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As I remember the series, they presented pro and con arguments about believing him near the beginning, and never expressed certainty that it was true, but felt

As I remember the series, they presented pro and con arguments about believing him near the beginning, and never expressed certainty that it was true, but felt it was likely enough true that it was worth reporting. Then when more facts came out, it was retracted. This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors, which many publications wouldn't do, rather than punishing them for not figuring it out in the first place. No one is perfect. They never will be. What we want is people who are willing to call themselves out on their own errors. Wanting people to never make them is impossible, and just encourages them to pretend they are perfect by never doubting themselves and never revealing the truth when it is eventually available. [Edited for a missing period.]

kenjackson 6y ago
100% agree. We are in this cultural state that it is better to dig in your heels on something wrong than to say, hey, I made a mistake. This is my new take based on new data.”
BoiledCabbage 6y ago
That's my biggest issue with stories like these. Some news sources call out when they make mistakes and own up to them. And they get piled on for being wrong. Other news sources (ahem...) say misleading stuff frequently and never correct it, never retract it and continue to mislead their audience. This whole concept of pile one because someone admitted their wrong has to be the least healthy event I've ever seen. And yet instead of it going down as upholding editorial standards, it will be a case of "see they're wrong, don't trust them". As an example, a significant portion of an American political party spent years believing (still believe last I checked) a former US president was born in Kenya.
- kergonath 6y ago
  Yes, it takes courage to admit you were wrong in front of a global audience. I blame them for not having the proper fact-checking procedures in place for the podcast, but I applaud them for owning this and for their apparent willingness to learn from this.
ivraatiems 6y ago
> As I remember the series, they presented pro and con arguments about believing him near the beginning, and never expressed certainty that it was true, but felt it was likely enough true that it was worth reporting. I remember this, too, and it's the second part I take issue with. A judgment call of "likely enough true" when the reality is "entirely fictional" points, in my opinion, to either a lack of judgment, or a lack of journalistic ethics. As others have pointed out, very basic fact-checking was all that was needed to figure out this guy was a complete fraud. We should not be praising the New York Times for letting its standards slip because the story was so cool, then eventually - years later! - realizing they'd let them slip a little too much and half-heartedly apologizing.
- bumby 6y ago
  What’s your opinion on their incentives for letting that quality control slip? The need for sexy digital content to remain relevant? Cost-cutting to remain competitive? A change in identity from “news” to “entertainment”? Something else?
  - fastball 6y ago
    All of the above? Throw in corrupted management that doesn't realize you can't coast on an old reputation forever, and if you keep letting quality slide eventually there will be a watershed moment. As an aside, I think you can see this happening in California right now. California (and more specifically SF) has been winning for so long that now public officials have drunk their own cool-aid and seem to think Cali/SF is some sort of magic place and it's all the things they've done which have made it tech mecca. Except probably it's not, and that will become obvious as everyone slowly wakes up to that.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    The podcast was an experiment at the time, and the people making it were outside the structure in which the print journalists were operating. The story was sexy, guard rails were not entirely in place, and everyone was enthusiastic about making the podcast so they overlook details they shouldn't have. They touch upon this here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphate-chaudhry-hoax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphat...
CharlesW 6y ago
> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors… Absolutely — this is just basic "how humans work". Anyone complaining about this positive action (performed with the understanding of the PR cost) doesn't understand how to get what they purport to want in the world.
- jkhdigital 6y ago
  The Times isn't a child in need of operant conditioning; you've anthropomorphized a newspaper. But even if we admit the logical leap from an organization to the humans which collectively direct that organization, we must still contend with the fact that unqualified praise will be associated with the entire sequence of actions that led to it, rather than (perhaps) a single action that was only undertaken after making lots of unpraiseworthy actions. I'm of the opinion that, when it comes to journalism, courage and integrity are table stakes. They need not be praised because they are expected, and their absence should be ruthlessly punished. Even with this premise, one can tolerate mistakes and errors without needing to praise non-mistakes and non-errors.
dlkinney 6y ago
