Last week, The New York Times went after Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista. The article appears to have been inspired by an “expose” by Lee Fang over at Think Progress. Needless to say, that’s probably not a source a wise reporter for a once-reputable news organization should be using. Read the article and ask yourself if John Hinderaker over at Powerline is right.

Before getting to [reporter Eric] Lichtblau’s errors, however, a more basic point: his story in the Times is intended to put Issa in a bad light and to imply some sort of wrongdoing on Issa’s part. But if you read to the end of the article, the question that will occur to you is, What was the point? Where was the wrongdoing? There isn’t any alleged. Lichtblau’s article is sheer atmospherics; it attempts to portray Issa as a shady character without offering facts in support of that characterization.

And the mistakes in the story are numerous. They range from the trivial—Issa’s office does not overlook a golf course—to the odious. Issa didn’t go easy on Toyota at a hearing regarding sudden acceleration tragedies because the company he once owned supplies Toyota—the company does not a supply Toyota and never has.

The false claims—which Issa backs up with documentation—include:

• The medical complex the Times story alleges enjoyed a 60 percent appreciation since it was purchased for $10.3 million and is now valued at $16.6 million is a patently false claim. According to the buyer's final settlement statement, the property in question was not purchased for $10.3 million as the New York Times reported but for $16.6 million – the exact same figure of its current tax assessment. According to these numbers, the appreciation is not 60 percent but roughly zero. In addition, the government sponsored road work noted in the article has not even begun and Rep. Issa's requests for the project (which were publicly announced and made on behalf of and at the request of the City of Vista, and the San Diego Association of Governments which is the regional transportation planning authority) all came before the 2008 property purchase.
• The allegation that Rep. Issa "went easy" on Toyota during 2010 hearings because of "his electronics company's role as a major supplier of alarms to Toyota" is again an example of a factual error in the Times story that lends no support to the story's central premise. While the Times story tells readers that Rep. Issa's former company, Directed Electronics, is a "major supplier of alarms to Toyota," the story offers no evidence, and Directed Electronics is, in fact, not a supplier to Toyota. The New York Times also fails to note that Rep. Issa does not have a personal financial interest in Directed Electronics.
• The "1,900 percent" profit allegation is, again, based on reporting errors by the New York Times. This is assertion is based on an incorrect form obtained by the Times. According to a financial transaction record, the Issa Family Foundation's initial investment in the AIM Small Company fund was not $19,000 but $500,000. The asset was later sold for $375,000 resulting in a $125,000 loss – not a 1900 percent gain as was reported.

What has the Times’ response to this been? Basically what you’d expect from a bad high school newspaper.

Dean Baquet, the Times’ D.C. bureau chief who is becoming a top editor in New York this fall, said he is looking at Issa’s office’s complaints.

“I think if you look carefully at Mr. Issa’s complaints, and the story, you will see that there is nothing that gets to the heart of it,” Baquet said. “Happy to consider any mistakes they point out, and we are looking at those. But I’m not seeing a need for any sort of retraction.”

Sorry, but if you said (and you did) that someone made a 1,900 percent profit on a stock purchase when in fact they lost $125,000, then that’s a problem. You run a correction.

If you said (and you did) that a congressman bought a piece of property that he knew was going to increase in value because of an earmark that he planned on inserting in budget legislation and subsequently made a $6 million profit, when in fact he bought the property after the earmark had been approved and his on-paper profit is actually somewhere around $0, that’s a problem. You run a correction.

If you imply (and you did) that a congressman attempted to shield a company’s representatives in a congressional hearing because of a personal profit motive and prior financial relationship where none exists, then that’s a problem. You run a correction.

This seriously isn’t even a tough call. For all the grief former Times reporter David Cay Johnston got over his debut Reuters column, he did the right thing. He screwed up; he fessed up. His former colleagues would do well to follow his example.

A couple other points of note regarding this story.

Journalists should be defenders of language and words. Words have meaning. Twisting words to save one’s skin shouldn’t be done.

He [Baquet] also argued that Lichtblau’s lede was not misleading.

“I don’t think it implied — at least to my mind — that Issa’s office overlooked the golf course,” he said. “I think it is trying to give a sense that this is a building in a cool area. That’s the way I always read it. Otherwise it really would have said his office overlooked the golf course. That would have been even cooler to say.”

Words fail.

Then there’s journalism basics.

As Lichtblau notes in the story, he tried unsuccessfully for three weeks to get an interview with Issa to discuss these matters.

Tough $#!+. Seriously, this is no excuse. Back in my J-school days I co-wrote an article which ended up winning the California Intercollegiate Press Association’s first place award for investigative reporting. The article was about a harassment/whistleblower lawsuit that had been filed against one of the university’s vice presidents. My instructor at the time, Pulitzer Prize-winner Victor Valle, emphasized to us that it was our duty as journalists to give the best defense possible we could to that university vice president even though he couldn’t/wouldn’t speak to us.

Read Lichtblau’s piece. Did he attempt the same for Issa?

Count me as one anxiously awaiting this weekend’s column from the Times’ public editor.