> "The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular

> "The New York Times has long given its op-ed columnists a virtual free hand, exempting their copy from the layers of editing and fact-checking that a regular Times news story would undergo before it appeared in the paper. " Less fact checking is not no fact checking. That article also cites errors (e.g. misattributing one conservative pundit for another), but you're claiming fabrication (made up accounts), which is a far graver thing. Also, that article dates from 2008, and the article I quoted is from 2013, five years later.