Bruce Allen
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04:40:16 pm on December 8, 2010 |
(Here is the post from BSMW that was getting all the traffic.)
I had seen William Rhoden’s column in The New York Times yesterday, and like this emailer, I was somewhat surprised to see it get remade at the same URL following the Patriots beatdown of Jets.
Hi Bruce,
I’m a regular BSMW reader, and as such I thought you might be interested in something I caught in the NYT coverage of the Jets-Pats rivalry. On the Times’ site yesterday, I saw this column from William Rhoden.
That article no longer exists on the Times’ site; it’s been replaced, at the same URL, with this. (The modified article went up within a few minutes of last night’s game ending.) You’ll notice the new headline no longer references the Patriots’ “crumbling empire;” similar changes are made throughout the article.
Now, to my mind, these are both cases of pretty crappy journalism, using the thinnest of pretenses to bring up Spygate without really saying anything new. However, it’s my understanding that the Times’ policy is to note corrections, changes, or updates to articles like this instead of just throwing lines like “The shift has occurred: the Jets are in ascendancy, while New England is in retrograde” down the memory hole.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Best,
DPS: One more amusing modification. Rhoden, pre-game: “The shift was set in motion three seasons ago by a moral misstep by Belichick. The Patriots empire began to unravel the day New England was caught cheating.” Rhoden, post-game: “If New England does not win another title under Belichick, critics can say that a shift took place three seasons ago.” Hedging his bets, I guess.
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