And the white washing continues

New York Times Wipes Story Detailing Mitt Romney's Attack On Obama

The Huffington Post  |  By Ryan Grim & Michael Calderone Posted: 09/13/2012 12:44 am Updated: 09/13/2012 1:15 am

On Wednesday, the New York Times published a provocative story bylined by David E. Sanger and Ashley Parker, leading with the news that Mitt Romney had personally approved the blistering Tuesday night statement on the attacks in Libya and Egypt that landed his campaign in trouble.
But hours later, the newspaper wiped the story out and replaced it with a significantly rewritten piece bylined by Peter Baker and Ashley Parker.
The later version flushed out the controversy with more details, but no longer included a couple key anonymous quotes from people close to the candidate, one who offered the rationale behind Romney's decision -- to call out the Obama administration for supposedly "sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks" -- and another who criticized it.
Originally, the Times reported how a Romney "senior adviser" explained how the candidate and his team "saw what they believed was an opportunity to underscore a theme Mr. Romney had sounded often about his Democratic rival."

“We’ve had this consistent critique and narrative on Obama’s foreign policy, and we felt this was a situation that met our critique, that Obama really has been pretty weak in a number of ways on foreign policy, especially if you look at his dealings with the Arab Spring and its aftermath,” one of Mr. Romney’s senior advisers said on Wednesday. “I think the reality is that while there may be a difference of opinion regarding issues of timing, I think everyone stands behind the critique of the administration, which we believe has conducted its foreign policy in a feckless manner.”

The later version only included the second sentence, attributing not to a "senior adviser" but "one senior strategist, who asked not to be named."
The Times also originally quoted "an adviser to the campaign who worked in the George W. Bush administration" who said that Romney “had forgotten the first rule in a crisis: don’t start talking before you understand what’s happening.” That anonymous Romney adviser, offering criticism of the candidate, is missing from the later version.
The later version -- almost completely rewritten as a side-by-side analysis by NewsDiffs makes clear -- no longer includes those quotes.
While it's not uncommon for breaking news stories to go through a series of changes throughout the day, this piece appears to be atypical. Talking Point Memo editor Josh Marshall, who flagged the changes in a post Wednesday night, suggested the changes to this piece "would seem to require some explanation."
The link to the original story now takes readers to the rewritten version, which includes a list of Times journalists contributing: "Peter Baker reported from Washington, and Ashley Parker from Jacksonville, Fla. David E. Sanger, Jonathan Weisman and John H. Cushman Jr. contributed reporting from Washington, and Michael Barbaro and David W. Chen from New York."
Richard Stevenson, the Times political editor, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This post was updated to reflect that part of one quote from a "senior adviser" (in first version) attributed to "senior strategist" in later version.