Martin A. Grove at the Hollywood Reporter chronicles the manipulation of events that led to Michael Moore’s film making it onto the pages of the New York Times, and from there through the world press, and to Cannes.

The “Fahrenheit” fracas first broke on the front page of The New York Times in a story with a Washington, D.C. dateline. Typically, stories about movies are covered from Los Angeles or New York, so the fact that this one was being reported on from Washington immediately suggested its origin was atypical. Its headline packed a powerful take-no-prisoners punch: “Disney Is Blocking Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush.” Whoever planted the story with the Times’ Washington bureau had a political agenda in mind beyond wanting to secure a movie distribution deal.

You think they might have checked their facts before running with a story supplied by the agent of a well known political flacktivist. But some stories are too juicy to pass up, and fact checking might deflate the balloon of enthusiasm. Instead, the Times followed this up with an editorial titled Disney’s Craven Behavior”.

Moore’s reference to the Times’ article on his Web site wound up being cited later on by AFP (and, presumably, by other media outlets around the world) without mentioning that Moore’s own agent was the person the Times had quoted about those claimed Florida tax breaks for Disney that would be supposedly be endangered if Disney dared to let Miramax release “Fahrenheit.”
After the Times’ article appeared, Florida officials denied that Disney was receiving any tax breaks from the state. In an Associated Press story May 5 Gov. Bush was quoted as saying, “What tax break? We don’t give tax breaks that I’m aware of to Disney. I appreciate the fact that Disney creates thousands and thousands of jobs in our state.” In another AP story the same day Eisner was quoted as stating, “None of that (Florida tax breaks) was ever discussed. It is totally not true.”
Nonetheless, in stories written over the course of the past few weeks journalists have continued to refer to those so-called Florida tax breaks as if there’s no question at all about them being reality. Indeed, without the tax breaks issue the whole argument falls apart as to why Disney didn’t, in Moore’s view, want to let Miramax release his movie. The importance of this issue was hammered home in a Times’ May 6 editorial attacking Disney. Under the headline “Disney’s Craven Behavior,” the Times said the company deserved “a gold medal for cowardice for blocking” the film’s distribution by Miramax. It then went on to say: “Mr. Moore’s agent said that Michael Eisner, Disney’s chief executive, had expressed concern that the film might jeopardize tax breaks granted to Disney for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Jeb Bush is governor. If that is the reason for Disney’s move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies.”

Perhaps the NYT should just start a “Mea Culpa” page to compliment their corrections column. “Correction” isn’t really the right word for what they’ve been up to lately – the word implies an honest error, and these aren’t honest errors.
“Agenda-mongering” seems more appropriate.

I was planning to write on the recent New York Times faux “correction”, but Paul has done a fine job.

The Times, like many in the media, made numerous mistakes in its coverage of Iraq. Perhaps the most (in)famous of all was the series of “Strategic Pause” stories. The stories, which ran only a few days after the start of the war, claimed that American forces were bogged down in Iraq and were forced to pause for a few weeks to regroup. “The war plan had failed” was a favorite quote of the day. Apparently the Pentagon missed the stories because just 2 weeks later, Iraqis were dancing in the streets and pulling down statues of Saddam as American tanks rolled thru Baghdad. The Times never did explain how it blew that story.
The fall of Baghdad lead to perhaps the second biggest gaff of the Iraq war reporting- that the Baghdad museum had been looted. The Times breathlessly reported that the museum had 170,000 items looted or destroyed. They also reported that the administration failed to put guards at the museum but had placed guards at the Oil Ministry’s office. None of those stories were true.

Nope. What the Times decided to “correct” was its reporting on evidence of weapons of mass destruction – information provided by Iraqi defectors and the Bush Administration. In fact, it’s not a correction at all, but an transparent attempt to focus blame – “They lied to us, and we fell for it. We won’t let that happen again!”
In keeping with the tone and quality of the piece, they can’t even get the facts straight now. Look at this;

The informant also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons to Syria and had been cooperating with al-Qaida — two claims that were then, and remain, highly controversial. But the tone of the article suggested that this Iraqi “scientist” — who in a later article described himself as an official of military intelligence — had provided the justification the Americans had been seeking for the invasion.