No, they shouldn't be praised for calling out their own errors--let alone be aligned with "courage"--just as one shouldn't praise an encyclopedia or scientific journal for correcting errors: it's supposed to be de facto matter of course. The criticisms, however, are against their politically loaded decisions to run certain content in the absence of legitimate sources of truth. If this were an occasional thing, sure, accidents happen. But this has become the modus operandi of what once was the paper of record. Between the absolute backpedaling of the 1619 Project, copious amounts of Russian influence narrative, and countless "anonymous sources" that turn out to be nobodies or absent integrity, the NYT is an embarrassment to journalism. They do what you described, though: they build in back doors into their reporting so they can legitimately claim that they weren't "wrong" on a purely logical--but functionally bullsh*t--standing. No, I don't believe they deserve "praise" for "courage and integrity", because they've left those--and other markers of high character--in the past as they cry their death throes in the changing media landscape.
fastball 6y ago
The problem with Fauci saying we shouldn't wear masks is that there was not some initial data which indicated that this was the right choice, it was just an incorrect assumption based on nothing (or worse an outright lie based on a desire to "preserve supply", as this was known to be a respiratory virus well before his statement). Saying nothing when you have no data is fine, asserting / prescribing something ("you don't need to wear masks") when you have no data is not. Err on the side of caution, hedge against risk. This is basic stuff and top public health officials need to be held to a (much) better standard.
- late2part 6y ago
  ^- this +1
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  That isn't at all true. If you took 5 minutes to actually read the detailed rationale published by CDC, you would see why they opposed masks. People tend to use mask wearing as a replacement for social distancing. They aren't. They are a risk mitigation method for cases where social distance is unavoidable. CDC opposed mask wearing specifically because people would interpret it as a less-effective security blanket. They only reversed their stance when it became apparent that the US public weren't willing to use social distancing effectively.
  - fastball 6y ago
    What made them believe the US public was willing to socially distance in the first place? Was that backed up with data or was it another baseless assumption? Stating your rationale doesn't mean your rationale is backed up with evidence. Again, top public health officials need to be held to a higher standard. That means understanding how populations behave, not just understanding the medicine. That means consistent messaging. The message throughout should've been: > This is a dangerous virus, and the best way not to get it is to avoid contact with any other people at all. However, if you absolutely need to come into contact with other individuals, risk can be reduced if everyone is wearing a mask. Masks are not anywhere near 100% effective, but they do help, which is why you should be avoiding human contact and only be going out with a mask if absolutely necessary.
somebeaver 6y ago
Integrity starts by verifying your sources before publishing things as facts to millions of listeners.
DaniloDias 6y ago
The New York Times has thoroughly established their bona fides as an unreliable waste of time. I love it when people tell me they read the times. This saves me time evaluating their skepticism and attachment to reason.
randallsquared 6y ago
> This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. This is technically true, but doesn't convey well that it was quite clear that N95 masks worked well, and he suggested they didn't work because they were in short supply and he wanted to preserve the ability of medical personnel to use them, not because there wasn't data that they worked. The data that came in were about cloth masks also being largely effective, thereby alleviating worries about a lasting shortage. Before that became apparent, Fauci was forced to choose between an immediate shortage of masks for hospital workers, and long-term credibility if such a situation arises again.
- bumby 6y ago
  If that’s the case, I think he miscalculated. The damage from losing trust in the government has the potential for causing more damage than a temporary shortage of N95 masks
  - seventytwo 6y ago
    It IS the case, and to be clear, it wasn’t just Fauci. It was the entire government and CDC. Because, for some reason, the US didn’t take the threat of COVID seriously until three months after it was discovered.
    - rtx 6y ago
      CDC is respected worldwide. Their recommendations had far reaching effect.
dmosley 6y ago
"This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in." Only that's not what happened. This is a bad analogy, or a good one depending on how you view the overt false narrative-creation of much of today's media. Fauci didn't "change his mind" with more evidence. He readily admits to overtly lying because he made a determination that some lives were more valuable than others. That. Is. Frightening. This isn't intended to be a political statement, simply a fact that you are memory-holing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
garyrob 6y ago
Some people here are saying they shouldn't be praised for the retraction because retracting an error is merely doing what a publication should do. This is wrongheaded, because it ignores the fact that in the actual world in which we actually live, rather than a fantasy world that we would all like to live in, it's a rarity. We need much more of it than we have. Punishing the Times at the moment they do good by issuing a retraction will just encourage more publications to be in the camp that do not admit error. The cost of admitting error will be seen as too high. That isn't to say that the Times shouldn't be held to account when errors are found by others. It should, and so should every other publication. But when they find and retract their own errors, it is absolutely wrong to punish them at that moment.
