“Only with Ayers’ approval could Obama have become Chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.” Steve Diamond

“Ayers/Obama Update: My final (?) exchange with the New York Times”

http://globallabor.blogspot.com/2008/10/ayersobama-update-my-final-exchange.html

Email #5

[To: Steve Diamond

From: Scott Shane

10/05]

“I believe your editors and your publisher knew that you would come to the very conclusion that you did and that that was a purposeful political use of you and the New York Times.”

That’s funny. They must be able to tell the future.

The assignment was to research the Obama-Ayers relationship and write what I found. If I had discovered that Ayers and Obama met at Columbia, were buddies back in Obama’s organizing days, and secretly co-authored radical tracts calling for revol;ution, that’s what we would have written.

It’s called reporting.

Scott Shane

New York Times

Washington Bureau

Steve Diamond:

As I have explained to Global Labor readers, the New York Times interviewed me for their recent story on the Ayers/Obama relationship. After the story ran I blogged on the inadequacy of the story and received an email from the reporter, Scott Shane. An exchange of emails followed and below is the most recent exchange.

There is a critical smaller point and a larger one made here.

First, the Times reporting on the story of Obama became Chairman of the Annenberg Challenge is consistent with what I found out: that Ayers appointed Obama. This is indicated by the fact that Ayers met with Obama after Obama was vetted by two foundation presidents advising Ayers, Deborah Leff and Patricia Graham. While the Times quotes some unnamed sources as saying that Ayers was not involved neither Graham nor Leff are quoted to that effect in the story.

Shane has insisted that Graham told him that Ayers was not involved and now says, for the first time, that Leff also said that. However, neither of them were quoted to that effect in the original story.

In any case, that is irrelevant because whatever Leff and Graham may think happened 14 years ago cannot trump what actually took place as documented in written letters by Ayers and Brown University President Vartan Gregorian, the national Annenberg representative, demonstrate: that Ayers had the legal authority to appoint board members not Graham or Leff and, thus, only with Ayers’ approval could Obama have become Chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

A larger point, of course, is that the Times seems to have used Shane to make sure that the story would come out the way that it did. My email to Shane below explains.

These are provided in reverse chronological order. I have decided gracefully to let Mr. Shane have the last word.

See also:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/09/021604.php

http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=77075

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/07/cnn-obamas-lying-about-william-ayers/

It really is CNN and Anderson Cooper fact-checking Barack Obama’s claims to have barely known William Ayers — and calling it dishonest.

William Ayers Steve Diamond Stanley Kurtz Barack Obama