NY Times removes key language helpful to Kavanaugh from article about Yale accuser Ramirez
Gone from Times Sept 24 article: “Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.”
On Sunday night, September 23, 2018, The New Yorker published an article about accusations by Deborah Ramirez, a former Yale classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The authors were Ronan Farrow and Jane Meyer.
The New Yorker article noted, deep into the article, that Ramirez’s accusations were not corroborated by any witnesses with first hand knowledge, and that Ramirez herself had gaps in memory that were cleared up only after 6 days of thinking about it and consulting with lawyers.
The NY Times covered the story, and had language in its September 23 about Ford testifying that was extremely helpful to Kavanaugh’s defense. The language was added in an evening edit.
Specifically that the Times could not corroborate the story AND that Ramirez had been calling people telling them she was uncertain Kavanaugh was involved in the alleged incident (emphasis added):
“The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.”
This language was repeated in a September 24 article at the Times, but has been removed (see below). Now the NY Times has rewritten the September 24 story to take out that language, and to explicitly argue that the information does not rebut Ramirez’s claim.
Michael Smerconish tweeted about it:
“Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the episode and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.” Why is this sentence now gone from this @nytimes story? https://t.co/ufSehglkTm
— Michael Smerconish (@smerconish) September 25, 2018
I confirmed it on NewsDiff, a website that tracks changes in major newspaper articles.
The full NewDiff page for the September 24 article is here.
The edit appears to have been made last night, after a back and forth between the Times and the New Yorker reporters.
Some trying to distract from Ramirez charge by trying to pit @NewYorker v. @NYTimes but here's what NYTEditor Dean Baquet said, “I gather some people thought we were trying to knock down her (Ramirez') account, but that’s not what we were doing.I’m not questioning their story."
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) September 24, 2018
The article was rewritten including a headline change:
Here is a screenshot of the removed language in question:
The New York Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate Ms. Ramirez’s story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the episode and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.
Here is a screenshot of what replace it — basically NY Times making a political argument in what is supposed to be a news article.
For Republicans, the hearing and the women’s accusations are fraught with political dangers. In the #MeToo era, Republicans cannot afford to attack Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers. So they have instead trained their fire on Senate Democrats, accusing them of waging a campaign of character assassination, and on the news media — in particular The New Yorker. Many cited a Times article that said The Times had conducted numerous interviews but was unable to corroborate Ms. Ramirez’s story.
But The Times did not rebut her account and, unlike The New Yorker, was not able to obtain an interview with Ms. Ramirez.
The language in question does remain in a original article at The Times:
A tweet to the original author, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, has not been responded to:
.@SherylNYT Why did you change the language in the Kavanaugh article, removing the sentence that Ramirez told others she was uncertain, and making an argument (in a news article) that NYT reporting "did not rebut her account"? https://t.co/3meDuyXOs3 pic.twitter.com/cvhfd7EbQx
— Legal Insurrection (@LegInsurrection) September 25, 2018
Jane Meyer is quite happy with the change:
Thank you @NYTimes for today’s clarification: “The Times did not rebut her(Ramirez’s) account, and unlike the New Yorker, was unable to obtain an interview with Ms. Ramirez.”
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) September 25, 2018
(added) Sean Davis points out why the change is significant:
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1044599939043667968
The original September 23 paragraph was in an article about Ford testifying. The September 24 article, from which the paragraph was removed, is specifically about the accusations against Kavanaugh. And the substituted language injected an editorial opinion — that the Times reporting “did not rebut” Ramirez’s story — in place of the fact reporting harmful to that story.
[Note: This post has been updated to clarify the difference between the September 23 and September 24 NYT articles]
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Lapsed judgment, recovered memories, missing links. The stuff they were into must have been something wicked.
From Twitter, “Michael Avenatti @MichaelAvenatti
Attorney, Advocate, Fighter for Good” … prostitutes, porn star, extortionists & Me Too Liars.
What was Deborah Ramirez thing when she hooked up with Avenatti?
Most certainly deserving of being disbarred.
Jesus, people, it’s noxious enough when you included every jot & tittle of tweets after you already told us what they said, but now you are copying them TWICE. Shape and make your pieces readable.
“But The Times did not rebut her account and, unlike The New Yorker, was not able to obtain an interview with Ms. Ramirez.”
_________________
Ramirez rebutted her own account when she admitted to her classmates that she wasn’t sure Kavanaugh was the person who exposed himself to her.
And if you read the New Yorker account, Ramirez was so drunk at the time of the alleged incident that she wasn’t even sure then if what was in her face (when she was flat on her back drunk) was an actual penis, or the plastic “gag” penis that the students had been using during the drinking game.
As I commented yesterday – A drinking party with 10-12 people from the dorm, Someone running down the hall yelling that BK stuck is privates in carol’s face. Word travels fast in a college dorm.
Lawrance dorm at yale houses 200-300 students, so it is relatively small. I find it very difficult to believe that the RA/Ra’s did not hear about the incident and have some form of disciplanary report.
The best coroborating support for the story is one person who said it could have happened and one person who of a similar event but no knowledge of who did it.
There’s two main types of media bias: omission & commission. These are editorial decisions about what’s not chosen to pursue or publish, and what’s deemed publish worthy (I’ll refrain from the term ‘news worthy’).
Of course, how it’s written may classify it as liberal, technical, conservative, investigative, etc. All that is fair and reasonable.
