The New York Times Commits One of Its Funniest Blunders Ever

Via Don Surber and Logan Dobson, another knee-slapper from the editorial board of the New York Times. The paper published an editorial attacking Scott Walker yesterday. Nothing noteworthy about that, except that the Times kept calling him “Mr. Scott.” Here is a screen grab; Dobson tweeted, “NYTimes Edit Board ruthlessly attacks some guy named ‘Mr. Scott’ who they claim is the governor of Wisconsin”:

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The paper eventually realized its mistake and corrected it, although without acknowledging the correction. I suppose it was just too embarrassing.

You can see how this kind of thing might happen; people occasionally have such synapse failures. But some people expect more from the Times editorial board. (I don’t, but some others do.) In fact, the Times editorial board is no better than, or different from, a minor-league left wing blogger. Actually, that’s where they get a lot of their material.

The serious point is one that we have made over and over. Does the New York Times not employ editors? Seemingly not. How many employees saw the “Mr. Scott” editorial before it was published? It is hard to believe that anyone saw it other than its author, the one who made the mistake. Isn’t the editorial board supposed to be a plural entity? Is it possible that multiple members of the board read the editorial and approved it, thinking that Wisconsin’s Governor is a guy named Mr. Scott?

What we are seeing here is a once-formidable institution in a state of terminal and irreversible decline.

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