David Cay Johnston Issues Apology For False Accusations Against News Corp

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

David Cay Johnston, the Reuters reporter whose debut column accused News Corp of receiving tax refunds though they didn't pay taxes, had to issue a hasty apology when it was revealed the opposite was true - the $4.8 billion figure was what News Corp PAID in taxes, not what they received as a refund.

Readers, I apologize. The premise of my debut column for Reuters, on News Corp’s taxes, was wrong, 100 percent dead wrong.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp did not get a $4.8 billion tax refund for the past four years, as I reported. Instead, it paid that much in cash for corporate income taxes for the years 2007 through 2010 while earning pre-tax profits of $10.4 billion.

For the first time in my 45-year-old career I am writing a skinback. That is what journalists call a retraction of the premise of a piece, as in peeling back your skin and feeling the pain. I will do all I can to make sure everyone who has read or heard secondary reports based on my column also learns the facts and would appreciate the help of readers in that cause.

[Source - Reuters]

Mind you, this person was hired by Reuters as "an investigative journalist with an expertise in economics and taxes." So how could an expert make a mistake as huge as this?

Tax is my beat, and I was simply looking for what the record showed since Mr. Murdoch is much in the news these days.

In other words, any excuse to dig the knife deeper.

Before being hired by Reuters, Johnston wrote for The New York Times and The Nation, a primarily Liberal publication.

Comments

[thies.livejournal.com]

fact checking in the media nowadays is largely nonexistent. If your revenue is driven by people preferably reading about snooki being drunk again this shouldn't come as a surprise.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Bull, fact checking is alive and well in the media, it has just been outsourced to ideologically opposed news outlets. Even better, they do it for free.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Oh noes, a guy got a fact wrong. All liberalism is a lie.

Say what?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I agree with pannokah on this...so not you.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

So what's the topic for discussion?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

That's pretty professional of them: they made a honest mistake and made a sincere apology.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

No one got fired?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I know what MY objection is:

1. I don't like Rupert Murdoch.

2. Rupert Murdoch runs a highly profitable coporation.

3. Rupert Murdoch is a bottom feeding slimeball and I don't like that he is making a loit of profit.

4. Rupert Murdoch's corporation may or may not pay enough in taxes.

5. Only one of those things is anything that I have the slightest input into.

6. There is no 6.

7. Fuck, I hate Rupert Murdoch. (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1085462.html?thread=86758678#t86758678)

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Just confess that you're a lying hyena liberal vermin tool of the Soros NWO overmind. That would suffice (I hope).

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

6. There is no 6.

That's very Matrix.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how far this story got so quickly considering how wrong it was.

I wouldn't be surprised if people are still defending the original story somewhere on the Internet.

"Lol! You think a veteran journalist for Reuters would get this story wrong? Are you an economist? What do you know about anything"

As always, parse the data and don't assume others have done their work fully.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Yes, liberals make mistakes, and sometimes admit it and make retractions. Shocking to you perhaps because conservatives aren't so good at that.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Keep humping that football.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Is it just me or is anyone else stating to be familiar with this routine?

Someone posts about liberal/conservative media "scandal", which is to prove - not necessarily that political wings use media in certain ways, but that Liberals/conservatives/Labrador Retrievers/Christians/pot smokers/whatever soils your salad are particularly biased, more than the other faction and maybe even part of a conspiracy.

Well, of course he had liberal leanings, just like a comment about Planned Parenthood having 90-something % of their business being abortions, would be stated by a conservative public figure. And so on, forever, until cosmos dies.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Hands off the Labrador Retrievers!

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

After watching FoxNews the first time in 1986, did anyone really think some good would come of it?

Fleet Street was at least civilized when Canadians owned it (Thompson and Black).

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I like how Conrad Black is simultaneously a member of the US prison population and the UK upper house :P

[blorky.livejournal.com]

You're right - that was a thoughtful, detailed and humble apology and retraction by a reporter who seems to have made an honest mistake. It was good that he devoted an entire column showing exactly where he went wrong.

Thanks for pointing out this example of journalistic integrity.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Earlier we had a post about Jon Stewart apologizing for his mistake (it wasn't all polls, just most of them) while calling out all of Fox's lies which they have yet to address.

I wonder if it's even possible to produce a conservative source that's fixed its fallacies.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was probably because of his political bias. Bias exists in the media. There should be some consequences for his mistake, whether it was intentional or not. If it was unintentional, it means that he is incompetent. If it was intentional, then it proves his bias and the bias of his employers who stood behind his publication. Unfortunately this is no surprise in today's politics and it should be called out.

