New York Times’ Executive Editor Dean Baquet continued his assault on James O’Keefe and project Veritas Monday telling an audience at the National Press Club that the outfit was not journalism and O’Keefe himself was despicable.
“I think his work is not investigative journalism,” said Baquet, who was also on stage with his Washington Post counterpart, Marty Baron. “A journalist has to have in his heart or her heart a desire to make society better. All James O’Keefe is trying to do is hurt institutions and get some clicks. He just did a video about it that I think — and I used the word before, I’ll use it again — is despicable.”
Project Veritas recently targeted the Times in a sting operation, involving secretly recorded footage of a junior video employee making a series of exaggerated and bizarre claims, including that he was the godson of ex-FBI director James Comey.
“Based on what we’ve seen in the Project Veritas video, it appears that a recent hire in a junior position violated our ethical standards and misrepresented his role,” Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha told The Wrap after the video became public.
As he alluded to in his remarks at the press club It’s not the first time, Baquet has addressed the matter. In the immediate aftermath, Baquet cited his own experience as an alter-boy to describe his view of the situation.
“To ding the NYT, they went after a kid who just started his career in journalism. To ding the NYT, they went after a kid, and they probably affected his career forever. That’s despicable,” said Baquet. “So yet, he committed a sin, and I’ll deal with that. I was raised Catholic — that’s a Venial sin — I was an alter boy. Their sin was a mortal sin.”
Interesting – this is Dean Baquet talking last night about Project Veritas (https://t.co/xpN0CmZd8I) entrapping an audience strategy editor: pic.twitter.com/mJ6ehShfMg
— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) October 13, 2017