It is time for Newsweek reporter Nina Burleigh to reset her “X Days Since Last Retraction” clock. A U.K. newspaper has removed its January 19 magazine cover story, titled “The mystery of Melania,” and issued a lengthy apology to first lady Melania Trump. The story was an excerpt from Burleigh’s book, The Golden Handcuffs: The Secret History of Trump’s Women, which was published in October.
This is the second Burleigh retraction in less than a year. The last time this happened was in February 2018, after her Newsweek editors agreed they couldn’t stand by her absurd allegation that Russian bots were responsible for former Sen. Al Franken’s, D-Minn., disgraceful exit from Congress.
As it turns out, there may be some risks associated with accepting submissions authored by the same woman who once quipped publicly that she’d be happy to fellate former President Bill Clinton for his role in keeping abortion legal. Blind partisans, it turns out, are not the most reliable reporters.
What makes the Telegraph retraction especially notable is that the U.K. paper has gone beyond merely removing the Burleigh-authored report on the first lady, deleting it entirely from the Internet. The paper has issued a groveling apology, while also agreeing to pay “substantial damages” to the target of Burleigh’s reporting.
“Following last Saturday’s (Jan. 19) Telegraph magazine cover story ‘The mystery of Melania,’ we have been asked to make clear that the article contained a number of false statements which we accept should not have been published,” the Telegraph’s editors said in a public apology published this weekend. “We apologise unreservedly to The First Lady and her family for any embarrassment caused by our publication of these allegations. As a mark of our regret we have agreed to pay Mrs. Trump substantial damages as well as her legal costs.”
The apology, which is almost certainly influenced in a large way by the U.K.’s loose libel laws, also includes a list detailing what, exactly, Burleigh supposedly bungled in her reporting. It includes:
– “Mrs Trump did not leave her Design and Architecture course at University relating to the completion of an exam, as alleged in the article, but rather because she wanted to pursue a successful career as a professional model.”
– “Mrs Trump was not struggling in her modelling career before she met Mr Trump”
– “Mrs Trump met Mr Trump in 1998, not in 1996 as stated in the article.”
– “The article also wrongly claimed that Mrs Trump’s mother, father and sister relocated to New York in 2005 to live in buildings owned by Mr Trump. They did not.”
But Burleigh remains undeterred, maintaining unreservedly that her reporting is solid for a change.
“[A] British paper has apologized for some accurate reporting in my book, including facts reported elsewhere by others,” she said this weekend in a tweet hawking her book. “I haven’t been asked for money, but I’d donate to a Trump hush money slush fund before apologizing to the family’s pet sharks for writing true things.”
ICYMI, a British paper has apologized for some accurate reporting in my book, including facts reported elsewhere by others. I haven’t been asked for money, but I’d donate to a Trump hush money slush fund before apologizing to the family’s pet sharks for writing true things. pic.twitter.com/BJOkvdwmbT
— Nina Burleigh (@ninaburleigh) January 26, 2019
Burleigh also told the Washington Post her book “has been widely excerpted and reported on in American publications.” Of course, that could have more than one meaning. There has obviously been no problem in the U.S. with news publications rushing to repeat unsubstantiated allegations about the president and his family.
“The book was lawyered for months in advance of publication,” Burleigh added. “Furthermore, the points they objected to include facts that have been previously reported by other writers.”
These other writers include the notoriously unreliable entertainment blogger Michael Wolff, whose supposed White House-tell all included a number of obviously and provably false assertions.
“They defamed me by calling my work ‘false,’” Burleigh told the Post Monday, referring to the Telegraph. For what it’s worth, Burleigh never actually spoke with the first lady for the book. She claims Melania Trump’s people wouldn’t grant her an interview.
Perhaps Burleigh is telling the truth when she says her reporting is ironclad. Maybe the Telegraph is wrong. Maybe it’s merely caving out of fear of a painful libel lawsuit. But it seems unlikely the paper would retract the story outright and agree to pay damages, had Burleigh not left them in a weak position by bungling the story considerably. Who simply gives in like that when they’re right?
This is the problem with hard partisans doing reporting. We’ve no reason to trust that their version of events is the accurate one.
