The New York Times reporters behind the botched story alleging Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh committed sexual misconduct said “too much is being made” of the details that were left out.
Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly adapted a story from their upcoming book for the Times, alleging that one of Kavanaugh’s classmates at Yale University said that he made inappropriate sexual contact with a female student. However, the article failed to mention that the female student who was the alleged victim has no recollection of the supposed event and declined to be interviewed.
Pogrebin appeared on WMAL’s Mornings on the Mall to discuss the omitted details and the ensuing backlash on Tuesday.
[Related: New York Times reporters blame editors for ‘error of judgment’ in Kavanaugh story]
“We found that this was kind of just an inadvertent error in the sense that often in the New York Times, you kind of debate the use of a victim’s name, and in this case, I think our editors were kind of debating the appropriateness of that. In kind of omitting her name, the whole sentence kind of came out, which sort of referred to whether or not she remembered the incident,” Pogrebin stated.
“It had originally been in there,” she continued. “But, I actually frankly think too much is being made of it given that this was somewhat of a hasty editing process as this was going to press. Even though we do name her in the book, I think there was a feeling that it might not necessarily be important to name her in the story where you’re then directing attention to the victim.”
The two reporters were on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell Monday night and they blamed their editors for removing the section about the victim not remembering the alleged misconduct.
