[caseysoftware]

None of that absolves the NYT from checking sources and attempting to determine the credibility. This is journalistic malpractice.

If we excuse a "news" organization from fact checking because "well, I've heard stories along those lines" we're screwed.. because where will most people hear those stories? The same organizations.

[awakeasleep]

Whether the statements are true or not is what the journalists should care about, and what they did, in this article.

You’ll notice that Carney never disputes the truth of the claims. He only attacks the character of the people who made them- or adds related but not contradictory details. Overall, side issues not actually related to the substance of the claims themselves.

[caseysoftware]

Personally, I suspect the claims are 100% true.

The point is that "journalists" have ethical guidelines they have to follow. Failure to do so compromises themselves and their profession. It leads to the defense and promotion of "fake but accurate" articles that tell a great story but risk being just that.. stories.

It's the equivalent of asking Hillary Clinton's opinion of Donald Trump. She may be 100% accurate in her assessment but she is not neutral or impartial.

[romaniv]

Whether the statements are true or not is what the journalists should care about

This is a very naive view of journalism. It is trivial to do horrible, biased reporting while printing statements that are factually true or not falsifiable. In fact, that is how most of the biased articles are constructed these days. In the age of the Internet you can't get away with outright lies. The tool of trade are mission, misrepresentation, manufactured context, selective citation, cherrypiked expert opinions and so on.

[fluidcruft]

You may see it that way. I didn't actually see any egregious failure of NYT "fact checking" in that victimization post spewed by Amazon PR yesterday. Just Amazon attempting a PR slight of hand. And of course Bezos owns WP, so attacking NYT credibility fits his playbook nicely.

[cryoshon]

Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For the most part, mainstream media organizations are not really "checking sources" so much as presenting a coherent narrative that their advertisers want propagated.

I don't doubt that the original anti-Amazon article was a hit piece that was commissioned. That doesn't make its claims false, however.

[caseysoftware]

If it was a commissioned hit piece, that makes it even worse.

We have a "news" organization doing opposition research, calling it investigative "journalism", and then the editor defending their process and integrity without an appropriate disclosure.

I sincerely hope that isn't the case. I could see the FTC getting involved if it was.

[cryoshon]

That's exactly the way the PR engines work these days, though.

You pay for a column to advertise for your company, you get your column. You pay for a column to criticize your competitor, you get your column. You pay for columns to introduce new concepts that your company will use in the future so that the public has been primed for what you're going to put out there. All of the major companies do these things in order to stay in the public consciousness, and stay favorable.

Sure, these columns will admit "alternative viewpoints" in passing to maintain their veneer of credibility, but that's no threat to their actual purpose. The editor is going to defend their process and integrity until he is fired-- and firing him would represent a concession that mistakes were made. This spat with Amazon is good for the NYT, as it proves that they're willing to "stand up for themselves", which is the perfect trait for a proxy to have when you're paying them to go after the other guy.