NYT Buried Barstow’s Reluctant Pentagon Vindication on Christmas Day

An April 20, 2008 New York Times story by David Barstow, “MESSAGE MACHINE: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” won a Pulitzer Prize for the explosive claim that the Pentagon had cultivated “military analysts” in a “trojan horse” campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay.

David Barstow [aka yellow journalist imo]

On December 1, the Washington Times‘ Rowan Scarborough reported that an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general, spurred by Barstow’s reporting, found no wrongdoing, and quoted a spokesman for former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying the New York Times should return its Pulitzer:

The Pentagon’s inspector general has released his final report on a Donald H. Rumsfeld-era program for briefing TV and radio military analysts, concluding for a second time that there was no wrongdoing.

The three-year investigation by the inspector general marks the fourth time a federal agency has found no improper conduct in the program….

But the New York Times itself did not report the Pentagon’s vindication until Christmas Day, when most people are occupied with family and fun, and buried it on page A20 under the headline “Pentagon Finds No Fault In Ties to TV Analysts.” Barstow (who bashed the Tea Party in an ahistorical 4,500-word front-page hit piece in February 2010) also wrote the Christmas Day Pentagon vindication story, and his defensive take was considerably more jaundiced than that of the Washington Times. Of course, Urbahn’s demand for a Pulitzer return did not appear.