Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right

Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right is a 2002 book by

Comments about the New York Times

In an interview with George Gurley of the

When asked by John Hawkins, the web manager of a right-wing blog, through a pre-written set of interview questions if she regretted the statement, Coulter replied by saying, "Of course I regret it. I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'"^[3][4] Lee Salem, the president of Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes Coulter's column, later defended Coulter by characterizing her comments as satire.^[5]

The subject came up again when Coulter appeared on the

In the first edition of this book, Coulter incorrectly alleged that The New York Times did not cover NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt's death until two days after he died:

The day after seven-time NASCAR

Wal-Mart." The Times went on to report that in vast swaths of the country people watch stock-car racing. Tacky people were mourning Dale Earnhardt all over the South!^[7]

The New York Times did, in fact, cover Earnhardt's death the same day that he died: sportswriter Robert Lipsyte authored an article for the front page that was published on February 18, 2001. Another front page article appeared in the Times on the following day. Coulter cited an article indeed written two days after Earnhardt's death—Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize winner who grew up in the South, wrote a personal piece on Earnhardt and his passing—bringing the total to three days in a row in which the Times covered Earnhardt's death on its front page.^[8] The paper also ran a prominent story about Earnhardt before his death.

Coulter responded to this widely publicized error as follows:

In my three best-selling books — making the case for a president's

Ukrainian famine (cf., Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Walter Duranty).^[9]

Coulter corrected the error in the paperback edition of her book.[10]

References