NY Times: Uh, We Made a Mistake; MoveOn Goons Reimbursing the Difference

Now that they've been caught redhanded, the New York Times says "oops, we made a mistake."

NY Times says discount for Petraeus ad was mistake

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Times said on Sunday it made a mistake in charging a discounted rate for printing a political ad that attacked the top U.S. general in Iraq, angering Republicans and drawing charges the newspaper is politicalky [sic]biased.

Given the mistake, Moveon.org, the liberal anti-war group that purchased the ad on September 10 -- the day Gen. David Petraeus testified to Congress about the war in Iraq -- said on Sunday it was willing to pay the full price.

The word "charges" implies that there is some debate left to be had on the matter. I think the more accurate word would be "proof." Even one of their own editors admits the bias.

The New York Times' public editor Clark Hoyt wrote that in his opinion, not only did the advertiser get a discount it was not entitled to, but the ad violated The Times' own written standards.

The ad appears to fly in the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, 'We do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal nature,'" he wrote, adding that the phrase "Betray Us" was "a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier."

Hey Hoyt, there is no "appears" about it. You did accept "opinion advertising" that was a "personal attack", with no apology coming from you either. You are nothing but sleazy shills for the anti-American left. You are an embarrassment to the term "journalism" and I eagerly await the day that your shill rag for the left goes bankrupt.

Meanwhile, MoveOn is now forking over the difference in the costs.

MoveOn.org yesterday said it would pony up the full price it should have paid The New York Times for a full-page ad slamming Gen. David Petraeus, a day after the paper admitted giving the left-wing activist group a huge discount.

MoveOn said it would wire $77,083 to the Times today to make up the difference for the ad that called the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq "General Betray Us."

"Now that the Times has revealed this mistake for the first time, and while we believe that the $142,083 figure is above the market rate paid by most organizations, out of an abundance of caution, we have decided to pay that rate for this ad," said MoveOn director Eli Pariser. "We will, therefore, wire the $77,083 difference to the Times tomorrow."

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