Entire NYT’s To Blame For Defaming Vets (Update:Lancet-like)

After I sent up the balloon last night about the “NYT’s Vet Bashing Series” many bloggers have added their insights, none better than John Hinderaker at Powerline (a must read).

All of us attribute the defamation, anthropomorphically, to the New York Times.

Indeed, though, that’s a true depiction. Such a large front-page piece does not just appear when reporters write it. It goes through all the layers of management first.

This particularly slimy, statistically idiotic piece bears the seal of approval of the entire NYT’s hierarchy.

Merrill Perlman manages the copy desks across the newsroom at the NYT’s. In a Q&A last March, she describes the NYT's process:

The path an article takes from the reporter’s keyboard to your eyes is generally straightforward, though there are a lot of straight backwards, too, then forward, then backward ...

In simple terms, a reporter files to a backfield editor, who looks to make sure the article is generally solid and sound in its reporting. The backfield editor and the reporter will confer over suggested changes, improvements or deletions in "big picture" ways — the content as opposed to matters of style or grammar. Frequently, the article will go from the backfield editor to the reporter for changes, then back to the backfield editor, repeated several times, depending of course on how much time is available. Investigative articles, enterprise pieces, articles destined for Page 1 or those with particularly sensitive natures will also be looked at by the relevant department head (the Metro editor, for example), by one or more news editors or by the very top editors, including Bill Keller (the executive editor) and Jill Abramson (managing editor). Or by all of them.

Will Public Editor Clark Hoyt follow-up?

Will the fish wrapped in the NYT's pages care?

UPDATE: Thomas Lipscomb finds the NYT's analysis Lancet-like.