consortiumnews.com
NYT Admits Getting Duped on ACORN
By Robert Parry
March 21, 2010
The New York Times admits, sort of, that it got duped by right-wing propagandists who appear to have succeeded in a plot to destroy ACORN, an organization that for four decades has aided and defended the poor and powerless across the United States.
In an op-ed column Sunday, the Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt said he has reviewed the available information and concluded that some key points of the right-wing presentation were false or misleading, including the claim that right-wing media activist James O’Keefe showed up at ACORN offices dressed in a pimp costume before getting legal advice on setting up a brothel.
“O’Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume — fur coat, goggle-like sunglasses, walking stick and broad-brimmed hat — in which he appeared at the beginning and end of most of his videos,” Hoyt wrote, adding that the Times was considering a correction regarding its earlier reporting that reflected this misleading point.
<snip>
However, Hoyt, who earlier had chastised the Times for not jumping on the ACORN scandal faster, insisted that criticism of ACORN employees for not objecting to the apparent illegality of O’Keefe’s other fictitious schemes was still legitimate.
Hoyt said the ACORN workers should have protested any plans regarding a brothel, noting that one ACORN worker blithely warned, “Don’t get caught, ‘cause it is against the law.”
In other words, Hoyt isn’t ready to admit that he joined the Times in a rush to judgment and thus helped destroy ACORN, which has seen its funding dry up, has shuttered many of its offices, and is expected to file for bankruptcy soon.
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http://consortiumnews.com/2010/032110.html
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