The New York Times admitted Monday it was duped into publishing a fake letter claiming to come from Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe that criticized Caroline Kennedy’s senate bid as “appalling” and “not very democratic.”
“What title has Ms. Kennedy to pretend to Hillary Clinton’s seat?” read the letter, printed in Monday’s editions of the leading US metropolitan daily.
“We French can only see a dynastic move of the vanishing Kennedy clan in the very country of the Bill of Rights. It is both surprising and appalling … Can we speak of American decline?” read the letter.
Later Monday, the newspaper published an editor’s note on its website stating “this letter was a fake. It should not have been published.”
Delanoe’s press office in Paris confirmed that the text was a hoax.
From the correction:
This letter, like most Letters to the Editor these days, arrived by email. It is Times procedure to verify the authenticity of every letter. In this case, our staff sent an edited version of the letter to the sender of the email and did not hear back. At that point, we should have contacted Mr. Delanoë’s office to verify that he had, in fact, written to us.
We did not do that. Without that verification, the letter should never have been printed.
We are reviewing our procedures for verifying letters to avoid such an incident in the future.
That should be easy since there apparently is no procedure.
Hat tip: Michelle Malkin and Don Surber.
Also blogging on this: HotAir.
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