Serial misinformer Kit Seelye reportedly set to become NY Times "Web political correspondent"

[babylonsister]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703090004

Serial misinformer Kit Seelye reportedly set to become NY Times "Web political correspondent"

On March 6, the website gawker.com posted an announcement -- reportedly published in the "in-house Times newsletter" -- that Katharine Q. "Kit" Seelye, who has been reporting from the Times' Business/Financial Desk, will be assuming the position of "Web political correspondent" at the Times. The newsletter went on to describe Seelye's new role: "As the first person to hold the job, Kit will help define it. But the basic idea is clear: To have a political correspondent whose first priority is the Web. She will do everything from original reporting -- to capture a moment, tease out a subtext, spotlight a person -- to writing analyses and political memos." However, Seelye's previous political coverage for the Times has been broadly criticized. In particular, she has been singled out for advancing -- and, in some cases, generating -- misleading attacks on former Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 presidential race.

Indeed, in their book The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 (Random House, 2006), ABC News political director Mark Halperin and Politico Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris noted that many in the media view Seelye's coverage of Gore as one of the "main reasons" he lost:

A number of members of the Gang of 500 <"the group of columnists, consultants, reporters, and staff hands who ... serve as a sort of Federal Reserve Bank of conventional wisdom"> are convinced that the main reason George W. Bush won the White House and Al Gore lost was that Gore's regular press pack included the trio of Katharine "Kit" Seelye (of the New York Times), Ceci Connolly (of the Washington Post), and Sandra Sobieraj (of the Associated Press).

Halperin and Harris asserted that these three reporters "were more representative of Gore's problem than they were the cause," but later added: "Gore made mistakes, and had some bad luck ... he media, the New leading the Old, helped Bush tell his good story about himself, and helped Republicans tell a bad story about Gore" (Page 130).

Eric Alterman, now a senior fellow for Media Matters for America, further noted in the October 21, 2002, issue of The Nation that "Katharine Seelye's and Ceci Connolly's coverage turned out to be so egregious that the two were singled out by the conservative Financial Times of London as 'hostile to the campaign,' unable to hide their 'contempt for the candidate.' "

more...

[MADem]

1. You've got a bracketed S in there, causing the strikeout... NT

[Dudley_DUright]

2. For more chapter and verse of Seelye's egregious

"reporting" during the 2000 election, see the archives at Bob Somerby's Daily Howler.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/

[blm]

3. Perfect example of how corporate media had become complicit with BushInc to help him take office

and to stay in office.