newspaper did not recognize anything like it. The Times story – based on a future book that Pogrebin and Kelly write about Kavanaugh's allegations – has been updated to indicate that the student's friends allegedly assaulted say she does not remember the alleged incident.

Here is the relevant passage from the Times room, with the bold clause in the second version:

We also discovered an unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his first year of study that echoes Ms. Ramirez's allegation. One of his classmates, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh drop the pants to another night in a drunken dorm, where friends had pushed his penis into the hand of a student. Stier, who heads a non-profit organization in Washington, warned senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier refused to discuss it publicly. We corroborated the story with two officials who contacted Mr. Stier; the student refused to be interviewed and her friends say that she does not remember the episode.

To be clear, the change is significant. If the student does not remember the episode, the accusation that Kavanaugh and others might have assaulted her is undoubtedly lower than if she 's l'. did. But contrary to what Fox News would have you believe, the Times story change does not prove that the alleged incident did not happen.

As stated in the excerpt above, one of Kavanaugh's classmates, Max Stier, claims to have witnessed the alleged misconduct and to have informed the FBI and the US Senators of his memories . The allegation is also consistent with another allegation of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh's classmate Deborah Ramirez, who appeared at Kavanaugh's SCOTUS confirmation process last year to accuse her. to have touched by her penis, prompting her to touch her inadvertently. at a drunk college party.

In addition, in a question-and-answer article criticizing the Times 'presentation of the story, James Dao, editor of the Times' editorial page, said Pogrebin and Kelly had corroborated Stier's claim "with two government officials." , who claimed to find it credible.

Fixing on the Times process has helped hide new information on existing claims

Ramirez's charge is the second allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh last year. This followed an allegation by Christine Blasey Ford shortly after Kavanaugh's appointment, accusing her of having sexually assaulted her at a party while they were both high school acquaintances in Maryland.

In the New York Times article adapted from their next book, Pogrebin and Kelly write that months of reporting told them that the accusations of Ford and Ramirez were credible. From their room:

However, even though we found Dr. Ford's allegations credible in a 10-month investigation, Ms. Ramirez's story could be further corroborated. During his appearance before the Senate, Mr. Kavanaugh said that if the incident described by Ms. Ramirez had occurred, it would have been "the speech on campus". Our reports suggest that it was so.

At least seven people, including Ms. Ramirez's mother, heard about the Yale incident long before Mr. Kavanaugh became a federal judge. Two of these people were classmates who had heard the news just days after the party, suggesting that it had been discussed between the students at the time.

The importance of this part of the Times has been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the review of the Times – a Pogrebin attributed during MSNBC's appearance to "the hurry of the editing process," Kelly adding that their book "had a much more complete context ". Fox News, however, has already turned the story into an opportunity to attack the New York Times in particular, and media outlets trying to hold Trump accountable in general.

On Tuesday morning, for example, Sandra Smith, host of Fox News, interviewed Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), mainly about the story of Kavanaugh. But instead of focusing on the substance of one of the allegations, Smith and Tillis teamed up to denigrate the New York Times, Tillis dismissing the story as "a new liberal media group," and Smith falsely calling it 'Corrected' and 'This has been the topic of discussion both in the day and in Fox News' award-winning broadcasts – to cite another example, Monday night, host Sean Hannity has accused the Times to have "deliberately misled" his readers, despite the fact that the Times did not retract his reports on the new allegation.

It should be noted that Fox News is not the only media to associate "correction" with clarification. And needless to say, the New York Times is responsible for not taking care to provide the full context of the allegation from the start. But the network is the most important voice among those who use the "editorial note" to cast doubt on all the allegations that Kavanaugh is facing – a tactic that has been taken up by the president himself. Fox News' handling of the situation shows how ready the network is to seize every opportunity to defend not only the president, but also his correspondents – even if his anchors must distort the facts to do so.

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