Backtracking on 1619

 

                                                       Backtracking on 1619

An article in the WSJ  reports that the NYT is on the run, as light drives out deceit, over the 1619 atrocity.

In a letter to the Times, historians at Yale, Princeton, and other institutions wrote “to express our deep concern about the New York Times’ promotion of The 1619 Project” and noted “the problematic treatment of major issues and personalities of the Founding and Civil War eras.” The scholars added:

We are also troubled that these materials are now to become the basis of school curriculums, with the imprimatur of the New York Times. The remedy for past historical oversights is not their replacement by modern oversights. We therefore respectfully ask the New York Times to withhold any steps to publish and distribute The 1619 Project until these concerns can be addressed in a thorough and open fashion.

In March, the Times did make one significant correction, though it simply labeled it an “Editors’ Note.” But the historians signing this week’s letter say the passage is still flawed:

Where Hannah-Jones had originally written, “one of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain was because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery,” the new text says “some of the colonists.” Even this softened assertion has little or no documentary basis, according to the most distinguished specialists in the period.

Historian Phillip Magness, among the signers of this week’s letter, noted recently that the Times has quietly edited its material again to remove the claim that 1776 is not the true American founding—and amazingly the Times’ prize-winner is now saying that she never made the claim. In this week’s letter, the historians write:

The duplicity of attempting to alter the historical record in a manner intended to deceive the public is as serious an infraction against professional ethics as a journalist can commit. A “sweeping, deeply reported and personal essay,” as the Pulitzer Prize Board called it, does not have the license to sweep its own errors into obscurity or the remit to publish “deeply reported” falsehoods.