The New York Times has appended a correction to a story that contained a disputed anecdote recalling a conversation between Vice President Joe Biden and his son Beau Biden:
An article Aug. 2 about Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s deliberations on whether to run for president referred incorrectly to Maureen Dowd’s account of a conversation between Mr. Biden and his son, Beau, who soon before he died from brain cancer in May, encouraged his father to run. Ms. Dowd reported that they sat at a table while Beau was sick and discussed the matter, not that they spoke as he “lay dying.”
The correction follows a story by New York Times political reporter Amy Chozick that saw scrutiny after Biden appeared on “60 Minutes” and rejected reports he and his son had a dramatic “Hollywood moment” relating to his potential run for president.
At issue was an anecdote first reported by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that appeared in Chozick’s story in a slightly different form. The difference between the two accounts is minuscule — namely whether Beau Biden was laying down or sitting at a table when he importuned his father to run.
Here’s Dowd’s account of the exchange, with added emphasis:
When Beau realized he was not going to make it, he asked his father if he had a minute to sit down and talk.
“Of course, honey,” the vice president replied.
At the table, Beau told his dad he was worried about him.
My kid’s dying, an anguished Joe Biden thought to himself, and he’s making sure I’m O.K.
“Dad, I know you don’t give a damn about money,” Beau told him, dismissing the idea that his father would take some sort of cushy job after the vice presidency to cash in.
Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.
And here’s Chozick’s summary of the meeting, with emphasis to show the change:
Ms. Dowd reported that as Beau Biden lay dying from brain cancer, he “tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.” Mr. Biden’s other son, Hunter, also encouraged him to run, she wrote.
In his rebuttal of the media narrative surrounding the conversation, Biden didn’t dispute that he and his son discussed his potential run. Rather, he took issue with characterizations that the exchange took place by Beau Biden’s deathbed:
Some people have written that Beau, on his deathbed said, “Dad, you’ve got to run,” and there was this Hollywood moment. Nothing like that ever, ever happened. Beau, from the time he was in his 30s — or actually, late 20s, was my — he and Hunter — my two most reliable advisers. And Beau all along thought that I should run and I could win. But there was not, as has been made out, this Hollywood-esque thing that at the last minute, Beau grabbed my hand and said, “Dad, you’ve got to run” — like, “win one for the Gipper.”
The slight difference between Dowd and Chozick’s versions prompted New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan to call for a correction to Chozick’s account earlier this week. In a blow-by-blow analysis of The Times’ coverage, she said Chozick’s story took Dowd’s column “too far” and precipitated further coverage conflating the two accounts.
Since Biden’s “60 Minutes” appearance, New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Dowd have both stood behind the column.
