Real fact-checking would have caught this.
I just don't understand why they continue to let his slip-shod sourcing stand.
I just don't understand why they continue to let his slip-shod sourcing stand.
I mean, it's the first sentence of her Wikipedia profile. Doesn't mean, necessarily, she shouldn't be ever quoted, but at the very least that disclosure is vital in this context. 
What possible reason does the TImes have to not vet Stephens' columns much more rigorously, given all the embarrassment he has caused them.
The reason: The Times institutional arrogance, which is its Achilles heel, always.
The reason: The Times institutional arrogance, which is its Achilles heel, always.
Stephens writes a 900 word column once, sometimes twice a week. *Really* fact-checking him would be neither cost nor process prohibitive.
Just as a matter of ROI, the angst (and TIME) his badly sourced columns cause for the masthead and the greater population of the Times would more than justify any necessary expense.
Anywho, a week after his insanely racist Ashkenazi post, Stephens quotes (but fails to identify as such) an Iranian who is a paid propagandist for the US government in a column about a US assassination of an Iranian official. Not great!
