WE DON'T STAND BY OUR STORY – AT 11:12 P.M. ET:   Ah, it took only one day for the new New York Times executive editor to create a bit of an unwanted swirl.  You may remember, in our last episode, that the anointed Jill Abramson said that in her house, while growing up, The Times substituted for religion.  She also said that The Times was considered the absolute truth.

Well, as Red Buttons used to sing, strange things are happening.  Those quotes mysteriously disappeared from The Times yesterday afternoon.  The Politico reports: 

The web is abuzz after a quote from the New York Times’s future executive editor, Jill Abramson, in a Times news story on her appointment was missing in an updated version of the piece.

Abramson was quoted by Jeremy Peters on Thursday as saying “In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion. If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth.” In later versions published online, the quote had been removed. A spokeswoman for the Times said the quote was removed for “space” and after new quotes were added to the story.

Yeah, I'll bet.

POLITICO used the quote in a news story on Thursday as did Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto. Blogger Ann Althouse notes that all the publications that linked to the story, and used the quote, were in left in a bind -- having excerpted a quote from a story that no longer contained it.

Of the quote’s removal, National Review’s Jay Nordlinger wrote late Thursday: “That’s a tiny bit strange, isn’t it? I mean, Abramson’s words were not exactly scrubbable, or scrub-worthy.” In a follow-up, Taranto wrote that the editing process was the likely culprit for the quote’s removal, but added: “It's obvious that an editorial decision was made to ‘rectify’ a quote that made the Times look foolish.”

And it did indeed make The Times look foolish, not the best outing for its new highest-ranking news official.  Those quotes symbolize, to many, what is so fundamentally wrong with the paper today – the arrogance, the belief that it is somehow lofty and above us all, the sneering at religion. 

The Times will not improve until its current publisher, who hired Abramson, departs.  Many believe it will not improve, if it improves at all, until the paper is sold to outside interests, eliminating control by the current ruling family.  In the meantime, we will have to endure the silliness.

June 3, 2011