Last week the New York Times published, then republished an article on Donald Trump’s immigration speech with substantial changes. Both versions of the review contained information clearly written after the speech, but both versions also deeply mischaracterized the speech and contained information that was simply wrong, such as the contention that Trump’s hard-as-iron speech represented a retreat from his previous positions on deporting immigrants. The level of Trump-praise in the articles included painting the Republican candidate as audacious, bold, and a risk-taker while still being measured, diplomatic.
But last week’s changes can’t match up to what happened last night, when the New York Times published a recap of the Commander in Chief forum, then completely pulled it and slipped a different article by a different writer in its place.
Especially notable? Here’s a paragraph from the first version.
Mr. Trump also did not back away from his past suggestion that sexual assault in the military was inevitable after women joined the armed forces.
The second version had no mention of Trump’s insistence that men and women serving together leads to rape.
In one instance, he said the United States should pull back thoroughly from Iraq, and then said troops should be left behind in “various sections where they have the oil,” to secure American energy interests.
The second version had no mention of Trump’s call for America to commit a war crime by plundering Iraq’s resources.
Mr. Trump also reiterated his praise for Vladimir V. Putin, Russia’s president, and argued that there was no evidence Russia had a hand in hacking the Democratic National Committee.
The second version had no mention of Trump’s prolonged tribute to Putin, or his comparing Putin favorably to President Obama.
The first version of the article was written by Alexander Burns, who came to the Times last year from Politico. The second version was from Patrick Healy, who has been the NYT’s Metro political reporter for a decade. Healy was also the author of both versions of last week’s morphing report on Trump’s speech.
The question is: Why would the New York Times completely pull one version of the article, for a second version that was substantially less accurate and substantively incomplete?
The New York Times has now updated the Healy version to add Trump’s Putin-praise, but still omits several of Trump’s more outlandish statements such as the contention that the United States should have left people in Iraq to steal their oil.
The question remains. why did the New York Times pull Burns’ article and replace it with the less-complete take from Healy? Even if the Healy article was going to be used in the actual paper version of the Times, which it was, why not leave the Burns article in the online edition?
Whatever is going on in the political section of the NYT, there is a large amount of text making it out into the world, only to be replaced or revised—often not for the better—without explanation.