Second Open Letter to Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor of The New York Times: Perpetuation of Falsehoods by Your Newspaper's Editorial Page

Dear Ms. Sullivan,

As you will recall, on December 11, 2012 I sent you an e-mail concerning the following passage from Thomas Friedman's December 4, 2012 op-ed entitled "Iron Empires, Iron Fists, Iron Domes":

"The far-right group running Israel today is so arrogant, and so indifferent to U.S. concerns, that it announced plans to build a huge block of settlements in the heart of the West Bank — in retaliation for the U.N. vote giving Palestinians observer status — even though the U.S. did everything possible to block that vote and the settlements would sever any possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state."

Friedman's mistaken contention that Israel's planned E1 construction "would sever any possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state" followed on the heels of Jodi Rudoren's specious claim in her December 2, 2012 Times article entitled "Dividing the West Bank, and Deepening a Rift" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/world/middleeast/2-state-solution-at-risk-in-israeli-building-plan.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&) that E1 construction would divide the West Bank. On December 16, the Times was forced to correct Rudoren's article:

"An article on Dec. 2 about Israel’s decision to move forward with planning and zoning for settlements in an area east of Jerusalem known as E1 described imprecisely the effect of such development on access to the cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem from Jerusalem, and on the West Bank. Development of E1 would limit access to Ramallah and Bethlehem, leaving narrow corridors far from the Old City and downtown Jerusalem; it would not completely cut off those cities from Jerusalem. It would also create a large block of Israeli settlements in the center of the West Bank; it would not divide the West Bank in two. And because of an editing error, the article referred incompletely to the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state. Critics see E1 as a threat to the meaningful contiguity of such a state because it would leave some Palestinian areas connected by roads with few exits or by circuitous routes; the proposed development would not technically make a contiguous Palestinian state impossible."

Rudoren's subsequent excuse (http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/12/elliott-abrams-slams-nyts-jodi-rudoren-152407.html):

"On deadline, late at night and at the end of a very long couple of weeks, I used imprecise language and, yes, did not study the map carefully enough."

Notwithstanding the correction to Rudoren's article, and notwithstanding my e-mails to both Andrew Rosenthal and you, the falsehood in Friedman's op-ed was never corrected.

Worse still, in a December 20, 2012 Times editorial entitled "The Fading Mideast Peace Dream" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/opinion/the-fading-mideast-peace-dream.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=1&), your newspaper went on record as stating:

"So far this week, Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line government, defying the Western powers, has approved construction of more than 6,000 new housing units. The approvals follow an announcement late last month that Israel would continue planning for new development in the E1 area — a project northeast of Jerusalem that would split the West Bank and prevent the creation of a viable contiguous Palestinian state."

Again, as provided by Section 15 of your newspaper's "Ethical Journalism, A Handbook of Values and Practices for the News and Editorial Departments" (http://www.nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf):

"The Times treats is readers as fairly and openly as possible. In print and online, we tell our readers the complete, unvarnished truth as best we can learn it. It is our policy to correct our errors large and small, as soon as we become aware of them."

As further provided Section 16 of your "Handbook of Values and Practices for the News and Editorial Departments" provides:

"Simple courtesy suggests that we not alienate our readers by ignoring their letters and e-mails that warrant reply."

Are we to understand that op-ed columnists, such as Mr. Friedman, are entitled to play fast and loose with the facts, or, must they also be corrected when their underlying factual assumptions are mistaken?

Can New York Times editorials also assert falsehoods without correction?

In addition, I am curious why you and your staff, decided that there was no need to respond to my December 11 e-mail to you. Perhaps you can also inquire why Andrew Rosenthal thought it was appropriate to ignore my December 8 e-mail to him, a copy of which was also sent to you, concerning Thomas Friedman's error.

Does "simple courtesy" no longer exist at the Times?

Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey