LOL! No, there's no liberal media bias whatsoever!
From the WP: Too Late to Comment?
Fox: <font size=4>N.Y. Times Didn't Call Until Last Minute<font size=3>
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Sunday, July 11, 2004; Page D06
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Did the New York Times Magazine try to sandbag Fox News?
We report, you decide.
Irena Briganti, a Fox spokeswoman, says she called an editor at the magazine to complain that the network had been given only 24 hours to comment for a piece on the documentary <font color=blue>"Outfoxed"<font color=black> being published today.
She says the editor, James Ryerson, told her: <font color=blue>"We made a deal."<font color=black> Taken aback, Briganti says, she asked him to explain. <font color=blue>"He said it was part of the deal we made with the subject that we would hold off on contacting you"<font color=black> until shortly before deadline.
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Asked about the exchange, Ryerson says: <font color=blue>"I can't remember what exact conversation we had. We certainly contacted Fox News and gave them plenty of time. . . . She may have misunderstood something."<font color=black>
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"He's completely lying,"<font size=4><font color=black> Briganti says.
Should the Times make such deals? The author of the article, Robert Boynton, who teaches journalism at New York University, says he did have an agreement with filmmaker Robert Greenwald: He couldn't call too early, says Boynton, who began work on the piece in late May, because Fox <font color=blue>"would have slapped an injunction on him for copyright infringement"<font color=black> for unauthorized use of the network's footage. <font color=blue>"That would have screwed the whole thing up,"<font color=black> Boynton says. But <font color=blue>"the only deal was that I couldn't call two or three weeks in advance."<font color=black>
Boynton's first substantive contact was with a spokesman for Fox's parent, News Corp., on June 29, three days before his deadline. He was referred to the news division and e-mailed spokesman Brian Lewis the next day. The matter was referred to Briganti, who had the <font color=blue>"deal"<font color=black> conversation with Ryerson on July 1, deadline day. She says she did not return Boynton's calls because Ryerson had promised to get back to her, and didn't.
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Boynton e-mailed that day that he would have to say Fox had no comment <font color=blue>"if I don't hear back from you by noon today."
"I really wanted a response,"<font color=black> says Boynton. <font color=blue>"This was not an ambush."
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So will Fox sue Greenwald over the film? <font color=blue>""People steal our footage all the time,"<font color=black> says Dianne Brandi, Fox News's vice president for legal affairs. <font color=blue>""We generally sort of look the other way."<font color=black>
-- Howard Kurtz
© 2004 The Washington Post Company |