Apart than that...I am looking forward to the day when you will acknowledge bias on part of the media that you have chosen to sympathise with. Good people would do that occasionally, if not as often as they point at bias on part of the media they usually oppose. Would you do that?

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

People's biases become more apparent from the things they choose to talk about, rather than the way they choose to talk about them.

A curmudgeon writes....

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I'm one of those who dislikes Murdoch, and I have done since he took over The Times in 1981. And I'm not alone of those who remember Fleet Street as it was before the 'Dirty Digger' staked his claim to Printing House Square. Even now The Times would still be my natural paper of choice, at least as far as writing style is concerned, and the crossword too: excepting I will not give money to Roops if I can avoid it. I have boycotted it for some thirty years: but I doubt that has hurt either it or Roops very much. I'm sure that it has made me a bitterer and less nice person, however.

(As an aside, I refuse to call The Thunderer the 'London Times' as it was 'The Times' from 3 years after it's foundation in 1785, i.e. 1788. The NYT was founded in 1851; the L.A. Times in 1881: to me there seems no need to disambiguate the original from the copies, rather the other way around.)

However, I'm pleased he pays his taxes. In this respect I wish there were more like him: in most other respects, I'm glad there aren't.

Nevertheless the Reuters journalist who made the mistake should be eating three square meals, plus puddings, of humble pie, with extra apologies on top. You shouldn't fuck-up like that when accusing the bad guys: it lets them off the hook for countless other sins. David Cay Johnston....you've just done the equivalent of letting OJ walk free.

Journalism these days, what is it coming to? Bah. I can only hope that his present troubles forces Ol' Roops to divest himself of the Times, whereupon I can go back to buying and reading it.

Re: A curmudgeon writes....

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Lets not be too hasty. Newscorp payed 20% tax rate, a little over half what they should pay. Newscorp has the third largest number of subsidiaries in tax havens.

His mistake isn't as outlandish as we're led to believe either. Newscorp uses inconsistent negative numbers, and regularly change their reporting. It was in an opinion column. It wasn't some major news story. Should he have got the facts checked? Yes, but it's not like there was some blatant easy to avoid error.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/column-dcjohnston-murdoch-idUSN1E76C25320110713

The fact that he takes this mistake so seriously though does speak well of his credibility.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

I think this is more of a case of getting something an running with it because you want it to be true.

While he may have wanted it to be true for partisan reasons, why would he knowing publish something that's easily disprovable? He misread something, didn't do due diligence either due to incompetence, partisanship, whatever, and this is the result.

The OP is just another example of selective finger-pointing. I doubt she would have made such a post if her partisan news outlet of choice did something similar.

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

Rupert Murdoch does not equal NewsCorp. The fact that the journalist conflated it to pander to all the readers who still think Corporations == Entrepreneurs bothers me. On that point, I don't blame the journalist. I blame the readers.

A journalist has an obligation to provide the facts that people want to hear.

If you regularly follow corporate taxes, you'll find that it's quite common for corporations to pay little to no tax. A company I worked with found they were eligible for about six million in production related tax credits over the last four years. Add a persistently weak economy creating losses in some divisions, and little profit in others, the final tax bill that year was very close to zero. In the oil and gas sector with high volatility and many tax incentives, it's very easy to drive taxable income to low dollars.

So while the average reader might be confused as to why a reporter might assume negative taxes, I find the assumption to be quite reasonable. One would hope that journalists have the resources to fact check these things quickly, but that isn't the game anymore.

Journalism is a market good. It probably shouldn't be. But the days of losing money bringing news to masses died with the seventies. Now consumer habits drive what matters. And speed over accuracy is what the market responds to.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I remember that liberals have admitted their being imperfect before on this community and then this kind of sanctimonious hypocritical chicanery shows up? Two can play at Hardball. If you don't believe me, just ask Ted Stevens, Democratic Senator from Alaska:



And John McCain, Democratic Senator from Arizona:

[404.livejournal.com]

Lazy, lazy lazy attempt attempt at flinging poo, and screeching "SEE, THEY DID IT FIRST!"

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

All I'm going to say is this is what happens when you axe all of your sub-editors and fact checkers...

Newspapers are over.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

My partner's mum is in the movie in your icon :)