” Caliphate ” Podcast: Public Radio Announces New York Times ‘Decline in Judgment’

” Caliphate ” Podcast: Public Radio Announces New York Times ‘Decline in Judgment’

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A group of 24 public radio stations sent a letter to The Times’s audio department on Monday worrying about “falling into judgment” in its response last month when the newspaper announced that the podcast “does not meet our standards for accuracy. ” These stations broadcast ‘The Daily’, a daily news podcast by The Times. The letter, obtained by CNN Business, was earlier tweeted by the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple.

The Times began investigating the reporting process behind ‘Caliphate’ in September after Canadian police charged Shehroze Chaudhry with ‘Hoax Terrorist Activity’. Last month, The Times said it was “a history of misrepresentation by Mr. Chaudhry and found no confirmation that he committed the atrocities he described in the ‘Caliphate’ podcast, according to an editor’s letter, and made audio corrections to the episodes.
These journalistic mistakes were a black mark on The Times’ sound ambitions led by the team behind ‘The Daily’. ‘Caliphate’ won the 2018 Peabody in the radio / podcast category, a prestigious journalistic award that The Times has since returned.
Monday’s letter, sent by the Public Radio Program Directors Association, does not focus on the merits of the podcast, but on the way The Times handled the outage. This raised three concerns. The first of these was about the host of ‘The Daily’, Michael Barbaro, who contacted other journalists in what is being seen as an attempt to influence their coverage of the ‘Caliphate’ fallout. These messages were previously reported by David Folkenflik, NPR, among whom Barbaro was contacted.

The letter also states that The Times’ decision to keep Barbaro’s executive editor Dean Barquet ‘was flawed’, in part because of Barbaro’s personal relationship with Lisa Tobin, the executive producer of ‘Caliphate’. The two are engaged.

The final concern was about Andy Mills, a producer of ‘Caliphate’. The letter referred to ‘greater visibility’ of Mills after the fall, while Rukmini Callimachi, the journalist behind the podcast, was re-awarded. Mills produced and presented an episode of ‘The Daily’ which was released a few days after The Times announced the results of their investigation into the ‘Caliphate’ podcast. The letter was also related to a Washington Post story about Mills’ allegations, which mostly took place in his previous work at WNYC’s Radiolab.

Abby Goldstein, president and CEO of the Public Radio Program Directors Association, told CNN Business on Tuesday that the letter was intended to communicate problems and not “draw a line in the sand” with specific demands.

“When we air programming for our audiences, we endorse the programming. We tell our audiences that we believe in the journalistic accuracy of these programs, and we make them available to you through our largest megaphone,” Goldstein said. The letter is “actually about taking responsibility for the behavior of the staff.”

The Times responded to each of the problems on Tuesday in a letter signed by Sam Dolnick, an assistant managing editor of the newspaper.

“We believe we have handled a major journalistic decline with responsibility. We are deeply committed to continuing with ambitious audio journalism and have already begun implementing changes that will make our audio reporting even stronger,” Dolnick wrote.

Dolnick writes that The Times does not believe Barbaro should have revealed his relationship with Tobin, as the conversation was seen as an ‘audio version’ of an editor’s letter, while an ‘accountability interview’ was given to NPR. He also said Barbaro “deeply regrets” the private messages he sent to journalists and that “editors have discussed their expectations going forward with him.”

As for Mills, Dolnick wrote that The Times takes the allegations of misconduct very seriously. On why Mills hosted the recent episode of ‘The Daily’, Dolnick said the episode had been scheduled before, but that the company ‘should have changed its mind’.

The Times did not comment further than the letter. Barbaro and Mills did not respond to requests for comment.

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