I don't break news. Whenever a news-related item hits this otherwise wacky blog, it's due to taking advantage of someone else's reporting. What I do is re-report, as I'm about to do here.
Initially, I wasn't even sure it would be necessary, since it seemed to be the kind of thing that real news outlets would pick up on, if only after the fact. Instead, it was pointed out by someone on X named Mark Elliot, and was picked up on by Richard Friedman's Showbiz 4II site. As far as I can see, it's been ignored by everyone else.
Elliot noticed something interesting regarding Ross Douthat's New York Times op-ed piece which went up the morning after the Walz-Vance debate:
Take a second look at the date highlighted in yellow. Douthat wrote this piece on September 25 -- a full week before the debate. Or to put it another way, America's most respected newspaper (or at least used to be) has no problem with one of its columnists reviewing an important political debate which happened several days into the future.
Is the paper of record ashamed of Douthat's sleight of hand? Apparently not, since the original date code can still be found by clicking on Opinion | Vance’s Dominant Debate Performance Shows Why He’s Trump’s Running Mate - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Mark Elliot isn't a journalist -- in fact, he describes himself on X simply as a Longtime New Yorker. And most of what Richard Friedman reports on is, as you could guess by his site's name, show business. Yet these are the guys who, respectively, pointed out and passed along the kind of thing that has cost music critics their jobs regarding concerts they hadn't actually seen. Meanwhile, Ross Douthat is still gainfully employed.
So the next time someone tells you Fox News is in the bag for Donald Trump, remind them that at least those people waited to hear what his VP choice had to say before sucking up to him.
And if the Times is looking for an investigative reporter, there's a longtime New Yorker who's probably up for the job.
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