As you may know, MIT professor Jonathan Gruber gave interviews to and wrote op-eds in several newspapers without disclosing (except once in December) that he was a paid consultant for the Obama administration.
Yesterday (Friday), mainstream journalist Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine defended Gruber by deflecting blame towards journalists. She stated the following:
(referring to the non-disclosure) "Not having done so, by the way, is a failure of jounalists, not any fault of Gruber, who as best I can tell, never did anything to hide those ties.
Read more:
But Tumulty's statement is contradicted by a New York Times' editor's note today, concerning a July-12th op-ed written there by Gruber:
On July 12, the Op-Ed page published an article by Jonathan Gruber, a professor of economics at M.I.T., on health insurance and taxation. On Friday, Professor Gruber confirmed reports that he is a paid consultant to the Department of Health and Human Services, and that his contract was in effect when he published his article. The article did not disclose this relationship to readers.
Like other writers for the Op-Ed page, Professor Gruber signed a contract that obligated him to tell editors of such a relationship. Had editors been aware of Professor Gruber’s government ties, the Op-Ed page would have insisted on disclosure or not published his article.
Gruber also reportedly failed to disclose his conflict of interest to the Washington Post in lat November.
These facts raise a very important question: What the hell is Tumulty talking about? Did she contact the New York Times and Washington Post regarding the facts of the situation?