Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?: Bill Keller New York Times Editorial Standards Department
Glenn Greenwald is on the warpath:
What are those OWS people so angry about?: "Bill Keller’s column… is filled with characteristically vapid platitudes, but it also contained one deeply confused passage:
While his counterparts in neighboring Brazil and Ecuador have been flamboyantly consolidating their own power, nationalizing industries and picking fights with the U.S., Ollanta Humala, the new president of Peru, so far seems bent on a quiet, moderate pursuit of systemic reform. He has eschewed left-wing nationalist rhetoric, appointed an investment-friendly cabinet, and calls the U.S. a “strategic partner.”
As I noted, both in the update and on Twitter, Keller apparently thinks that Hugo Chavez is the President of Brazil, since Brazil’s actual government — both under its prior President and its current one — has been quite moderate, pro-market, pro-U.S., and very democratic, with extraordinary economic prosperity: far from the caricature of leftist tyranny Keller depicted (Lula left office after the Constitutionally mandated two terms despite more than an 80% approval rating). Keller’s column has now been quietly changed to replace “Brazil” with “Venezuela” without any note whatsoever of the change (h/t John McQuaid). Those are some very impressive editorial standards: you just obliterate glaring “mistakes” (much more likely: revealed ignorance) without any mention that it ever happened.
Indeed: no hint that this is a correction:
@johnmcquaid: "@johnmcquaid
@ggreenwald "Brazil" now changed to "Venezuela" in Keller column. No correction. nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opi…
UPDATE: There is now a--belated--acknowledgement of correction. There is, however, no acknowledgement of the current error: the claim that Peru and Venezuela are "neighbors". Peru borders Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, and Chile, IIRC. It does not border Venezuela.