Then there’s the NY Times – a ‘paper of record’ – that Andrew Klavan correctly identifies as a former newspaper.
It’s current form is truly pathetic. It’s an obvious Leftist propaganda outlet that, sadly, far too many people still take seriously because bias confirmation.
“…bias confirmation.”
Bias takes on three forms:
A) Unconscious bias – I am not aware of this bias but it exists
B) Conscious bias that I know is wrong – I hide this and I have to be careful so I do not get caught
C) Conscious bias that I think is right – think KKK, NYT, Nazis, ISIS.
Type “C” is dangerous as the proponents think they are on a mission from their god. Exposing their bias does nothing as they know they are biased but it is justified. They must be defeated. They really are an enemy of liberty and the USA.
According to one memory specialist in a continuing education class, the brain, over time deletes what it considers extraneous components to a memory, leaving only a core element of the memory left, and the holder of that memory to fill in the now missing extraneous details, however real or imaginary they may be. Sounds very much like what Ms Ramirez was doing here:[“Ramirez herself had gaps in memory that were cleared up only after 6 days of thinking about it and consulting with lawyers.”]
Oh, it’s worse than that. Read this line again:
Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.
So what is the *natural* instinct when somebody from 30+ years ago calls you and says something to the effect of “Do you remember that party we had in June of 89 over at Bob’s house where this other kid (fill in name of accusation)?”
By contacting the the ‘witnesses’ beforehand and priming their memories, she can filter out anybody who obviously doesn’t believe her, and plant a narrative in the rest so when a reporter/FBI agent calls, they will parrot back the described incident just the way they were told it happened last week instead of what their 30+ year old memories tell them, even if they were never at the party.
This is why the police don’t want you talking to witnesses before the investigation. And she’s admitting to doing just that.
Long-term memory is actually malleable. Every time you take a memory “out of the box,” as it were, as you consider it you can also alter it. Do this enough times and you can completely change a memory, like the passing-the-word or phrase game kids play at camp, only you play it with yourself.
“Recovered Memories” brought forth by therapy are notoriously susceptible to falsity and suggestion often manifesting in strong belief and/or obsession on the part of the person “recalling” them. This is especially so in childhood “memories.” Most courts will not even entertain these recollections, so fallacious and unreliable they have proven to be. That conclusion was hard earned with numerous long convictions based upon such only to find later they were bogus.
Here are some cites on the subject under which both accusers fall —
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/…
https://staff.washington.ed…
http://www.fmsfonline.org/i…
https://outline.com/AYAcPG
https://www.weeklystandard.com/thomas-w-kirby/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-what-memory-science-can-tell-us-about-christine-fords-allegations
Incidentally, a person suffering from a false recovered memory will exhibit the characteristics of someone telling the truth because to them it is the truth and the more they are questioned about it what is termed “hardened memory” is likely to occur.
Wow, I’m totally shocked that the Times would A) issue a groveling mea culpa to their fanatical, blood-lusting audience, basically apologizing and begging forgiveness for adhering to a modicum of journalistic ethics in declining to run the Ramirez propaganda hit job story that the New Yorker shamelessly had no qualms or scruples about publishing; and, B) edit its coverage to remove language and facts unhelpful to the “victim,” and, bolstering her tale.
Just another normal day at the “newspaper of record.”
The New York Times has also published another story about them coming up dry, this time by thumbing through old yearbooks from Kavanaugh’s high school. This quarter-page articled is titled “Woman Hurt By Mentions in Yearbook — Classmates say Kavanaugh, others were boasting about sexual conquests.”
Except that the people quoted for saying it was about sex and that she should be offended didn’t know about the quotes at the time and were shown them out of context later. The woman was one of the many people who signed a letter supporting Kavanaugh, and she says no such thing happened. The same is true of other people who had reason to know.
There are references to a “Renate Club” — Renate being a girl they knew, “were intended to refer to innocent dates or dance partners and were generally known within the community of people for over 35 years.”
It was the New York Times that brought the slur to Renate’s reputation.
This story brought up memories for me, of a girl in high school that all the guys admired, and most of them never got to date. The loved to talk about her, and no wonder. She was class president, and a drop-dead gorgeous redhead, with a sweet nature. God knows what the New York Times would do with that, now.
There was also “The Girl Watcher’s Club,” a group of married men in an office where I worked. They would go out to lunch and talk about the girls they saw. I was in college at the time. In retrospect, I think it had something to do with one of the guys being newly divorced, and not thriving. In any case, one of the guys told a story on himself: somebody had asked his wife if she was bothered about this club (because of course word got around), and she said, “No, none of them would know what to do with one, if they caught one!”
The whole point of the New York Times story was to get an ugly headline, regardless of the lack of support in the article, and the harm inflicted by the NYT itself.
This is why there is a proliferation of a new press in the United States: the New York Times has been blatantly substandard for decades, and the Washington Post lost its collective mind during the 2016 election season, and has not regained it. In such an atmosphere, somebody like Alex Jones will flourish because he is entertaining to some, and he has a better record of accuracy than our “national news.”
Lies, damned lies and the NYT…
All the News that Fits the Narrative.
Flashback to good old days. “An American and a Russian run a race….The American wins. In Pravda, “Russian places second, American next to last”.
NYT and WaPo are Pravda twins