New York Times: Vista, Mayflower, Whatever
The New York Times this morning posted a correction on a story that ran in yesterday’s Thursday Styles section. The story was about the newly infamous Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, with the Spitzer mess serving as the obvious news peg.
Such stories are generally 90 percent back story, 7 percent riffing/scene, and 3 percent news. As was this one.
Well, part of the 90 percent consisted of this line, about D.C.’s own world-famous politician:
“Marion. S. Barry Jr., the former mayor of Washington, was seen smoking a crack pipe in 1989 in a Mayflower room; he was later convicted for drug possession.”
That is the language that ran in the paper on Thursday, and that, obviously, is a huge mistake. They mistook the Mayflower for the Vista, where Barry’s 1990 career-making (or -killing) moment took place.
Here’s how the correction reads.
Correction: March 21, 2008
Because of an editing error, an article in the Styles section on Thursday about the Mayflower Hotel in Washington referred imprecisely to Marion S. Barry Jr., the former Washington mayor who was convicted in 1990 on a misdemeanor drug charge after being accused of using cocaine while staying at the Mayflower in 1989. Mr. Barry’s possession of drugs at the hotel was described to the authorities by an eyewitness; he was not “seen smoking a crack pipe.” (That happened in 1990 when a federal sting operation caught him on videotape smoking a crack pipe while staying at what was then the Vista Hotel in Washington.)
Washington City Paper is in talks with its legal counsel to parse that one out.
5 Responses to “New York Times: Vista, Mayflower, Whatever”
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March 21st, 2008 at 10:45 am
I think they’re referring to a separate incident. At Barry’s possession trial, a witness testified via affidavit to seeing Barry smoking crack at the Mayflower in ‘89.
March 21st, 2008 at 11:38 am
I wouldn’t exactly call the Mayflower “newly infamous”. Have you forgotten where/how the Mayflower Madam got her name?
March 21st, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Michael: Yes, and if memory serves, the Mayflower incident was what actually got Barry convicted. But to say that he was “seen” doing this and that at the Mayflower…..
March 21st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Well, he WAS obviously seen by SOMEBODY, since there was an affidavit sworn out to that effect.
Or is this a case of journalism-centered semantics? Is there some additional nuance to the word “seen”?
March 21st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
As one of the authors of said riffing,scene,backstory and, i hope, reasonably fun to read piece lemme add my two cents:
The original wording, which is to say our wording, was that Barry “passed three days smoking a crack pipe at the Mayflower”. That’s certifiably correct and reality based. In fact, while Hizzformerhonor was arrested after being videotaped sucking on the pipe at the Vista, he was acquitted of that act. But he was convicted in the same court proceeding of blowing smoke rings at the Mayflower.
A copy editor, who no doubt will save me far more often than he/she will hurt me, got mixed up and, slightly, conflated the two crack smoking events. As one of the readers above notes, there was certainly at least ONE witness to the mayor’s crack jones at the Mayflower.
I would add that we interviewed 14 people for this, so at least our riffing and backgrounding was well sourced. But whatever …