New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan called out the paper for failing to credit the Wall Street Journal in its front-page report on Medicare.
“What’s missing in that story is any reference to The Wall Street Journal, whose persistent legal efforts over several years helped result in a trove of Medicare data being made public, including much of the data that Wednesday’s news reports were based on,” Sullivan wrote.
While The Times’ April 9 story, “Sliver of Medicare Doctors Get Big Share of Payouts,” was based on the Medicare data, the data was released because of the Journal’s lawsuit to “overturn an injunction” against the release of the information.
Sullivan quoted Times‘ assistant managing editor Susan Chira, who worked on the story, saying that “it would have been better to mention” the Journal’s work. “I wish we had,” she wrote. “It was an oversight.”
Hat Tip: Mediaite