Mediacrity reports on fairly shocking journalistic misconduct by the New York Times. It is clear that a full—blown panic over the rise of the blogosphere has gripped them, and is causing disgraceful and unenthical behavior on their part. Of course, they are only providing more fodder for their critics. Read the report for the details.

Maybe the conduct of the Times isn't so shocking, now that we know what that paper tolerated from Jayson Blair. Obviously, the housecleaning there has lot further to go, and needs to go up the organization chart from Howell Raines's former slot as editor. Family ties can last only so long when the foundations of the business are in peril.

Without its prestige, the New York Times would be an ordinary member of a declining industry. It fell from number one to number six in one year, on a poll of the most respected papers in the world. Dropping off the top ten next year is not out of the question. Laughingstock is the end point of the vector on which they have launched themselves.

Hat tip: Michelle Malkin

Thomas Lifson   7 6 05

Update: The Times has responded to Mediacrity! Unfortunately, no questions are answered and no issues are resolved. This is going to get even more interesting. We'll keep you posted.

Further update: The Times is in a hole and keeps digging. The writer of Mediacrity prefers to keep his name private. Here is a link, but I can't resist just a bit of a highlight. Read the whole thing. You deserve a treat.

Official Times Response: We Screwed Up; You Drop Dead
It's official: New York Times policy is that it is free to steal as much as it wants from anonymous bloggers.

As indicated in an earlier post, the Times stole an item from this blog on the Romenesko salary issue. Today I received two emails from Hubert Herring of the New York Times, the last of which, received a few minutes ago, says as follows: "If you will give your name, we will consider running a correction."

Note that the Times doesn't pretend that there were no violations of its policy or errors. It simply doesn't want to run a correction! I responded as follows:

"No, Mr. Herring, I am not going to give you my name. As I indicated earlier, I am not asking you to run a letter. I am asking YOU to correct an error in your newspaper, for the benefit of YOUR readers. You do not need my name in order to determine that 1) You failed to properly credit my blog and 2) Your article contained errors.

"My request for a correction stands.

"I am actually a little (a tiny bit) stunned by the arrogance of your response. Yes, yours is an arrogant newspaper. But it is not often that the arrogance is quite so 'in your face.'"