- vl 6y ago
  > Some people here are saying they shouldn't be praised for the retraction because retracting an error is merely doing what a publication should do. We should be praising five-year-olds for brushing their teeth, but from adults we expect it by default. And while NYT went down in quality in the last few years, let’s not treat it as if it is a five-year-old.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    They are still better than most of their competition, even the non-lunatic ones like Bloomberg or Forbes. We should praise the system when it works, when you have a systemic failure it's too late.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- julianmarq 6y ago
  > That isn't to say that the Times shouldn't be held to account when errors are found by others. It should But that's exactly what happened here. It wasn't the NYT who found the errors, unless I misread TFA. So, in your "not to say"... That's exactly what you seem to be saying.
LudwigNagasena 6y ago
> This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. Fauci has said that he deliberately lied to people because he was afraid masks would be in short supply.
- benzible 6y ago
  Show me where he's admitted to "deliberately lying". In every interview I've seen he's said the opposite, e.g. [1] > "I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm's way every day to take care of sick people," Fauci told O'Donnell. > "When it became clear that the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks," he said. > "And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores," Fauci added. "So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing." [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-doesnt-regret-advising-against-masks-early-in-pandemic-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-doesnt-regret-advising...
  - fsagx 6y ago
    I think this may be the interview where people in the "he lied" camp may be referencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XHC5Kxxv_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XHC5Kxxv_w “…when people were saying you don’t really need to wear a mask well the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community and many people were saying this were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment including the N95 masks and the surgical masks were in very short supply and we wanted to make sure that the people namely the health care workers who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm ways to take care of people who you know are infected with the corona virus and the danger of them getting infected we did not want them to be without the equipment that they needed so there was not enthusiasm about going out and everybody buying a mask or getting a mask we were afraid that that would deter away and the people who really needed it”
whiddershins 6y ago
Fauci said plainly in an interview that he lied about masks, in an attempt to save them for front line workers, so that’s a questionable analogy.
benzible 6y ago
Bad analogy. From all indications, Fauci said what he said in good faith whereas Callimachi seems to have been desperate to confirm that her source was credible in the face of a preponderance of evidence that he was not [1]: > The assignment, Mr. Flood recalled thinking, was both hopeless and quite strange in its specificity [...] Ms. Callimachi was singularly focused. “She only wanted things that very narrowly supported this kid in Canada’s wild stories,” he told me in a phone interview. > Mr. Flood didn’t know it at the time, but he was part of a frantic effort at The New York Times to salvage the high-profile project the paper had just announced. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/business/media/new-york-times-rukmini-callimachi-caliphate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/business/media/new-york-t...
- Defenestresque 6y ago
  The story (by a fellow Times writer) you linked is not only fascinating but provides a lot of context for Callimachi's investigation. I think it does lend some credence to the claims that she was a reporter trying to massage the facts to fit a preconceived narrative.
slg 6y ago
>Wanting people to never make [errors] is impossible, and just encourages them to pretend they are perfect by never doubting themselves and never revealing the truth when it is eventually available. This isn't specific to this story, but it is truly bizarre that changing your opinions or beliefs based on new information is viewed as a negative trait by modern American society, especially in politics.
disown 6y ago
> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for alling out their own errors Hilarious. I predicted "we should be praising them for 'admitting' their mistakes" was going to be the top comment. And here we are. I bet you don't feel the same way about fox news or alex jones. > This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. It wasn't more data. It was politic pressure. > Wanting people to never make them is impossible Stop building up a straw man. Nobody is criticizing the NYTimes for not being perfect. People criticize NYTimes for being state propaganda. You know they spread pro-war propaganda and then "oops, we were wrong". Now praise us for admitting we were wrong bullshit. "Oops, our intentional lies/propaganda led to millions of dead men, women and children. But at least we are man enough to admit it" schtick that the dumb masses love.
