Busted! After Lawsuit Threat the New York Times Goes Into A Full Retreat
The New York Times went into a full retreat after investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson threatened a lawsuit.
The newspaper was forced to issue several corrections over an article they published two weeks ago that claimed Attkisson was a “coronavirus doubter.”
Once the article was published, Attkisson and her lawyers sent a letter to the Times demanding they correct the story or they would be sued. In the letter, Attkisson’s attorney wrote the Times’ article contained “false and defamatory” statements regarding the Ex-CBS reporter that was spied on by former President Obama.
“Through a combination of discrete statements of fact, the defamatory headline, and the juxtaposition of defamatory statements concerning a small group of individuals with whom you have lumped Ms. Attkisson, the article conveys the false and defamatory gist that my client, among other things, lied to her readers and listeners, reported as fact lies that endanger the lives of the public, and otherwise violated the litany of ethical standards by which responsible journalists conduct themselves,” wrote Attkisson’s attorney G. Taylor Wilson of Wade, Grunberg & Wilson, LLC.
The Daily Wire reported on some of the examples of how the Times lied about what Attkisson said:
- “One of Mr. Hannity’s top sources [Ms. Attkisson] selectively picks facts.”
- “In the past, she [Ms. Attkisson] has promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.”
- “The facts she has chosen recently to highlight falsely leave the impression that the deaths are not all that significant in number and largely contained to one facility.”
- “‘Look at those 30-some-odd deaths – most of them were from Washington State,’ Ms. Attkisson said last week on her podcast, adding that most of those were in an assisted-living facility. ‘The vast majority of those who passed away were from one cluster in the United States – almost none anywhere else.’”
- “And yet visitors to Ms. Attkisson’s website this week might have come away confused about the severity of the virus, as there were several ads for high-grade protective masks.”
The Times defended the article, editor Carolyn Ryan rebuffed her claims, Attkisson said, “Ryan defended the article by saying that because I had reported on coronavirus deaths– in a way The Times acknowledges was perfectly accurate– readers could somehow be misled into believing they were not at much risk if they were not in a high risk group.”
Attkisson wrote on her website that she “explained that the major authorities on coronavirus – including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC, and the Surgeon General, along with the Times itself – reported the same numbers and asked how readers could be “misled” when she reported the same facts as others; Ryan didn’t respond.
The lawyers at the New York Times didn’t mess around and the paper was forced to publish multiple corrections.