NYT admits getting duped on ACORN

The New York Times admits, sort of, that it got duped by right-wing propagandists who appear to have succeeded in a plot to destroy ACORN, an organization that has aided and defended the poor and powerless across the United States for four decades. In an op-ed column Sunday, the Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt said he has reviewed the available information and concluded that some key points of the right-wing video presentation were false or misleading, including the claim that right-wing media activist James O'Keefe showed up at ACORN offices dressed in a pimp costume before seeking legal advice on setting up a brothel. "O'Keefe almost certainly did not go into the Acorn offices in the outlandish costume–fur coat, goggle-like sunglasses, walking stick and broad-brimmed hat–in which he appeared at the beginning and end of most of his videos," Hoyt wrote, adding that the Times was considering a correction regarding its earlier reporting that had accepted this misleading point. Hoyt also acknowledged that perhaps the most damning part of the ACORN sting story was wrong: ACORN staffers did not go along with a plan to use under-aged Salvadoran girls as prostitutes. Indeed, the staffers may have thought they were helping to protect the girls.