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Times Watch for 9/27/02
NY Times Prods Hate U.S. Comments?
A story too good to be true? A New York Times reporter prodded an Arab-American store owner to say he hates America?
In his “Best of the Web” column for OpinionJournal.com, James Taranto caught an item in this week’s New York Press in a listing of “bests,” as in “Best Pickup Joint” and “Best Annoying Form of Transportation.” Under the heading of “Best Harassment of an Arab in the Wake of 9/11,” the Press related in the unbylined “Manhattan Living” column:
“He’s a nice guy who doesn’t want any trouble, so we won’t name names. But we’ll take a polygraph if anybody questions this story’s truthfulness:
"It’s two weeks after the World Trade Center massacre, and we’re visiting our favorite pita place in the former shadows of the WTC. Maybe we’re gullible enough to think that we’re showing support for a local Arab-American. We ask if he’s had any kind of harassment.
“'There was this one woman,’ he explained, 'who came in from The New York Times. She kept telling me that she understood if I hated America. I finally told her not to come back until she wanted to write about my business.’"
That’s online at: http://www.nypress.com/15/39/news&columns/manliving.cfm
Taranto suggested: “The story sounds too good to be true.”
Yes, but I’m afraid it also sounds all too much like the attitude of a journalist trying to get an interviewee to say something quotable.
-- Brent Baker
E-mail Times Watch Director, Clay Waters, with Times Watch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org