The New York Times didn't bother to verify the authenticity of an emailed letter it received, purportedly from the mayor of Paris, France, and went ahead and published the contents anyway.
The email criticized Caroline Kennedy for seeking the US Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton. "We French can only see a dynastic move of the vanishing Kennedy clan in the very country of the Bill of Rights. It is both surprising and appalling," the email said. The author supposedly was Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe (pictured).
A sharp-eyed editor of a Franco-American website discovered the hoax, thinking the wording sounded out of place for a mayor of the French capital city.
Delanoe's office pronounced the letter a forgery. "We have asked the New York Times for a denial and an apology," a spokeswoman tells the Associated Press. "Clearly, this was never sent by Bertrand Delanoe."
The Times is not entertaining questions from reporters, preferring to control the bad news by referring journalists to the paper's website for a pre-packaged explanation.
The steadily declining journalistic standards of New York Times editors account for the mistake. The paper received the unsolicited email, purportedly from Delanoe, accepted it for publication, edited it, sent the edited version back to the sender, "and did not hear back," the paper said, according to AP. Editors went ahead and printed it anyway.
Here's what the Times posted today on the "Opinion" section of its website under the heading "Editor's Note": "Earlier this morning, we posted a letter that carried the name of Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, sharply criticizing Caroline Kennedy. This letter was a fake. It should not have been published."
"We are reviewing our procedures for verifying letters to avoid such an incident in the future." Let's count the many more ways the Times allows its readers to be spoofed.
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