karaterobot 6y ago
> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors, which many publications wouldn't do, rather than punishing them for not figuring it out in the first place. I mostly agree, since I think the heart of your statement here is the times admitted they made a mistake, and that is good behavior. That's dead on. I disagree a little bit, because I don't think they should be praised for acknowledging their mistake and correcting it: I think that's the minimum expectation we should have for journalists. I agree that it's a sign of integrity (professional integrity, specifically) to own your errors, but I don't think it's particularly courageous to do it; more that the opposite would be cowardly.
senthil_rajasek 6y ago
>This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. Dr. Fauci works for a public health organization and nytimes is a for profit exchange listed company. So this comparison not fair. The way I remember the mask debate is in March 2020 there was a shortage of PPE and health workers were in great need of masks. To avoid a mad rush of people hoarding masks just like they hoarded toilet paper, the Coronavirus Task Force was emphasising social distancing, hand washing more than wearing masks. Now, the Caliphate story was outed as a lie by Canadian authorities. The nytimes did not verify their sources, they were caught lying which is why they had to retract their story. This is a big difference.
- rtx 6y ago
  Do imagine number of deaths Fauci caused. We wouldn't have been in this situation with promotion of masks. Even a cloth over the face helps.
whimsicalism 6y ago
Oh come on. You can't just hide behind "narrative tension" and problematizing the story when you're putting out false information that should have been fact checked more aggressively. When it first began to come to light that the subject was likely lying, the creator of the podcast actually said that he was likely telling the truth and it was instead the Canadian police that were incompetent because they couldn't "prove he'd gone to Syria" [0]. They were pretty clear they thought it was a true story. I don't think adding some mild disclaimers once it starts coming to light that the story is not true abdicates them from responsibility for what they put out there. Even at the time, NYT bureau chiefs (ie. experienced war reporters) were uneasy about the nature of the podcast. Absolutely the Times should be praised for calling out their own errors, but it is definitely embarrassing and (in my opinion) should be career-ending or damaging for the architect of the podcast. She wanted it to be true, so she didn't dig. [0]: https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1309620500176556032 https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1309620500176556032
jlarocco 6y ago
> This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. Those aren't similar situations at all. Fauci's comments are based on the data that's available at a particular time, about an ongoing, evolving situation, so it makes sense that his advice will change as the situation evolves. On the other hand, this news story was was about a series of events that already happened and were no longer on going. All of the facts were out there but the journalists just didn't do their research. So it's great that they're retracting the story, but they never should have published it in the first place.
seventytwo 6y ago
100% agree. Wont stop the bad faith actors who love to erode trust in reliable media so their own (flawed and dubious) views become more credible by comparison.
reaperducer 6y ago
We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors, which many publications wouldn't do It's always fun to watch the tech bubble jump ugly on traditional media when it falters. Meanwhile, the front page of HN is full of Microsoft getting hacked by the Russians and Facebook pretending it exists to benefit society and democracy.
wolverine876 6y ago
> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors, which many publications wouldn't do, rather than punishing them for not figuring it out in the first place. We can do both, praise and criticize. While I agree with your statements, they NYT also have another job: Report the news accurately. That's why they exist and it's critical to our society. We shouldn't overreact to one error and I think the NY Times is generally more reliable than most. A metric for overall reliability would be very valuable, especially in the disinformation age. That would be an interesting project for a leading journalism school. But how to measure it? Omissions, including context, are just as significant inaccuracies as misstatements (imagine the story 'The U.S. declares war on Japan!' without context). How could the study objectively set a standard for what facts and context should be included?
DubiousPusher 6y ago
> likely enough true Is this the standard we want for journalism though? There is so much that goes on in the world that doesn't get reported in the NYT which is backed by concrete evidence why do we need a speculative journalism?
Clubber 6y ago
>This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. From what I understand he intentionally lied to the public because he wanted front line workers to get them first. This was doing the toilet paper panic. I believe he expressed this himself in an interview. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/502890-fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c... "He also acknowledged that masks were initially not recommended to the general public so that first responders wouldn’t feel the strain of a shortage of PPE."

