It took an awful lot of complaining and cajoling, but The New York Times has run an Editor's Note about the phantom "nudge." (Background here.) It looks like public editor Byron Calame's highly critical column turned the tide, as it should have. Here it is:
The TV Watch column on Sept. 5 discussed broadcast journalists' undisguised outrage at the failings of Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts. It said reporters had helped stranded victims because no police officers or rescue workers were around, and added, "Fox's Geraldo Rivera did his rivals one better: yesterday, he nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety."
The editors understood the "nudge" comment as the television critic's figurative reference to Mr. Rivera's flamboyant intervention. Mr. Rivera complained, but after reviewing a tape of his broadcast, The Times declined to publish a correction.
Numerous readers, however - now including Byron Calame, the newspaper's public editor, who also scrutinized the tape - read the comment as a factual assertion. The Times acknowledges that no nudge was visible on the broadcast.
The Times was right to make this an Editor's Note, its highest level of correction below an all-out retraction. But we still can't help thinking that the second to last paragraph comes off sounding a little pathetic. How can a nudge be "figurative" when it is said in the context of describing one person literally moving another out of the way? Along those lines, FishBowlNY offers up a definition of "nudge." But it's over. Geraldo has his well-deserved correction and perhaps the Times has learned that it is better to error on the side of correction.
