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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Hastings' Widow Hits 'NYT' Over Obit

Michael Hastings' widow, Elise Jordan, has released her email today to the NYT, and an editor's reply,  re: it's online obit about him which, she feels, tried to diminish his famous "Runaway General" article.  She also, in a bonus, refers to what she heard on tapes she transcribed for him for his article. 

The NYT response, from its obits ed.,  indicates they are standing by the obit and would make no change before it appears in print tomorrow.  So she's taking her protest to the paper's public editor Margaret Sullivan.  It's related to exactly what I posted earlier today--the credibility of the Times claiming that a Pentagon probe "cleared" McChrystal of wrongdoing.  Here's what I wrote:

"You may have forgotten, if you ever knew, that an official 2011 Pentagon probe of the late Michael Hastings' takedown piece of Gen. McChrystal called the article into question.  Then again, they interviewed only 15 witnesses--and talked to neither the general nor Hastings!  See Rolling Stone's full defense of the piece.  The highlight on the Pentagon report, for me: 
The inspectors did suggest that some version of a Biden slur may have occurred, although they said they were unable to establish the exact words and the speaker. "We consider credible a witness’ recollection that General McChrystal said, ‘Are you asking about Vice President Biden? Who’s that?’ and that a follow-on comment or rejoinder of some sort referring to Vice President Biden was made,” the report said. “Witness testimony led us to conclude that someone in the room made a rejoinder about Vice President Biden to General McChrystal’s comment, and that the rejoinder may have included the words ‘bite me.’ ”

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