Saturday afternoon, I submitted a diary titled, “The New York Times created a f..king meme by misquoting Joe Biden”.
I submitted it because a New York Times front-page story and a column penned by the Times’ Maureen Dowd made a point of quoting a statement made by Joe Biden during his ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos that included Biden’s use of “goodest”. I thought, “goodest”? That’s not even a word.
I watched the interview live and didn’t recall hearing that. So I re-watched a recording of the interview after it was posted by ABC and listened closely to the response where the offending “word” was supposedly used. Nope, I did not hear “goodest”; I thought I heard “...as good as a job...” ABC also helpfully posted a transcript of the interview. It read as follows (bold emphasis mine):
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do...”
After reading the ABC transcript, my blood pressure shot up and I thought, “WTF?!? He was misquoted.” By this time, reader comments in the New York Times — especially in response to Dowd’s column — had latched onto the misquote she used and the NYT reported, and a meme was born.
As was the diary I submitted. www.dailykos.com/...
And this is where my reference to peer review comes in.
Daily Kos alumnus Meteor Blades took me to task because the New York Times had relied on an earlier ABC transcript which included “goodest”, but then corrected it hours later. When I submitted the diary I didn’t know this had happened.
This was our last exchange:
Back of Bourke AUTHOR
I jumped the gun before knowing all the details, and I appreciate Meteor Blades bringing that to my attention and calling me out.
Then an interesting thing happened yesterday: Maureen Dowd wrote another column as a follow up.
www.nytimes.com/...
“In my Saturday column, I quoted Biden’s line to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, about how he would feel if Trump were sworn in as president because he refused to step aside: “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
Now, “goodest” isn’t a word. But my researcher, Andrew Trunsky, and I listened to the video, our ears up against the computer, 10 times, and that’s what it sounded like. We also checked the ABC News transcript and that’s the word they used. Times news reporters and reporters for other news outlets took their cue from the ABC transcript.”
Okay.
What is interesting is that Dowd felt compelled to write a column about this quote a day after her first one. And of course she uses “Goodest” in its title. She is so darned clever!
She also wrote this:
“Biden’s word salad and sudden drops in volume to pianissimo are relevant for reporters to cover because they’re a microcosm of the questions at the heart of the 2024 Democratic campaign: Is the president’s mental state strong enough to beat Donald Trump and can he serve for four more years? The desperate Biden team is ready to go to war over every syllable.”
“Biden’s word salad…”
”Is the president’s mental state strong enough…”
Dowd is writing this about Joe Biden but not about Donald Trump.
Yesterday’s column by Dowd not only continues and amplifies the “goodest” meme with her inimitable tone of petty and snarky defensiveness, it clearly reflects and doubles down on the NYT’s crusade to force Biden out.
Yes, I erred by assigning initial blame for the misquote to the New York Times and not to ABC.
But I stand by my criticism of the NYT’s political reporting and of Dowd in general, especially in light of this latest Dowd piece. It confirms the piling-on double standard we all see from them day after day after day.
It is infuriating.