Hitting the Trifecta
Did The New York Times undermine Paul Krugman, Jason Leopold and Salon in order to placate the Bushies?
by Tamara Baker

October 4, 2002 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- I was just getting ready to go on vacation by taking one last sweep of the Internet before I turned off the 'puter, and what do I find but another chapter in the Tom White saga.

Remember Salon's hard-hitting piece on Mr. White? It was by a guy called Jason Leopold, and Mr. Leopold's work so impressed Paul Krugman, the shining light of the New York Times's editorial pages, that he cited it in a recent column.

But then, the trouble started.

Leopold was accused of plagiarism and of not being able to verify that certain e-mail cited in his story was genuine. Salon's David Talbot then pulled the story. David Carr of the New York Times mentioned the retraction, as well as the fact that Jason Leopold used to work for Dow Jones and left just as questions arose concerning articles on Enron written by Leopold and another writer -- the obvious implication being that Leopold was a totally untrustworthy fibber and stealer of other people's work.

Leopold's reputation was now in tatters.

The End.

...or is it?

Here's what Jason Leopold has to say:

Leopold's version

From JASON LEOPOLD (jasonleopold@hotmail.com):

Subject -- The New York Times, Jason Leopold, Thomas
White and Salon.com.

I want to bring to your attention an issue that has
come to light regarding my story on Thomas White and
Salon.com. This week, Salon pulled the story off its
website and made statements about me that are simply
untrue.

This story was picked up several weeks ago by Paul
Krugman, columnist for the New York Times. Because
of Salon's actions, the NYT came down hard on Mr.
Krugman to print a correction in his column
Friday, Oct. 4, unless he could get me to
reveal to him the identity of my sources and speak
to them directly.

I revealed my sources on the Thomas White story to
Paul Krugman, including the person who sent me the
email. He spoke to each and every one of my sources
and verified their employment with Enron through W-2
documents they faxed to him. In addition, he verified
the authenticity of the email by speaking directly
with the person who sent it. Moreover, I found that
Salon had erred in stating that I plagiarized seven
grafs from the Financial Times. The paper was credited
three times in the original story. Only an idiot would
credit a story and then at the same time plagiarize
the same story.

I took these unusual steps to reveal my sources to
Krugman and provided him with documents because he was
told by the NYT editorial board that if he could get
me to do that then he could write a column that
defends me and state that he independently verified
everything. This was a painstaking process, having to
convince more than a dozen sources to speak up, albeit
in defense of me and confirm the authenticity of
documents, particularly the email.

However, when Krugman informed his editors and the
editorial board of the NYT that he had independently
secured confirmation from all of my sources and
verified the authenticity of the email, the NYT was
shocked, according to Krugman, and then told him it
was not good enough, that despite all of this
verification he could still not write a column in
support of my story, the documents mentioned, or
reveal to readers that he spoke to my sources.
Krugman, to his credit, did everything in his power to
get the NYT editorial board to allow him to write the
column he wanted regarding the Tom White email.

Now the NYT has put me into a position where I can no
longer win the trust of my sources because they broke
their promise to me.

Had the NYT told me or Krugman their plans for never
honoring the agreement, I would have never revealed my
sources to the paper. This clearly became an issue for
the NYT to pursue a salacious story about me rather
than pursue the story itself, which is Thomas White
and whether he wrote this email.

Now, let's look at this story again.

Did Leopold "lift" the Financial Times paragraphs? Well, last time I looked, to "lift" a paragraph was to use it without crediting its source. As Leopold says, he credited the Financial Times three times during his original story.

The thing is, reporters lift from each other all the time without crediting each other -- they just take better care to rewrite the "grafs" in their own words so they can skirt the need to give credit to a rival who did the legwork. Leopold should have been more explicit in showing that the seven grafs were from the FT article in question. However, I've seen far more egregious -- and totally uncredited -- thefts. But they weren't being done by people who were taking dead aim at the Bush Junta and its members, so they never got dinged for it.

As for the issue of who wrote the e-mail: according to Leopold here, Krugman had the evidence and laid it out before his bosses at the NYT. They rejected it -- which, to me, is interesting, since they seem to have raised their standards after they finished turning loose Jeff Gerth and Stephen Labaton on the Clintons and Wen Ho Lee.

Pardon me for being cynical, but I suspect that if Jason Leopold had had similar evidence of wrongdoing by, say, Clinton staffer Sidney Blumenthal, they would have accepted it with open arms.

This leaves us with the issue of David Talbot. Jason Leopold barely mentions Salon, other than to say that they made "untrue" statements about him. How did Talbot come to take the step he did? Who brought the problems, real or perceived, in Leopold's story to his attention? Was it someone from the Financial Times -- or the New York Times? Inquiring minds want to know.

Again, this is me being cynical. But this smells to me as if some timid souls at the Times, wilting under the constant barrage of "liberal bias!" name-calling from the Bushies and their media handmaidens (including the Washington Post, oh-so-eager to take the Gray Lady down a peg), decided to kneel to the Bushistas by cutting off Krugman and Leopold -- and, if what I suspect is the case, Salon.com -- at the knees, in an effort to discredit the most powerful media voices raised in opposition to the Bush regime.

Krugman, Leopold and Salon.com. Talk about hitting the trifecta!

This story isn't over yet. It may well be just beginning.