The New York Times has accused Rep. Darrell Issa of improperly mixing his private business with his duties as a congressman, or at least appearing to have done so. And Issa’s supporters are crying foul, pointing to what they say are major factual errors in the article by Eric Lichtblau.
One major error is beyond dispute and has already been corrected by the NYT, which appended this note to the article:
“Correction: August 15, 2011
“An earlier version of this article incorrectly described value of businesses that resulted from splitting a holding company owned by Representative Darrell Issa. They are multimillion-dollar businesses, not multibillion-dollar businesses.”
On a less substantive but symbolic note, according to Rostrafarian Issa, the article also incorrectly described the congressman’s “gleaming” office as “overlooking a golf course.” The description is a common literary device intended to foreshadow the article. In this case, it’s intended to frame Issa as operating from a background of wealth, which of course he is. However, the description itself doesn’t look accurate.
A Heritage Foundation blog post stated:
“As for the first point, Issa’s office building is located about a half-mile from the Shadowridge Country Club, according to Google Maps. However, the office building is surrounded by three housing developments and a state highway. There’s no direct access from Issa’s building to the course and it would take approximately 20 minutes to walk there.”
Here’s a satellite image from Google Maps showing the intervening terrain between the office and the golf course. Issa’s office is marked with the red “A” (And no, not that kind of “A”.):
Issa's office, in upper right corner. Golf course begins in extreme lower left corner.
To be sure, the New York Times often demonstrates a shaky grasp of California geography, and this doesn’t contradict the story’s claims that Issa has at least acted in a way that looks improper.
However, there are more substantive claims from Issa, such as that the story falsely said that an investment by Issa’s foundation “earned $357,000 on an initial investment of less that $19,000 — a return of nearly 1,900 percent in just seven months.” Issa’s office says the foundation actually lost $125,000, and its initial investment was $500,000.
I also noticed a claim in the story that was not backed up with evidence:
“At a House hearing in 2008 on a much-debated proposal to merge the satellite radio companies Sirius and XM, despite objections on competitive grounds, Mr. Issa praised the “viable combined market” the deal would create as he questioned Sirius’s chief executive and talked of opportunities for expansion.
“What Mr. Issa did not mention was that his electronics firm was then in a lucrative partnership with Sirius to distribute its audio products.”
The story did not say what made the partnership “lucrative.” It gave no numbers or even an approximation.
So right now, it’s really hard for me to have confidence in the New York Times story. Certainly, the 1,000-fold milllions-to-billions error doesn’t inspire trust. A newspaper such as the New York Times, which prides itself on world-class journalism, should know better than to commit such an obvious blunder — especially in what was supposed to be a hard-hitting investigative piece.
Politico describes the story as providing “plenty of information — and lots of suggestion — but no smoking gun.” In other words, the kind of insinuation-filled story the NYT has become known for writing about Republican politicians.
The New York Times intended its investigation of Issa to suggest skullduggery. But the story’s sloppiness demonstrates anew that the Grey Lady — contrary to what new editor Jill Abramson was raised to believe — is far from knowing the absolute truth.
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(DISCLAIMER: This is the opinion of Bradley J. Fikes, and not that of his employer, the North County Times.)