As I wrote yesterday (click HERE for all the details), The New Yorker, specifically Jane Mayer, published a piece attacking Fox News as simply an arm of the White House. One of her primary pieces of evidence was a supposed quote by Ken LaCorte, who made the decision not to run the Stormy Daniels story back in October of 2016. By Mayer’s telling, this was done to protect Trump at the direct order of Rupert Murdoch.
Mr. LaCorte says this isn’t true and that he tried to contact Mayer to correct the record but she refused to return his calls.
A week before publication, I received a few phone calls from a New Yorker fact checker confirming my quotes. Her last one was a surprise, asking me to confirm or deny what they heard from a secondhand source, alleging I had told our reporter it was “good reporting” but we shelved it because of Rupert Murdoch’s politics. I neither said nor even thought that because neither of those things was true.
I sent Mayer an email with some explanation and an offer to talk, and she responded: “sorry but I didn’t know fact-checkers called, I was hoping to call you first. we just added this to the story today. I’ll call in a bit. up to my eyeballs right this moment.” She never did…
…In her 11,635 word piece, she didn’t find room to mention the paucity of evidence we had, the conflicting statements nor the other outlets which responded exactly as we did.
In other words, Mayer had her narrative and failed to provide key context that could have made Fox News look far less sinister.
Well, she’s responded…
This complaint is unfounded. I interviewed LaCorte extensively, quoted him 4 times, included his assertion that Falcone's story "hadn't passed muster." Any claim I didn't tell his side is false. Falzone can't defend herself – she's under an NDA, but 3 sources corroborate her. https://t.co/YPswtXjnao
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) March 8, 2019
Notice what she doesn’t address in this typically slick reply. LaCorte never claimed he didn’t speak to her previously. His contention is that he tried to contact her to correct a false quote prior to publication. She couldn’t be bothered to do so, making up some excuse about how busy she was. In her above tweet, she doesn’t deny this and instead side-steps the issue entirely.
She then hides behind anonymous sources supposedly corroborating the complaints of someone who is suing Fox News. While Diana Falzone may have perfectly legitimate reasons to go after Fox News, saying she’s under NDA does not make it ethical to run with a quote that LaCorte says is patently false. This also doesn’t explain why Mayer couldn’t be bothered to give LaCorte’s denial, nor the further details he provides about the situation, in her published piece.
Mayer can make all the excuses she wants but this is why the media have an approval rating just above dirty needles.
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