Shots in the Dark

Nine days after Richard Perez-Pena published his original article on Patrick Witt, Arthur S. Brisbane, the New York Times’ public editor—the ombudsman, basically—concludes that Perez-Pena’s article shouldn’t have been published.

…reporting a claim of sexual assault based on anonymous sourcing, without Mr. Witt’s and the woman’s side of it, was unfair to Mr. Witt. The Times thought it was a necessary part in its exposé of the feel-good sports story. But the impact of the “sexual assault” label on Mr. Witt is substantial and out of proportion for a case that went uninvestigated and unadjudicated.

This was a compelling story, and The Times was motivated to publish it. But when something as serious as a person’s reputation is at stake, it’s not enough to rely on anonymous sourcing, effectively saying “trust us.”

I’m not sure what it means that “the Times was motivated to publish [the story].” That the paper was in the grip of publishing bloodlust?

In a way rather more mild than I would have liked, Brisbane does come down on the side of right here. But let’s not give him too much credit for coming to a journalistic conclusion that’s about as difficult as proclaiming that 2 + 2 = 4. For anyone with a couple years of journalism experience, this shouldn’t have been a hard call: You can’t publish such a dynamite allegation—sexual assault—when you don’t know a single detail. And you can’t claim that that allegation affected an apparently unrelated decision when you don’t have any proof.

This piece should never have seen the light of day, and that’s not a hard call to make; I would have liked more from Brisbane on how and why it got published.

I also would have liked to see him spend more time considering some of the sleazy tactics used by Perez-Pena to bolster his story in the absence of actual proof. Perez-Pena used Witt’s history with the law and his residence in DKE to insinuate that he was violent and misogynistic—a likely rapist. And he implied that Witt was finishing his degree off campus as a result of the sexual assault allegation, something which was simply wrong. Perez-Pena built a fallacious case with his insinuations about Witt’s character, and then used that fallacious case to buttress an inaccurate conclusion.

All in all, this series of three articles by Richard Perez-Pena fell considerably below the journalistic standards of a good college newspaper, much less the New York Times. I do think the paper should be more forthcoming about how the decision was made to print it. But maybe that would cast the paper’s new executive editor in too unflattering a light.

So all this brings us to an awkward and unsatisfying coda.

Yale’s reputation has taken a hit, when no one has presented any evidence that the university has done anything wrong here. What should Yale have done differently?

And thanks to the Times, there will always be a cloud around Patrick Witt. Where does he go to get his reputation back?

It’s a case of the powerful versus the powerless—which, ultimately, is why I’ve felt so strongly about Perez-Pena’s articles. I know what it’s like to be the object of scurrilous reporting (in the Times itself, for that matter). I know what it’s like to try to get the Times to admit that it’s wrong about something, even when, by the standards of any cub reporter with a conscience, the paper has acted unethically. The New York Times has abused its power and its responsibility in the Patrick Witt matter, and we shouldn’t allow that to pass unacknowledged.

But what can Patrick Witt do about it? He can’t sue the Times, because Perez-Pena’s work, mistake-riddled though it may be, probably doesn’t meet the standard of actual malice required to win a libel suit.

The paper itself is done with the story and, like a hit-and-run driver, will quickly and cowardly dash away.

Witt can go on to live a good and productive life, but unlike its perpetrator, this shadow doesn’t go away—it rises from the pages of a Google search, never to disappear. Anyone out there think that this might be an impediment when Witt tries to get a job? Get into graduate school? Ask a girl on a date?

Democracy is messy and the exercise of free speech imperfect, but admitting that is to deny responsibility. Richard Perez-Pena still owes Patrick Witt an apology—one as lengthy and public as his original, lamentable accusation.

Sorry, Pats fans! We broke your hearts in another down to the wire, come from behind victory!

Forgive me, but I must admit: There are few things as satisfying in sports as breaking the hearts of Patriots fans.

Maybe breaking the hearts of Red Sox fans.

The sports website Deadspin compiles a timeline of the Witt affair, and like me, concludes that Times’ reporter Richard Perez-Pena was just flat-out wrong—not only in going with a story about an accusation of sexual assault in which he didn’t know the name of the accuser, the nature of the allegation or its resolution, but also in reporting that it was this allegation that caused Patrick Witt to withdraw his Rhodes application, rather than, as Witt had said, a choice on his part to play in The Game.

After compiling its timeline—called How the New York Times Fumbled Its Case Against the Yale Quarterback—Deadspin concludes [emphasis added]:

The premise of the Times story is that Witt had known the assault allegation was sinking his candidacy, but he and Yale sold the press on a much more inspiring version of events. Everyone believed he had chosen his teammates over the Rhodes. Which seems to be what actually happened.

Deadspin also reports out something that I noted in an earlier blog that should have been reported by Richard Perez-Pena-unless he didn’t really want to know the truth.

I noted that in the second of his two articles on Witt, Perez-Pena resorted to backing up his attack on Witt with this tenuous bit of evidence:

Indeed, in a Wall Street Journal article published Nov. 12 — days after Witt now says he had told Yale of his decision to play against Harvard — both Witt and Yale’s athletic director were quoted talking about what they said remained a very difficult choice.

