NYT: It's OK for a newspaper to say a source is lying

The good news: The New York Times called shenanigans on a quote in the same story the quote appeared in, saying "This is false." The less-exciting news: It happened in a story about competing pizza restaurants. But still, as Jay Rosen points out, praise is in order. This is something journalism needs more of, and if it has to start with a pizza feud, so be it.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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Guest

You mean, they didn’t give equal weight to both “sides” of the story? Those Liberal Fascists!
Lobster

Well, Michael Wilson can say good-bye to his access to the fascinating world of pizza purveyance. The New York Times will no longer be a useful source of information for the pizza lovers of the world!
http://twitter.com/spylark hapa

SLICING THE PIE KILLS JOBS!
lknope

Imagine if Fox had to do this. Almost 50% of what they said would be “This is false.”
- http://www.mrericsir.com MrEricSir
  
  Fox News: Where even the slogan is a lie.
Lobster

This statement is false.
http://twitter.com/cjporkchop cjporkchop

I don’t think Mr. Mangano meant “Nobody ever heard of Ralph Cuomo” literally. He meant it in the sense that the pizza-eating population had never heard of him. That the FBI knew of Ralph Cuomo’s existence doesn’t make Mr. Mangano’s figurative statement false.

Yes, it would be nice if fact-checking happened more often. But this isn’t the greatest example of it.
corydodt

[insane-clown-posse.jpg]

Fucking journalism, how does it work.
http://www.jjsaul.com Jim Saul

Imagine if that became common. There are a lot of glib, smirking pathological liars making a living as “news analysts” whose too-toothed grins would suddenly become more brittle.

In fact, I’d like to see it go farther, and hook those fuckers up to lie detectors with electroshock feedback.