I get results! New York Times corrects error
On Wednesday, I noted a factual error in this editorial by the New York Times. I wrote the Times’ public editor and complained. Today, the paper corrects its mistake:
An editorial on Wednesday about a Supreme Court gun control case incorrectly described a lower court’s decision. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed the District Court and ruled Washington’s law on gun ownership unconstitutional. The District Court did not overturn the law.
In its editorial, the Times said the U.S. Court of Appeals had upheld “a radical decision by a federal trial judge, who struck down the 31-year-old gun control law …” But it was the appeals court that made the “radical decision” to invalidate the District’s gun ban. The maligned trial judge had sustained it.
I don’t have hundreds on staff, and my posts aren’t subject to layers of editing. But I can read a pdf.
As for the rest of the Times’ editorial, which calls for redacting the Second Amendment, the quality of the reasoning matched the quality of the fact-checking:
The hope, which we share, is that the [Supreme] [C]ourt will rise above the hard-right ideology of some justices to render a decision respectful of the Constitution’s text …
Oh, sure. The Roberts Court can follow the example set in Roe. In that decision, applauded by the Times, the Burger Court rose above the hard-left ideology of some justices to render a decision respectful of the Constitution’s text.
The editors of the New York Times cannot always check facts. But they can make you piss yourself!