NYT's Responds To Criticism Of Piece Slamming Edwards

[cal04]

As you know, on Friday we yelled and stamped our feet about a huge front page piece in The New York Times that reported that John Edwards' anti-poverty organization was created with the express purpose of building a "bridge" to his 2008 Presidential candidacy.

The Edwards campaign told us that the Times had taken a pass on speaking to beneficaries of the programs. So we asked both reporter Leslie Wayne and a Times spokesperson for a response.

Well, now we've received one. Times spokesperson Abbe Serphos has emailed us the following:

We gave the Edwards camp ample opportunity to respond, and we quoted their full response in the article.

The article focused on the activities of the Center for Promise and Opportunity, and how that benefited Mr. Edwards; it did not focus on the sister charity that provided the scholarship money. In fact, when it did mention that sister charity, it cast it in only a positive light, and noted how much it had given out in scholarships.

(snip)
But in our view, the piece nonetheless is deeply flawed. And we're going to use this occasion to try to argue in a broader way as clearly as possile why we think The Times badly botched this.

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http://electioncentral.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2007/jun/24/new_york_times_responds_to_our_criticism_of_edwards_hit_piece

[LiberalEsto]

1. They fear Edwards the most

Edwards is the only one of the top 3 Dem contenders who isn't a total corporate ass-licker.

[1932]

2. They ran that article when they did for one reason -- to keep edwards's donations down before the

end of the reporting quarter.

They'll hope that they can run the story that people are losing interest in his campaign based on him raising less money than Obama and Clinton.

They had to rush that story out just as Edwards was in the key last stretch for fundraising for the quarter.

[Nikki Stone1]

3. Sounds right

Edwards is the one Dem (outside of Dennis) that I have any enthusiasm for.