Times' treatment of Kavanaugh's story provokes many criticisms

Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court justice, was able to attract the attention of the two Conservatives who had long been defending Supreme Court justice and feminists who opposed its confirmation, who expressed their dismay at the newspaper's decisions. .

The Times revealed a new allegation of Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct while he was a student at Yale University in a Sunday Review article written by reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, co-authors of the new book, rather than through a traditional reportage. In addition, the authors omitted essential information – the fact that the alleged victim of the incident does not remember it – and the Times promoted the play with a shocking and deaf tweet.

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The three missteps prompted condemnation Monday across political boundaries, while the fallout from the Sunday Review's article overshadowed Tuesday's publication on the highly anticipated book, "The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation." ".

President Donald Trump seized Monday of a note from the editor attached to an article by Pogrebin and Kelly's to assert that Kavanaugh was in fact "attacked" by "lies and "false news! Republican Senator Ted Cruz tweeted "It's almost as if journalists, editors, publishers have a political agenda."

Rebecca Traister from New York magazine, leading voice on women's issues, wrote that the Times has mismanaged Kavanaugh's new report. "I'm sure someone at the Times still thinks that according to some bilateral indicators of objectivity to bullshit, it's a victory to make conservatives and feminists livid," he said. she tweeted. "It's really a weird ineptness."

The publishers of Top Times and the authors of the book have so far remained silent. Editor-in-chief Dean Baquet, editorial editor James Bennet and Kelly did not respond to requests for comment. Pogrebin and Jim Dao, the editor of the Sunday Review, forwarded the requests to the newspaper's public relations team.

The Times public relations team responded Sunday to two issues on Twitter, including a tweet from the Opinion section that was removed and removed. "Having a penis embedded in your face during an intoxicated party may seem like a safe amusement," reads the book. "But when Brett Kavanaugh did this to him," said Deborah Ramirez, "that confirmed that she did not belong to Yale."

"A tweet coming out of the @NYTOpinion account yesterday was clearly inappropriate and offensive," the Times said. m said. "We apologize and review the decision making with the people involved."

According to an insider familiar with the Times, Pogrebin reportedly wrote the offensive tweet, which should have been checked before it was published.

"It was really careless," said the insider about the general treatment of the newspaper. "There were some serious mistakes along the way."

The Times public relations team also answered questions about why an article presenting new reports on a controversial national issue was not considered a story, but rather a "news analysis". The Sunday Review section, he said, came from books produced by Times reporters. "

It seems that there is no absolute rule in the Times regarding the books of its journalists.

Last week, journalist Alexandra Alter wrote an article about the revelations of "She Said", a book by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, Times reporters who helped ignite the #MeToo movement by filing charges against Harvey Weinstein . Last month, the Times Sunday's business section published an excerpt from "Super Pumped," a book on Uber from Times reporter Mike Isaac.

Pogrebin and Kelly's play – "Brett Kavanaugh agrees with the privileged children. She did not do it. "- ran on the second page of Sunday Review and it took about 10 paragraphs before arriving at potentially explosive revelations.

Pogrebin and Kelly reported that at least seven people had heard of an incident in which Kavanaugh had put his penis in front of Ramirez, a former Yale classmate. (The New Yorker reported for the first time in September 2018 allegations of Ramirez, who was the second woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct after Christine Blasey Ford).

"We also discovered an unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his first year that echoes Ms. Ramirez's allegation," wrote Pogrebin and Kelly. "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, the CEO of the Nonpartisan Partnership for the Public Service, informed the senators and the FBI, but the agency refused to investigate, they reported.

Several Democratic presidential candidates responded to the Times' story with further criticism of Kavanaugh's confirmation, with some calling him on indictment. The Sunday Review article has been reviewed by others, including the author of a more favorable book on Kavauagh, which has taken a critical look at the Times reporters' account.

"NYT Reporters' essay on a second alleged incident at Yale omitted their own book, which completely downplays it: an alleged victim denies any recollection," tweeted Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of the curatorial news and opinion site The Federalist and co-author of "Justice on Trial: Kavanaugh's Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court".

"Journalistically indefensible," she added, "even if new and credulous journalists broadcast it of course.

The Times then affixed a note from the editor to Pogrebin and Kelly's text stating that "their book says that the student refused to be interviewed and that friends say she does not remember incident".

The newspaper's mistreatment of the new allegations seems to confirm the opinion of Kavanaugh's supporters that he had been ostracized by the media. National Review Editor Rich Lowry accused the Times of trying to "dirty" Kavanaugh.

"After more than a year of searches, Democrats and their media allies still have no substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct," he wrote.

Some find that the book has allowed the public to better understand the Kavanaugh controversy.

New York magazine's Sarah Jones, who read the book in advance, wrote that the Pogrebin and Kelly reports confirm many of the most serious concerns raised about Kavanaugh's ability to sit for life highest court in the country. admitted to be "really mystified by the fact that the NYT botched this excerpt from the book".