New York Times Violates (At Least) Ten Commandments of Journalism in Reporting Charlton Heston's Death

So Charlton Heston, actor & gun-lover, died on Saturday night. The New York Times ran his obituary on Sunday, and since has had to issue a string of corrections that are so ridiculous that they make one wonder who on earth is driving the bus over there.

This ran today:

An obituary in some editions on Sunday and in some copies on Monday about the actor Charlton Heston misstated his given name at birth. It was John Charles Carter, not Charlton Carter. The obituary also referred incorrectly to the character played by Orson Welles in the film "Touch of Evil," in which Mr. Heston had a starring role. The character, Quinlan, is a police captain, not a sheriff. And a list of Mr. Heston's films accompanying the obituary on Monday misstated the relationship between two characters in the film "Midway," in which Mr. Heston played a Naval officer. The characters, the officer's son and a woman of Japanese descent, are hoping to marry; they are not already married.

They misstated his name?

This is in addition to what ran shortly after the obit was published:

A front-page obituary and a headline in some editions on Sunday about the actor Charlton Heston misstated his age and the year of his birth. He was 84, not 83, and was born in 1923, not 1924.

Evidently Heston may have been lying about his age, but that's really where the crack reporting force at the Times might have done a touch of sleuthing. Or fact-checking.

Obituaries of people of this stature are, as we all know by now, written years in advance, and updated periodically. And with every draft and update comes editing. I don't know how far in advance this obit was written or how many times it was rewritten or appended or the lede was changed or whatever, but it was probably at least five times, if not more. (The guy had cancer in 1999, and in 2002 he "announced that he had received a diagnosis of neurological symptoms 'consistent with Alzheimer's disease.'") And somehow in all of those edits, plus the certain re-editing before Sunday's publication, they got his name and birthdate wrong, as well as numerous details about the films he was in?

I tend to believe the Times when they report the news, and certainly I don't feel personally offended by the baffling inaccuracies in this obit. But, as a reader of the paper, as well as a writer, I wonder about the priorities of the Times' newsroom. Were the writers more concerned with style than accuracy, leaving it to editors to check his work? Do editors think checking facts is beneath them? Did copy editors have no time to read over a 2,400-word piece?

There's a pathetic irony in the kicker for the piece:

"You never get it right," he said in a 1986 interview. "Never once was it the way I imagined it lying awake at 4 o'clock in the morning thinking about it the next day." His goal remained, he said, "to get it right one time.'"

 

 

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Comments

[ibivi]

Many newspapers have elminiated their fact-checkers. They also allow postings to go up directly from the writer without editing. The NYT has always had good obits but even that is showing neglect. Don't forget they announced that 300 people would lose their jobs because of reduced profits. It shows.

[daddymak]

Remember Charlton Heston for who he was and not who he became. Charlton Heston was once a strong liberal Democrat who championed civil rights. He was one of the first Hollywood entertainers who was not white to speak out against racism. He marched with Martin Luther King on many freedom marches down south and spoke in 1963 in Washington DC. He was a strong supporter of Adlai Stevenson, John F Kennedy, Robert Kenedy, and Lyndon Baines Johnson. Let it also be known that he served his country admirably with the United States Air Force. Unfortunately, he drifted to the right during the Carter administration and eventually switched parties and did a 360 in his man political views, but let us salute his contributions to civil rights and equality and forget the political faults that buoyed the last 20 or so years of his life.

[MelissaKirsch]

My post is about the Times, not about Heston, but I find it difficult to "salute his contributions to civil rights and equality and forget the political faults that buoyed the last 20 or so years of his life." I haven't fact-checked his lefty credentials (I choose to take the Times' lead on that practice), but a legacy is comprised of an entire lifetime. And 20 years is a large chunk of someone's life to handily discount.

[superlive]

If Heston had done a 360 he would have ended up as a Democrat once more. You mean he did a 180. However, his stand on environmental issues never wavered from the time he starred in Soylent Green to his time leading the NRA.

I know there's a joke about population control in there somewhere.

[DJCoach]

All the news that's not fit to print...
Your article is eye-opening and your title's brilliant!

[Dianora]

I'm surprised the obit wasn't written by Alessandra Stanley -- she's the queen of corrections appended.

[Screengem]

Excellent issue to raise. Now that The NYTimes' credibility is shot over the Miller/Iraq scandal, why not question the accuracy of the NYT obituary "last word?" The John Gotti obit, e.g., was disgusting in its obsequiousness and wrong in so many ways. These people have presumed too much and we have accorded them far too much credibility. Let them earn the respect they have squandered, if they can.
Too much charity has been accorded to the "wrong" people; basta! Unpack that as you please.

[larry278]

This blog makes the case that the NYT no loger is a newspaper of record. When a paper can't bother to make sure its obits are correct before it prints an obit it show that both its writing & editing is abomably weak. While HP, Google News & others use stories from the NYT that doesn't mean that the NYT is a newspaper of record any more.
larry lynch

[MelissaKirsch]

I didn't say the NYT is no longer the paper of record. I'm surprised that the paper of record would have made such gaffes, but I do not dispute their singularity or overall prominence.