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  Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?
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Last EditedRP  Jan 12, 2012 03:01pm
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CategoryEditorial
AuthorARTHUR S. BRISBANE
News DateThursday, January 12, 2012 03:30:00 PM UTC0:0
DescriptionI’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.

That approach is what one reader was getting at in a recent message to the public editor. He wrote:

My question is what role the paper’s hard-news coverage should play with regard to false statements – by candidates or by others. In general, the Times sets its documentation of falsehoods in articles apart from its primary coverage. If the newspaper’s overarching goal is truth, oughtn’t the truth be embedded in its principal stories? In other words, if a candidate repeatedly utters an outright falsehood (I leave aside ambiguous implications), shouldn’t the Times’s coverage nail it right at the point where the article quotes it?

This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. They worry less about reporters imposing their judgment on what is false and what is true.
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