UPDATED: New York Times Finally Corrects Botched Front-Pager on Gitmo Prisoners 'Returning to Jihad'

It was all-too-familiar for those who recall the run-up to the Iraq war when scary front-page New York Times stories would be cited by Dick Cheney as proof that we needed to oust Saddam Hussein ASAP. The reminder: A May 21 piece by Elisabeth Bumiller revealing that a not-yet-released Pentagon report declared that 1 in 7 prisoners released from Gitmo had returned to waging "jihad." Today, the Times, finally issued a weighty Editors' Note correcting some of the article's key assertions, long after bloggers and others (myself included) had attacked it.

No, it's not as terrible as missing the WMD story, but serious in any case.

UPDATE: The paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, hits the handling of the story on Sunday, here.

First, the Times correction:

A front-page article and headline on May 21 reported findings from an unreleased Pentagon report about prisoners who have been transferred abroad from the American detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The article said that the Pentagon had found about one in seven of former Guantánamo prisoners had "returned to terrorism or other militant activity," or as the headline put it, had "rejoined jihad."

Those phrases accepted a premise of the report that all the former prisoners had been engaged in terrorism before their detention. Because that premise remains unproved, the day the article appeared in the newspaper, editors changed the headline and the first paragraph on the Times Web site to refer to prisoners the report said had engaged in terrorism or militant activity since their release.

The article and headline also conflated two categories of former prisoners. In the Pentagon report, 27 former Guantánamo prisoners were described as having been confirmed as engaging in terrorism, with another 47 suspected of doing so without substantiation. The article should have distinguished between the two categories, to say that about one in 20 of former Guantánamo prisoners described in the Pentagon report were now said to be engaging in terrorism. (The larger share -- about one in seven --applies to the total number described in the report as confirmed or suspected of engaging in terrorism.)

Now here's what Cheney said the day after the story was published at the American Enterprise Institute. As with the Iraq run-up stories, he took the Times' questionable facts and exaggerated them:

Keep in mind that these are hardened terrorists picked up overseas since 9/11. The ones that were considered low-risk were released a long time ago. And among these, we learned yesterday, many were treated too leniently, because 1 in 7 cut a straight path back to their prior line of work and have conducted murderous attacks in the Middle East. I think the President will find, upon reflection, that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come...

As often the case, it was McClatchy's Washington bureau, which four days later (after bloggers and others on the Web spoke) started to lead the mainstream truth-squading. Even the correction today does not fess up to other weaknesses in the story. But again, the original article, as the Times admitted today, was botched from the start -- with its original headline.

And it was no small matter. Right in its second paragraph it had declared: "The conclusion could strengthen the arguments of critics who have warned against the transfer or release of any more detainees as part of President Obama's plan to shut down the prison by January."

Greg Mitchell is editor of Editor & Publsiher. His latest book is "Why Obama Won."

Comments

[larry278]

Damn, I think that I would have missed the comments HP posts re: the NYT if the NYT had folded on 6/1/09.

[johnie2xs]

Yeah!!! And this is the LIBERAL press????

Who needs a right wing think tank, when a NYT headline will give you all the talking points they need.

[Scarlet Fire90]

Maybe it was all just a case of "Judith Mller Syndrome?"

[marley22]

I dont' know what to make of both the Left and the Right bashing the NYT. The Times has stated this as proof that they're doing their job right (correctly).

They're ownership and editorial board definitely leans left; I just think it's they're a terribly sloppy org.

[alexa07]

Misrepresentation or lie? The NYT is one of the vampires in the US corporate media that seeks to foist upon the American people its ideologies about the Middle East, mainly that we have nothing but hostility to any number of Arab, Muslim countries & hew to the line that only the Israelis have the right to security, economic well-being, all other privileges to the degradation of all others who live there too.

[sviolette]

I think The New York Times will print anything they think will sell one more newspaper. That is all that is important to them. It sure isn't the truth that drives them.

[ibsteve2u]

The hysterical thing to me is that Israel turns to America's right - the right...th­e right - to secure themselves.

I'm not religious, Israel, at all...so believe me when I say "I swear to God please do not trust America's right - cuz their concept of honor is bound by money"

Better to trust America's regular folks, who do the right thing 'cuz its the right thing to do.

[PrinceHal]

Thanks, Greg, but even you are too easy on the Times here -- first, because the original Times sin is a good deal more extreme than billed. And second, because the Times "correction" is so careful to avoid admitting what went wrong in the first place. Thus it dances all the way around much more than half the story, leaving Tricky Dick Cheney standing all smiles in a wide, dry, sunny place, presumably with his lovely daughter by his side.

In other words, the editors fail even to clarify "what we got wrong" --- which effectively prevents them or the Times from actually apologizing. How can the paper even stand corrected if it won't spell out, in full, the entire foul-up it's half-heartedly pretending to bring out of the shadows two weeks after it hit print?

[antikakistocrat]

As a former Timesman, now blissfully retired from a disappearing act, I've got to wonder if someone in authority there has thought to investigate how these things happen? As George W. Bush once memorably attempted to say, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Having been "fooled" on the Iraq non-intelligence, the newspaper of record might be expected install a distant early warning line against another such "fooling." Did it? If not, why not? If so, what went wrong?

[MacGregor57]

The NYT should print it like it matters, or, has Rupert Murdoch purchased it as well?

[Bernique]

Thank you, Greg Mitchell, for your dogged work for truth.

[bejugo]

Either some of these journalists at the NYT are partisan hacks, paid off, or they just have horrible math skills. This sounds like an example from Paulos' "Innumeracy": a good read.

[bascombe]

they cannot be journalists AND partisan hacks. they are just hacks.

[racom]

Great, now that they have finally nailed that correction maybe they can spend some time on judith miller reports. That will keep them busy for about 5 years.

[LTBROWN]

Let's not hold our breath. lol

[whitehawk]

Why did the NYT's give Cheney so much credence? This is utter nonsense. Him and his daughter finding out more information than the CIA could before they went to War. Seem likely? NO%T!! This is the inflaming of all political viewpoints around the World. Cheney should be jailed until his trial. He deliberately put all those troops in danger for his own excuse for 9/11. It's shameful.

What else, other than the War in Iraq is Bush/Cheney about? They tortured, raped, killed muslims...­.he's looking for a medal, honest to God!! But, that is all they have done. North Korea left behind, Afghanista­n...left behind, The murder in America he has left behind, What else have they done in 8 yrs??????? Nothing but Iraq. Pretty ugly record, wasn't even legal and many terrorists created from his bluster, threats and malignant cancer breading throughout the entire administration. They only wanted and only got Iraq settled down, not even close to finishing. That is part of why they are incompetent.

[simplify]

The crap is already out of the bag

[justsomeguywhocameby]

eeeeeeewwwww what is this stuff?

[caferide]

Keith Olbermann of Countdown on MSNBC interviewed a professor several times who had done an in-depth study of every single figure the Pentagon had released over the years for supposed recidivist terrorists who had left Gitmo and allegedly returned to the battlefield. It was almost ridiculous how many different numbers they gave and the wild, almost non-sensical swings they supposedly showed. For instance, the Pentagon would list the number as 3 one month, 18 the next month, 33 the next month, and then 5 the following month. There never seemed to be any pattern or logic to the numbers given. The only logical conclusion that one could reach was that they were either lying or they just didn't know. Why is this important? Because Dick Cheney and others STILL try to use these numbers as evidence to justify their illegal torture.

[littleolwinemakerme]

Last week's "Time" Magazine stated the same figures as fact.