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This Just In: Media

The London Times fumbles the facts

By Dan Kennedy

It wasn't a big deal -- just the sort of small error that, when multiplied over and over again, undermines public confidence in the media just as surely as the grand fabrications of Patricia Smith and Stephen Glass.

Last Wednesday, the day after the state's Supreme Judicial Court upheld Judge Hiller Zobel in the Louise Woodward case, the Times of London mistakenly identified Suffolk County district attorney Ralph Martin, rather than Middlesex County's Tom Reilly, as the prosecutor. A simple enough mistake, perhaps, but the Times compounded it by quoting Martin at length. The paper even depicted Martin as extending his sympathy to Sunil and Deborah Eappen, the parents of Matthew Eappen, the baby who died while in Woodward's care.

"Mr. Martin described a telephone call from his office to the Eappens as 'an extraordinarily painful conversation,' " the Times reported.

How could such boneheadedness find its way into print?

It turns out that -- appearances to the contrary -- the Times' Tom Rhodes did not actually interview Martin, but rather took notes as Martin blabbed away as a guest on CNN's Burden of Proof. Martin was asked by cohost Greta Van Susteren, "I presume that the Eappens were called today by prosecutors. How do you handle that?" Martin response began: "It's got to be an extraordinarily painful conversation . . . "

Rhodes, reached at the Times' Washington office, says he failed to identify the conversation as having taken place on a television show because "we don't have the same strict rules that you have over here" (a polite but unnecessary bit of deference given the US media's ethical problems these days). The mischaracterization of Martin and his comments, Rhodes adds, were due to a mistake by editors in London.

"I regret it, but it's not going to change the course of history," Rhodes says.

No, but it does contribute to a growing perception that the media can't get anything right.