kenjackson 6y ago

100% agree. We are in this cultural state that it is better to dig in your heels on something wrong than to say, hey, I made a mistake. This is my new take based on new data.”

BoiledCabbage 6y ago

That's my biggest issue with stories like these. Some news sources call out when they make mistakes and own up to them. And they get piled on for being wrong. Other news sources (ahem...) say misleading stuff frequently and never correct it, never retract it and continue to mislead their audience. This whole concept of pile one because someone admitted their wrong has to be the least healthy event I've ever seen. And yet instead of it going down as upholding editorial standards, it will be a case of "see they're wrong, don't trust them". As an example, a significant portion of an American political party spent years believing (still believe last I checked) a former US president was born in Kenya.

kergonath 6y ago
Yes, it takes courage to admit you were wrong in front of a global audience. I blame them for not having the proper fact-checking procedures in place for the podcast, but I applaud them for owning this and for their apparent willingness to learn from this.

ivraatiems 6y ago

> As I remember the series, they presented pro and con arguments about believing him near the beginning, and never expressed certainty that it was true, but felt it was likely enough true that it was worth reporting. I remember this, too, and it's the second part I take issue with. A judgment call of "likely enough true" when the reality is "entirely fictional" points, in my opinion, to either a lack of judgment, or a lack of journalistic ethics. As others have pointed out, very basic fact-checking was all that was needed to figure out this guy was a complete fraud. We should not be praising the New York Times for letting its standards slip because the story was so cool, then eventually - years later! - realizing they'd let them slip a little too much and half-heartedly apologizing.

bumby 6y ago
What’s your opinion on their incentives for letting that quality control slip? The need for sexy digital content to remain relevant? Cost-cutting to remain competitive? A change in identity from “news” to “entertainment”? Something else?
- fastball 6y ago
  All of the above? Throw in corrupted management that doesn't realize you can't coast on an old reputation forever, and if you keep letting quality slide eventually there will be a watershed moment. As an aside, I think you can see this happening in California right now. California (and more specifically SF) has been winning for so long that now public officials have drunk their own cool-aid and seem to think Cali/SF is some sort of magic place and it's all the things they've done which have made it tech mecca. Except probably it's not, and that will become obvious as everyone slowly wakes up to that.
- kergonath 6y ago
  The podcast was an experiment at the time, and the people making it were outside the structure in which the print journalists were operating. The story was sexy, guard rails were not entirely in place, and everyone was enthusiastic about making the podcast so they overlook details they shouldn't have. They touch upon this here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphate-chaudhry-hoax.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphat...

CharlesW 6y ago

> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors… Absolutely — this is just basic "how humans work". Anyone complaining about this positive action (performed with the understanding of the PR cost) doesn't understand how to get what they purport to want in the world.

jkhdigital 6y ago
The Times isn't a child in need of operant conditioning; you've anthropomorphized a newspaper. But even if we admit the logical leap from an organization to the humans which collectively direct that organization, we must still contend with the fact that unqualified praise will be associated with the entire sequence of actions that led to it, rather than (perhaps) a single action that was only undertaken after making lots of unpraiseworthy actions. I'm of the opinion that, when it comes to journalism, courage and integrity are table stakes. They need not be praised because they are expected, and their absence should be ruthlessly punished. Even with this premise, one can tolerate mistakes and errors without needing to praise non-mistakes and non-errors.

dlkinney 6y ago

No, they shouldn't be praised for calling out their own errors--let alone be aligned with "courage"--just as one shouldn't praise an encyclopedia or scientific journal for correcting errors: it's supposed to be de facto matter of course. The criticisms, however, are against their politically loaded decisions to run certain content in the absence of legitimate sources of truth. If this were an occasional thing, sure, accidents happen. But this has become the modus operandi of what once was the paper of record. Between the absolute backpedaling of the 1619 Project, copious amounts of Russian influence narrative, and countless "anonymous sources" that turn out to be nobodies or absent integrity, the NYT is an embarrassment to journalism. They do what you described, though: they build in back doors into their reporting so they can legitimately claim that they weren't "wrong" on a purely logical--but functionally bullsh*t--standing. No, I don't believe they deserve "praise" for "courage and integrity", because they've left those--and other markers of high character--in the past as they cry their death throes in the changing media landscape.

