A letter signed by executives at 26 stations carrying “The Daily” accuses The Times of moral lapses. A high-level Times editor acknowledges errors.
In an Editors’ Note final month, The New York Times laid out the journalistic issues within the “Caliphate” podcast.Credit…Zack DeZon for The New York Times
- Jan. 12, 2021Updated 5:46 p.m. ET
Nearly a month after The New York Times announced that the 2018 podcast “Caliphate” didn’t meet its journalistic requirements, a public radio affiliation has accused The Times of committing moral lapses in its efforts to make amends.
The Public Radio Program Directors Association, which represents executives at public media retailers throughout the nation, despatched a letter of grievance on Monday to The Times’s audio division. It was signed by executives at 26 public radio stations that carry “The Daily,” the favored Times podcast hosted by Michael Barbaro.
In mid-December, an Editors’ Note in The Times laid out the journalistic issues in “Caliphate,” a 12-part collection that sought to make clear the Islamic State. In the be aware, The Times mentioned it had given an excessive amount of credence to the false or exaggerated account of one of many podcast’s predominant topics, Shehroze Chaudhry, a Canadian who claimed to have taken half in Islamic State atrocities. On the day the be aware was printed, Dean Baquet, the manager editor of The Times, gave an apologetic audio interview to Mr. Barbaro that was connected to “Caliphate” as a thirteenth installment. Mr. Baquet described the issues as “an institutional failing,” saying the podcast’s errors shouldn’t be blamed on “any one reporter.”
In its letter, the general public radio affiliation questioned why The Times didn’t disclose, as a part of the audio interview with Mr. Baquet, that Mr. Barbaro was in a romantic relationship with Lisa Tobin,