A full year and a half into this exercise, and the editors at the New York Times still haven’t heard of UN Resolution 1441, which mandated Iraq to prove it had destroyed known weapons stocks. No proof that they existed was necessary. Not a single defector, not a single spy plane photograph was required to “justify” anything. The “justification” was contained in the wording of the resolution.
That some member countries of the UN Security Council, now found to have been profiting from illegal kickback schemes in the Oil-For-Food program, refused to participate in military action, and efforts were made to demonstrate that Iraq was not only not complying, but continuing a clandestine operation, was merely tangential to that resolution.
The resolution is here.
But, hey – let’s take the Times at their word. Write the ombudsman, Daniel Orkent – demand they put their money where their correction is, and fire those editors responsible.
update

Stephen Den Beste examines some recent examples of biased reporting by the AP. More here on “reconstructed” quotes being used by the Globe and Mail (BellGlobe), NYT, Reuters, The Guardian…
To those, I add this. CTV’s National News trailers of last night mentioned the Bush speech. About halfway down the newscast, they got around to footage of Bush approaching the podium…. a few shots of the crowd.. and then … a clip of a single sentence.
Begin voiceover:
Cut to photos of naked prisoner in Abu Graihb.
Cut to Alan Freyer in Washington and his “analysis”.
Cut to interview with someone from the Brookings Institute
Cut to Janis Mackey Frayer in Baghdad. Is that Baghdad? Same backdrop every day.
Cut to film footage of “wedding party”. No coverage of the contradictory evidence.
Cut to interviews with unnamed Iraqis.
Cut to footage of burning car in Baghdad.

Turns out, the speech “coverage” really wasn’t coverage at all – just another excuse to recycle past negative events and political criticism. We heard reporter analysis of Bush’s poll fortunes, assertions that Iraqis are ovewhelming opposed to “the occupation”, were informed of the unstable security situation. Who knew? The razing of Abu Graihb was mentioned in passing.
It’s like this, night after night, and has been since the first days of the war. – and this is the network we turn to in order to escape CBC bias?
Well, this to Lloyd Robertson, Alan Freyer and Janis Makey Frayer: if this is the best you can do, if this is indicative of the level of respect you hold for the intelligence of your viewers, if you can think of nothing better than to replace the content of a speech made yesterday in Pennsylvania with the opinions of your Washington bureau chief, and 6 month old photos from a prison in Iraq, then thanks – but no thanks. You promised you would cover the speech, and when I gave you the chance to follow through on that, you didn’t. You wasted the opportunity code-talking to Canadians about what you think about Iraq.
So, I shall simply go read it for myself. I do not require your opinions about what it says, or what you think it says. I will form those on my own.
But unlike years past, I do not need you, Lloyd Robertson, Alan Freyer or Bell Globe Media. In fact, following is more information about the speech, and about the future plan for Iraq than you have provided in the past month. And I have provided it to my readers.

There are five steps in our plan to help Iraq achieve democracy and freedom: We will hand over authority to a sovereign Iraqi government; help establish security; continue rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure; encourage more international support; and move toward a national election that will bring forward new leaders empowered by the Iraqi people.
The first of these steps will occur next month, when our coalition will transfer full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens who will prepare the way for national elections.
On June 30th, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist and will not be replaced. The occupation will end and Iraqis will govern their own affairs.
America’s ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, will present his credentials to the new president of Iraq. Our embassy in Baghdad will have the same purpose as any other American embassy: to assure good relations with a sovereign nation.
America and other countries will continue to provide technical experts to help Iraq’s ministries of government, but these ministries will report to Iraq’s new prime minister.
The United Nations special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, is now consulting with a broad spectrum of Iraqis to determine the composition of this interim government. The special envoy intends to put forward the names of interim government officials this week.
In addition to a president, two vice presidents and a prime minister, 26 Iraqi ministers will oversee government departments from health to justice to defense. This new government will be advised by a national council which will be chosen in July by Iraqis representing their country’s diversity.
This interim government will exercise full sovereignty until national elections are held.

Now, did you read my opinion? Did I rewrite it for you? See any prison photos or burning cars?
No? Is that so hard?
Outside The Beltway has aroundup of links about the speech and reactions.

Paul at Wizbang offers a solution for the lack of diversity in the media, that should make any liberal feel warm and fuzzy inside.
I wonder what a survey of Canadian news outlets would reveal?