fastball 6y ago

The problem with Fauci saying we shouldn't wear masks is that there was not some initial data which indicated that this was the right choice, it was just an incorrect assumption based on nothing (or worse an outright lie based on a desire to "preserve supply", as this was known to be a respiratory virus well before his statement). Saying nothing when you have no data is fine, asserting / prescribing something ("you don't need to wear masks") when you have no data is not. Err on the side of caution, hedge against risk. This is basic stuff and top public health officials need to be held to a (much) better standard.

late2part 6y ago
^- this +1
brandmeyer 6y ago
That isn't at all true. If you took 5 minutes to actually read the detailed rationale published by CDC, you would see why they opposed masks. People tend to use mask wearing as a replacement for social distancing. They aren't. They are a risk mitigation method for cases where social distance is unavoidable. CDC opposed mask wearing specifically because people would interpret it as a less-effective security blanket. They only reversed their stance when it became apparent that the US public weren't willing to use social distancing effectively.
- fastball 6y ago
  What made them believe the US public was willing to socially distance in the first place? Was that backed up with data or was it another baseless assumption? Stating your rationale doesn't mean your rationale is backed up with evidence. Again, top public health officials need to be held to a higher standard. That means understanding how populations behave, not just understanding the medicine. That means consistent messaging. The message throughout should've been: > This is a dangerous virus, and the best way not to get it is to avoid contact with any other people at all. However, if you absolutely need to come into contact with other individuals, risk can be reduced if everyone is wearing a mask. Masks are not anywhere near 100% effective, but they do help, which is why you should be avoiding human contact and only be going out with a mask if absolutely necessary.

somebeaver 6y ago

Integrity starts by verifying your sources before publishing things as facts to millions of listeners.

DaniloDias 6y ago

The New York Times has thoroughly established their bona fides as an unreliable waste of time. I love it when people tell me they read the times. This saves me time evaluating their skepticism and attachment to reason.

randallsquared 6y ago

> This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. This is technically true, but doesn't convey well that it was quite clear that N95 masks worked well, and he suggested they didn't work because they were in short supply and he wanted to preserve the ability of medical personnel to use them, not because there wasn't data that they worked. The data that came in were about cloth masks also being largely effective, thereby alleviating worries about a lasting shortage. Before that became apparent, Fauci was forced to choose between an immediate shortage of masks for hospital workers, and long-term credibility if such a situation arises again.

bumby 6y ago
If that’s the case, I think he miscalculated. The damage from losing trust in the government has the potential for causing more damage than a temporary shortage of N95 masks
- seventytwo 6y ago
  It IS the case, and to be clear, it wasn’t just Fauci. It was the entire government and CDC. Because, for some reason, the US didn’t take the threat of COVID seriously until three months after it was discovered.
  - rtx 6y ago
    CDC is respected worldwide. Their recommendations had far reaching effect.

dmosley 6y ago

"This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in." Only that's not what happened. This is a bad analogy, or a good one depending on how you view the overt false narrative-creation of much of today's media. Fauci didn't "change his mind" with more evidence. He readily admits to overtly lying because he made a determination that some lives were more valuable than others. That. Is. Frightening. This isn't intended to be a political statement, simply a fact that you are memory-holing.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

garyrob 6y ago

Some people here are saying they shouldn't be praised for the retraction because retracting an error is merely doing what a publication should do. This is wrongheaded, because it ignores the fact that in the actual world in which we actually live, rather than a fantasy world that we would all like to live in, it's a rarity. We need much more of it than we have. Punishing the Times at the moment they do good by issuing a retraction will just encourage more publications to be in the camp that do not admit error. The cost of admitting error will be seen as too high. That isn't to say that the Times shouldn't be held to account when errors are found by others. It should, and so should every other publication. But when they find and retract their own errors, it is absolutely wrong to punish them at that moment.