In my blog post, I suggested that the date of publication wasn’t what mattered; what mattered was the date the Journal reporter interviewed Witt. A good reporter, I suggested, would just call up the Journal and ask.

Which is what Deadspin, not the Times, seems to have done.

Nov 8: Nov. 8: …Yale holds its weekly press conference, where Witt talks to assembled media, including Scott Cacciola of the Wall Street Journal.

So recapping: Perez-Pena is faulting Witt for a story that ran on November 12, despite the fact that the interview for it was on November 8th—and Witt has said that he made his decision widely known on the 9th. Witt’s timeline adds up; the Times’ timeline is incoherent.

I can not emphasize enough: This is Journalism 101. It’s astonishing to me that such amateurish reporting and editing could find their way into the New York Times. After all, it’s not only Perez-Pena’s fault; it’s also the fault of whatever sports section editor edited the story. Ultimately, it’s the fault of Times managing editor Jill Abramson—a Harvard grad, by the way—who surely signed off on it.

Today marks a week since the Times ran its original story; it has been, among outlets that have taken a serious look at it, widely and definitively debunked.

But in that week Patrick Witt’s and Yale’s reputations have both been deeply damaged. How long does it take for the newspaper of record to admit that it got something badly wrong? And how much damage will have been done by the time it gets around to doing so?

And why, given the fact that his reputation has been widely (and rightly) called into question by his shoddy reporting on Patrick Witt, is the New York Times continuing to allow him to write about the university?

Perez-Pena yesterday wrote up a short piece on Yale’s release of a report describing the handling of sexual misconduct complaints in 2011.

The report, released Tuesday evening and covering the period from July 1 to the end of 2011, lists 52 allegations of misconduct by students or employees, ranging from harassing remarks to rape.

…Of the 52 complaints, 14 involved sexual assault, which the report defines as “unwanted sexual contact, unwanted touching, nonconsensual sex/rape.” Three explicitly state that the charge was “nonconsensual sex.”

None of those 14 complainants who charged sexual assault went to the police.

So this is interesting, and it’s something that Perez-Pena needs to deal with. In his earlier articles about Patrick Witt, he used the term “sexual assault” to characterize the charge allegedly made against Witt by the girl he had apparently been hooking up with. (Witt’s spokesperson characterized their relationship as “on-again, off-again”; I’m paraphrasing.) Was he using the term as Yale is using it?

Perez-Pena implied that Witt was accused of rape—but that seems unlikely, given that the resolution of the informal complaint was basically for the two people to steer clear of each other. Let’s hope no one ever suggests that as a solution for rape.

So we’re left with the fact that Witt—if Perez-Pena was using his terminology correctly—was probably charged with “unwanted sexual contact” and/or “unwanted touching.” What does that mean? Perez-Pena, who doesn’t know the name of the accuser or the nature of the accusations, certainly doesn’t know.

Oh, and here’s one other thing. It’s subtle, but I think it’s telling [emphasis added].

The new transparency is part of an overhaul of Yale’s system for dealing with such complaints, adopted last year in the face of criticism of the way it had dealt with some cases, particularly those involving members and pledges of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. …Yale imposed a five-year suspension from the use of campus facilities on the fraternity, which had been involved in highly publicized instances of harassment.

It’s a throw-away line for Pena, that last clause following the word “fraternity.” But was DKE really guilty of harassment? [Generally a legal term when used in a sexual context.) Or just obnoxious and asinine behavior?

I don’t know—and for the record, I’m not a big fan of fraternities at Yale—but that is very much an open question, and DKE’s civil libertarian defenders criticized Yale on the grounds that it was punishing the fraternity for nothing more than the exercise, however boorish its form, of free speech. (There’s a vigorous debate about it here.)

For Perez-Pena to simply characterize DKE’s foolishness as “harassment” is sloppy writing about a sensitive issue. I am coming to expect that from him.

…and makes Richard Perez-Pena’s NYT stories look even weaker.

Witt spoke—on the record—to the Yale Daily News in an article published today.

I’ll quote at some length:

Witt said he first learned his candidacy had been called into question when he received a phone call from Yale Director for National Fellowships Katherine Dailinger on either the evening of Nov. 9 or morning of Nov. 10. In the call, Witt said Dailinger informed him that he would need re-endorsement from Yale to remain eligible for the scholarship.

“I told her at that time I had already made my decision due to a conversation that I had with the regional secretary by email, who told me on the eighth that I was going to have to choose between the two decisions,” Witt said. “Essentially it was an ultimatum. After getting that confirmation from the regional secretary, I told my parents, told my coaches, told people in the Athletic[s] Department that I was going to play in The Game. And so when Kate Dailinger called me on the night of the ninth or the morning of the 10th to let me know about the second letter, it was essentially a moot point.”

So: Yale’s Rhodes liaison notifies Witt that he’ll need a re-endorsement, he tells her he’s already decided to play in The Game, and he lists multiple people whom he’s already informed of his decision.

Over to you, Mr. Perez-Pena.

As Gavan GIdeon and Caroline Tan report in the YDN,

Witt flatly denied claims that he knowingly misled the public.

“I didn’t keep it a secret from any of my friends and the New York Times’ insinuation that I was circulating a media circus is ludicrous,” he said. “I’m not talented enough to do that. I’m not a media expert.”

When will the Times admit it was wrong?