A New York Times reporter who co-wrote an essay on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh tweeted out a Vox article Wednesday that blames Fox News for allegedly orchestrating a smear of The NYT.
Robin Pogrebin, who co-authored “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation,” wrote a NYT preview essay Saturday ahead of the book launching Tuesday. The article detailed allegations from Deborah Ramirez against Kavanaugh in 1983. It included another claim that friends pushed Kavanaugh’s penis into an unnamed woman’s hand.
The essay originally left out exculpatory evidence that the woman reportedly had no recollection of the incident occurring and declined to be interviewed. The outlet updated the story to reflect this. (RELATED: NYT Reporter Says Kavanaugh Accuser Was Traumatized By An Event She Doesn’t Remember)
Pogrebin tweeted out a Vox article journalist Aaron Rupar wrote titled “How Fox News twisted the Kavanaugh scandal into a way to attack the New York Times.”
How Fox News twisted the Kavanaugh scandal into a way to attack the New York Times @atrupar https://t.co/hZGKUXR1jZ via @voxdotcom
— Robin Pogrebin (@rpogrebin) September 18, 2019
Fox News orchestrated The NYT smear in part because it referred to the update as a “correction,” Rupar alleged in the article.
“But there’s just one problem — the Times did not, in fact, ‘correct’ anything,” he wrote Tuesday. “To be clear, the change is a significant one,” he added.
“If the student doesn’t recall the episode, the accusation that Kavanaugh and others may have assaulted her is arguably weaker than if she did,” Rupar wrote. “But, contrary to what Fox News would have you believe, the change to the Times story does not prove that the alleged incident didn’t happen.”
Vox, a liberal-leaning news outlet, added that Fox News “is not alone among media outlets in conflating ‘correction’ with clarification.”
“Fox New’s handling of the situation illustrates how willing the network is to seize on any opportunity to defend not only the president, but those aligned with him — even if its anchors must distort the facts to do so,” the article reads.
Pogrebin’s tweet follows days of the authors defending editorial decisions. She and co-author Kate Kelly told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell Monday that it was editors’ fault for removing key facts from the final story.
WATCH:
Pogrebin also noted Tuesday in an interview on WMAL’s “Mornings on the Mall” that people are overreacting to the article.
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