vl 6y ago
> Some people here are saying they shouldn't be praised for the retraction because retracting an error is merely doing what a publication should do. We should be praising five-year-olds for brushing their teeth, but from adults we expect it by default. And while NYT went down in quality in the last few years, let’s not treat it as if it is a five-year-old.
- kergonath 6y ago
  They are still better than most of their competition, even the non-lunatic ones like Bloomberg or Forbes. We should praise the system when it works, when you have a systemic failure it's too late.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
julianmarq 6y ago
> That isn't to say that the Times shouldn't be held to account when errors are found by others. It should But that's exactly what happened here. It wasn't the NYT who found the errors, unless I misread TFA. So, in your "not to say"... That's exactly what you seem to be saying.

LudwigNagasena 6y ago

> This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. Fauci has said that he deliberately lied to people because he was afraid masks would be in short supply.

benzible 6y ago
Show me where he's admitted to "deliberately lying". In every interview I've seen he's said the opposite, e.g. [1] > "I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm's way every day to take care of sick people," Fauci told O'Donnell. > "When it became clear that the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks," he said. > "And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores," Fauci added. "So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing." [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-doesnt-regret-advising-against-masks-early-in-pandemic-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-doesnt-regret-advising...
- fsagx 6y ago
  I think this may be the interview where people in the "he lied" camp may be referencing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XHC5Kxxv_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XHC5Kxxv_w “…when people were saying you don’t really need to wear a mask well the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community and many people were saying this were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment including the N95 masks and the surgical masks were in very short supply and we wanted to make sure that the people namely the health care workers who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm ways to take care of people who you know are infected with the corona virus and the danger of them getting infected we did not want them to be without the equipment that they needed so there was not enthusiasm about going out and everybody buying a mask or getting a mask we were afraid that that would deter away and the people who really needed it”

whiddershins 6y ago

Fauci said plainly in an interview that he lied about masks, in an attempt to save them for front line workers, so that’s a questionable analogy.

benzible 6y ago

Bad analogy. From all indications, Fauci said what he said in good faith whereas Callimachi seems to have been desperate to confirm that her source was credible in the face of a preponderance of evidence that he was not [1]: > The assignment, Mr. Flood recalled thinking, was both hopeless and quite strange in its specificity [...] Ms. Callimachi was singularly focused. “She only wanted things that very narrowly supported this kid in Canada’s wild stories,” he told me in a phone interview. > Mr. Flood didn’t know it at the time, but he was part of a frantic effort at The New York Times to salvage the high-profile project the paper had just announced. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/business/media/new-york-times-rukmini-callimachi-caliphate.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/business/media/new-york-t...

Defenestresque 6y ago
The story (by a fellow Times writer) you linked is not only fascinating but provides a lot of context for Callimachi's investigation. I think it does lend some credence to the claims that she was a reporter trying to massage the facts to fit a preconceived narrative.

slg 6y ago

>Wanting people to never make [errors] is impossible, and just encourages them to pretend they are perfect by never doubting themselves and never revealing the truth when it is eventually available. This isn't specific to this story, but it is truly bizarre that changing your opinions or beliefs based on new information is viewed as a negative trait by modern American society, especially in politics.

disown 6y ago

> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for alling out their own errors Hilarious. I predicted "we should be praising them for 'admitting' their mistakes" was going to be the top comment. And here we are. I bet you don't feel the same way about fox news or alex jones. > This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. It wasn't more data. It was politic pressure. > Wanting people to never make them is impossible Stop building up a straw man. Nobody is criticizing the NYTimes for not being perfect. People criticize NYTimes for being state propaganda. You know they spread pro-war propaganda and then "oops, we were wrong". Now praise us for admitting we were wrong bullshit. "Oops, our intentional lies/propaganda led to millions of dead men, women and children. But at least we are man enough to admit it" schtick that the dumb masses love.

