New York Times says it was a mistake to enlist writer who posted anti-Kavanaugh tweet to report on him

Source: CNN | October 2, 2018 | Oliver Darcy

The New York Times said on Tuesday that it should not have allowed a staff writer who had tweeted negatively about Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, to report on the judge for a story published Monday.

Emily Bazelon, who is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and a fellow at Yale Law School, co-authored a story published on Monday about a bar fight in 1985 during which Kavanaugh was accused of throwing ice at another customer. The Times’ story was based on a police report about the incident.

But Bazelon had posted a tweet in July in which she called Kavanaugh a “5th vote for a hard-right turn on voting rights and so much more that will harm the democratic process & prevent a more equal society.”

That tweet drew the attention of a number of critics who contended Bazelon’s opposition to Kavanaugh presented a conflict of interest for The Times.

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“Emily Bazelon is a writer for The New York Times Magazine who occasionally writes op-eds for the opinion section. She is not a newsroom reporter,” the spokesperson for The Times said. “Her role in this story was to help colleagues in the newsroom gather public documents in New Haven, where Emily is based. In retrospect, editors should have used a newsroom reporter for that assignment.”

This is the second instance in recent weeks in which The Times has been widely criticized for alleged bias against conservatives. In mid-September, the newspaper amended a report that improperly blamed pricey curtains on Nikki Haley, the United Nations ambassador, after a storm of outrage

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