NY Times cited McCain campaign ad attacking Obama without noting distortions Times itself has noted

Summary: A New York Times article cited a McCain campaign ad that, the article said, "accus[ed] Mr. Obama of being 'disrespectful' toward" Gov. Sarah Palin, but did not note that the Times' own analysis of the ad found that it "resort[ed] to a dubious disregard for the facts."

In a September 14 article, New York Times reporter Kate Zernike cited an ad put out by Sen. John McCain's campaign as evidence that "[t]he McCain campaign is also on the offensive in trying to stoke anger about perceived sexism," but did not note that the Times' own analysis of the ad the previous day found that it "resort[ed] to a dubious disregard for the facts."

From Zernike's article, headlined, "Both Sides Seeking to Be What Women Want":

The McCain campaign is also on the offensive in trying to stoke anger about perceived sexism. The campaign has designated a squad of prominent Republican women to call out what they see as gender-based smears against Ms. [Sarah] Palin. Last week, it released two spots accusing Mr. [Barack] Obama of being "disrespectful" toward her.

However, Zernike's article did not point out any of the numerous distortions in the ad that is titled "Disrespectful" on YouTube, catalogued by the Times on September 13:

ACCURACY Mr. Obama is pictured when the phrase "good looking" appears on the screen, but it was actually Mr. [Joe] Biden who made the remark, and clearly in a self-deprecating context. The Obama adviser accused of saying Ms. Palin was doing what she was told merely said that she might have been fed misinformation about Mr. Obama and repeated it. An Obama advertisement does accuse both Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin of "lying" about their records, in her case as regards her claimed opposition to the so-called bridge to nowhere, which she opposed only once it became a symbol of wasteful spending. And this is the second McCain advertisement to call Mr. Obama "the world's biggest celebrity," a contention that will no doubt come as a surprise to several actors and athletes, and seems odd at a moment when Ms. Palin is omnipresent on television and in newspapers and magazines.

SCORECARD The advertisement is the latest in a number that resort to a dubious disregard for the facts. The nonpartisan political analysis group Factcheck.org has already criticized "Disrespectful" as "particularly egregious," saying that it "goes down new paths of deception," and is "peddling false quotes." Even the title is troublesome. "Disrespectful" is one of those words that is loaded with racial and class connotations that many people consider offensive.

As Media Matters for America has documented, in its analysis of the "Disrespectful" ad -- which was cited by the Times analysis -- FactCheck.org noted that the ad "takes words out of context to make it sound as though the Democratic ticket is belittling Palin," and stated that the McCain campaign ad "distorts" each of the three Obama campaign statements it uses "to make the case" that Obama is "being 'disrespectful' of Palin."

Zernike did not explain her reference to "two spots accusing Mr. Obama of being 'disrespectful' toward" Palin [emphasis added], but, in addition to the "Disrespectful" ad, the campaign released a Web ad entitled "Lipstick," which falsely asserted that Sen. Barack Obama's comment, "[Y]ou can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig," was an attack on Palin. The Times reported in a September 12 article that "the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama's words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain's claim to be the change agent in the race, 'You can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig.' (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's health plan.)"

—M.W.