karaterobot 6y ago

> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors, which many publications wouldn't do, rather than punishing them for not figuring it out in the first place. I mostly agree, since I think the heart of your statement here is the times admitted they made a mistake, and that is good behavior. That's dead on. I disagree a little bit, because I don't think they should be praised for acknowledging their mistake and correcting it: I think that's the minimum expectation we should have for journalists. I agree that it's a sign of integrity (professional integrity, specifically) to own your errors, but I don't think it's particularly courageous to do it; more that the opposite would be cowardly.

senthil_rajasek 6y ago

>This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. Dr. Fauci works for a public health organization and nytimes is a for profit exchange listed company. So this comparison not fair. The way I remember the mask debate is in March 2020 there was a shortage of PPE and health workers were in great need of masks. To avoid a mad rush of people hoarding masks just like they hoarded toilet paper, the Coronavirus Task Force was emphasising social distancing, hand washing more than wearing masks. Now, the Caliphate story was outed as a lie by Canadian authorities. The nytimes did not verify their sources, they were caught lying which is why they had to retract their story. This is a big difference.

rtx 6y ago
Do imagine number of deaths Fauci caused. We wouldn't have been in this situation with promotion of masks. Even a cloth over the face helps.

whimsicalism 6y ago

Oh come on. You can't just hide behind "narrative tension" and problematizing the story when you're putting out false information that should have been fact checked more aggressively. When it first began to come to light that the subject was likely lying, the creator of the podcast actually said that he was likely telling the truth and it was instead the Canadian police that were incompetent because they couldn't "prove he'd gone to Syria" [0]. They were pretty clear they thought it was a true story. I don't think adding some mild disclaimers once it starts coming to light that the story is not true abdicates them from responsibility for what they put out there. Even at the time, NYT bureau chiefs (ie. experienced war reporters) were uneasy about the nature of the podcast. Absolutely the Times should be praised for calling out their own errors, but it is definitely embarrassing and (in my opinion) should be career-ending or damaging for the architect of the podcast. She wanted it to be true, so she didn't dig. [0]: https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1309620500176556032 https://twitter.com/rcallimachi/status/1309620500176556032

jlarocco 6y ago

> This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. Those aren't similar situations at all. Fauci's comments are based on the data that's available at a particular time, about an ongoing, evolving situation, so it makes sense that his advice will change as the situation evolves. On the other hand, this news story was was about a series of events that already happened and were no longer on going. All of the facts were out there but the journalists just didn't do their research. So it's great that they're retracting the story, but they never should have published it in the first place.

seventytwo 6y ago

100% agree. Wont stop the bad faith actors who love to erode trust in reliable media so their own (flawed and dubious) views become more credible by comparison.

reaperducer 6y ago

We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors, which many publications wouldn't do It's always fun to watch the tech bubble jump ugly on traditional media when it falters. Meanwhile, the front page of HN is full of Microsoft getting hacked by the Russians and Facebook pretending it exists to benefit society and democracy.

wolverine876 6y ago

> We should be praising the Times for having the courage and integrity for calling out their own errors, which many publications wouldn't do, rather than punishing them for not figuring it out in the first place. We can do both, praise and criticize. While I agree with your statements, they NYT also have another job: Report the news accurately. That's why they exist and it's critical to our society. We shouldn't overreact to one error and I think the NY Times is generally more reliable than most. A metric for overall reliability would be very valuable, especially in the disinformation age. That would be an interesting project for a leading journalism school. But how to measure it? Omissions, including context, are just as significant inaccuracies as misstatements (imagine the story 'The U.S. declares war on Japan!' without context). How could the study objectively set a standard for what facts and context should be included?

DubiousPusher 6y ago

> likely enough true Is this the standard we want for journalism though? There is so much that goes on in the world that doesn't get reported in the NYT which is backed by concrete evidence why do we need a speculative journalism?

Clubber 6y ago

>This is akin to Fauci saying he didn't think we should be wearing masks, and changing his mind as more data came in. From what I understand he intentionally lied to the public because he wanted front line workers to get them first. This was doing the toilet paper panic. I believe he expressed this himself in an interview. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/502890-fauci-why-the-public-wasnt-told-to-wear-masks https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c... "He also acknowledged that masks were initially not recommended to the general public so that first responders wouldn’t feel the strain of a shortage of PPE."