Trouble at the Times

NY Times put out a piece this week, written by the public editor, regarding the Geraldo Rivera kerfuffle in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. To recap the story:
NY Times writer Alessandra Stanley wrote an article on September 5 regarding the news coverage after Katrina. The controversial passage:

“Fox’s Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety.”

Sounds just like him, and these kinds of pushy moves are the reason I don't watch him, ever. Except for one minor point. The "nudge" that Stanley describes? It never happened.
Apparently, Rivera denied the allegation, and provided the Times with a copy of all the relevant tape which clears him of such action. Fox News has run all the relevant footage, including outtakes, and there is no evidence whatsoever of a nudge. The Times' Public Editor, Byron Calame, agrees with that assessment, and takes the Times and the original author to task for not issuing a correction to date.

I have been involved in scores of correction disputes over the years at another newspaper, but this one is unusual in that there is very little to argue about. Since Ms. Stanley based her comments on what she saw on the screen Sept. 4, the videotape of that segment means everyone involved is looking at exactly the same evidence.

My viewings of the videotape - at least a dozen times, including one time frame by frame - simply doesn't show me any "nudge" of any Air Force rescuer by Mr. Rivera. (Ms. Stanley declined my invitation to watch the tape with me.) I also reviewed all of the so-called outtakes shot by Mr. Rivera's camera crew at the Holy Angels Apartments in New Orleans on the morning of Sept. 4. Neither the video nor the audio revealed any nudge of an Air Force rescuer.

So on what basis is the Times refusing to publish a correction? From an e-mail sent by Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times to Calame:

"It was a semi-close call, in that the video does not literally show how Mr. Rivera insinuated himself between the wheelchair-bound storm victim and the Air Force rescuers who were waiting to carry her from the building. Whether Mr. Rivera gently edged the airman out of the way with an elbow (literally 'nudged'), or told him to step aside, or threw a body block, or just barged into an opening - it's hard to tell, since it happened just off-camera."

Keller goes on to say that

"frankly," that in light of Mr. Rivera's reaction to the review, Ms. Stanley "would have been justified in assuming" - and therefore writing, apparently - that Mr. Rivera used "brute force" rather than merely a "nudge" on Sept. 4.

So let's get this straight. Since Mr. Rivera is known to have a pushy, showboating style, and there is no tape to prove that he didn't shove, or "nudge" the Air Force rescue worker out of the way, it's perfectly fair to assert that it happened.

The mind boggles.

As Calame writes:

I find it disturbing that any Times editor would come so close to implying - almost in a tit-for-tat sense - that Mr. Rivera's bad behavior essentially entitles the paper to rely on assumptions and refuse to correct an unsupported fact.
...Based on the videotape and outtakes I saw, Ms. Stanley certainly would have been entitled to opine that Mr. Rivera's actions were showboating or pushy. But a "nudge" is a fact, not an opinion. And even critics need to keep facts distinct from opinions.

I cannot even begin to imagine how the Times can steadfastly refuse to issue a correction in this situation.