ERIC LIPTON RESPONDS, and the verdict is in. “Eric Lipton and the New York Times owe Tim Phillips, Americans For Progress and Charles and David Koch an apology, and they owe their readers a correction.”
UPDATE: A reader emails:
The story of a NYT reporter bastardizing statements made by a conservative is an excellent example of why cell phone cameras, digital recorders and the like are necessary instruments for any conservative in the public light. There should be a record of everything so that the truth has a chance to embarrass the S.O.B.s. The Army of Davids can’t travel without today’s version of a slingshot with which to repel the Goliaths.
The reporter makes it a point that he doesn’t record his own interviews. How convenient! It’s as if he wants to create no record, no paper trail, no evidence of actual malice. That’s fine. But now that the ground rules are abundantly clear conservatives must do some heavy lifting of their own.
To all potential 2012 GOP candidates for President, listen well: Record every encounter with the press. Tape everything. And then try to push back, twice as hard, when the inevitable attacks begin.
Good advice. I had some related thoughts here.
ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader emails:
In this post, http://instapundit.com/115783/, your reader says politicians should record every encounter with the press. In fact, conservative politicians should record every moment of their day, not just encounters with the press. There is too much opportunity for misleading clips or snippets to derail a potential campaign. And more important than recording everything is keeping it. The price of storage has decreased to the point that days and days of decent resolution footage can be stored for little money. I own multi-drive NAS that can store a few thousand hours of 720p video. The cost was less than $2500 with the drives. Campaigns by conservatives will need to be able to fight the active opposition they can expect from the news media, and there is no better way of doing so than with video.
BTW, I work in the news bureau of a major international/financial news service. The comments I have heard are astounding. The only saving grace is that since I work with financial journalists, there are several libertarians/conservatives in the mix. Sadly though, there are none in the regular news units.
Please do not use my name if you decide to publish this.
I understand.