Even on a smaller scale, their depths are without limits, it would seem.
The most recent example is the New York Times' coverage of the competency hearing on June 17, 2008 in the Susan Lindauer versus the United States in the Federal District Court, Southern District of New York, in lower Manhattan. Antiwar Activist Returns to Court for Iraq Spy Case, Alan Feuer, New York Times, June 18, 2008.
The headline betrays the first major problem with the New York Times coverage. Susan Lindauer has claimed all along that she was an anti-war and anti-sanctions activist as well as a U.S. asset. However, no one who has read the indictment or the informed coverage would refer to Lindauer as an accused "spy." She is charged with being an "unregistered foreign agent." The "high water mark" of the indictment, as Judge Mukasey called it, is the charge that Lindauer attempted to influence U.S. policy on behalf of pre-war Iraq through the delivery of this January 2003 letter to Andrew Card, then chief of staff for President Bush, and Colin Powell, then secretary of state.
The New York Times story opens with this curious statement:
"She rolled her eyes. She stuck her tongue out at the prosecutor. It was decidedly not the usual courtroom demeanor. Then again, it was not the usual federal case." New York Times, June 18, 2008 (NYT)
I attended the hearing and sat in the front row of the courtroom. Of all the spectators, I had one of the best views of defendant Susan Lindauer and the witnesses. With regard to "rolling her eyes," that was simply not visible from the public seating since Lindauer faced the judge showing spectators only her back except when she turned and was visible in profile. As for "sticking out her tongue," I saw no such behavior and Lindauer denies the reporter's claim vigorously. The alleged gesture was not reported by the New York Daily News, Associated Press, and New York Metro. Nor did I report it in this article on the hearing.
Why would the reporter begin a news story with such an inflammatory unverified charge?
If we skip to the end of the article, we might find an answer. The reporter closed the story with this statement by Lindauer from her post hearing press conference in the hall just outside Judge Loretta Preska's courtroom.
"She angrily contested an accusation in her indictment that she had illegally lunched with Iraqi intelligence operatives.
"You want to send me to prison because I had a cheeseburger," she said, "even though I'm not the person who actually ate the cheeseburger." NYT
The reporter plucked out of context a random remark about cheeseburgers to characterize Lindauer's denial of serious charges as weak and less than serious.
Lindauer was arguing that the indictment was both flawed and incorrect. She denied these charges, pointed out that she had not been in the city on the dates alleged, and asserted that she can prove it. Then she illustrated what she clearly believed to be the absurdity of the charges with the cheeseburger remark. By lifting this quotation out of context, an entirely different meaning is implied.
The New York Times reporting on the facts of the case is also notably wanting. The reporter echoed the prosecutors claim that "a half-dozen doctors claimed Lindauer suffered from paranoia and delusions of grandeur." Lindauer, the subject of these professionals, questioned the accuracy of the prosecutor's statement.
The story leaves out the psychiatrist who examined Lindauer just after her arrest and found no such thing. It fails to mention the two psychotherapists who saw Lindauer over a period of months and failed to report any of this. Observation and interaction over an extended period are powerful tools for diagnosis.
The reporter also failed to note the completed report submitted to the court by a distinguished Washington, D.C. area psychiatrist and academic which reportedly says that Lindauer is competent to stand trial. The psychiatrist is scheduled to appear on Lindauer's behalf at the next hearing before Judge Preska on July 7, 2008. But discovering this would require that the reporter actually talk to the defendant.
This was, after all, a competency hearing on the mental capacity of Lindauer to stand trial. Wouldn't you expect the New York Times to cover both sides of the story?
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