Echo Chamber

Last week the New York Times published a daily special section in conjunction with the Republican convention called (ominously, though descriptively) : The Republicans.

In the course or reading Wednesday's edition, I came across two side-by-side articles that contained some remarkably similar prose. First, from David M. Halbfinger and Jodi Wilgoren, an article entitled "Kerry Must Sharpen Attacks, Democrats Say," we get this paragraph about additions to the Kerry campaign staff:

The arrival of the new staff came after several weeks in which Mr. Kerrywas slow to respond to an assault on his Vietnam War record and character, with largely unsubstantiated charges, by the group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Then in an article by Adam Nagourney, entitled "Loves Dogs, Hates Kerry, A Two Prong Campaign Tactic," we get this paragraph about the Bush family's alleged tradition of brutal campaigning:

They argue that the Bush family has long resorted to brutal political tactics when cornered and is known for its parallel campaign tracks, one on the high road, and one on what Democrats would call the low road. Those accusations have grown particularly strong in the last month, in which Mr. Kerry has been the subject of unsubstantiated charges by veterans about his Vietnam combat medals.

You got that? Unsubstantiated charges. If these items weren't appearing in a news section of the paper, I might get the sense that they're trying to make a point here.

Lest you think this wording choice was a one time coincidence, Times Watch (a Web site dedicated to watchdogging the NYT), gives us six more examples of different reporters using the identical characterization of the Swifties.

Ridiculous. And hilarious. Proving that these inquiring, independent news minds are more than happy to snap into lockstep, blind conformity when the overall goal is important enough to them.

In the course of digging out the electronic versions of the print articles noted above, I also noticed some further editing in the Halbfinger/Wilgoren article. The before version (from the print edition):

The arrival of the new staff came after several weeks in which Mr. Kerry was slow to respond to an assault on his Vietnam War record and character, with largely unsubstantiated charges, by the group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

And the after version, from the electronic edition (new words in red, deleted words crossed out):

The arrival of the new staff members came after several weeks in which Mr. Kerry was slow to respond to an assault on his Vietnam War combat record and character, with largely unsubstantiated charges accusations, by the group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Remember, all that editing took place AFTER the article was published in the nation's newspaper of record. Bizarre. I have no clue as to why they even bother to clean it up to that degree after the overwhelming majority of it's audience will have read it and moved on. Some of the changes seem to be of a grammatical nature. But there also seems to be some politically curious choices in what was added and what was deleted. My favorite is the use of the qualifier "a group calling itself" for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is now stricken from the electronic record.

Why? My guess is due to shame, once they got a look at Steve Gigl's devastating analysis of this very issue.