Althouse: Somehow, this one needs to be flagged as possibly only a rumor?

December 21, 2015

Somehow, this one needs to be flagged as possibly only a rumor?

NYT headline: "Jimmy Carter’s Grandson Is Said to Have Died."

21 comments:

Michael K said...: Is it the one who paid the waiter to take the video at the Romney dinner ?

Hmmm.

Divine retribution ?; 12/21/15, 9:23 AM
YoungHegelian said...: Everyone involved with this story, from the digital layout tech to the editor-in-chief, needs a real good talkin' to.

Is the poor young man a human version of Schrodinger's cat or what? Could someone please take a look & collapse this particular wave function?

Here's what I bet happened: someone in Carter's Sunday school class called the NYT after church & said "Have I got a scoop for you! JC just said his 28 year old grandson died in his sleep!". But there's no other source, because the family has not yet commented, nor have any of JC's associates. So, the story ran on an anonymous source (because JC talking to his Sunday school class is the very definition of "off the record"), reported by a reporter in NYC, not in Georgia.; 12/21/15, 9:36 AM
Rob said...: I wondered the same thing about the NYT headline, but on reflection, the source is Jimmy Carter, who is 91 and has, or until recently had, brain cancer, so maybe waiting for confirmation before reporting it as a fact makes sense.; 12/21/15, 9:46 AM
Sammy Finkelman said...: I suppose this didn't meet the standards of the New York Times for confirmation.

They only had Jimmy Carter's word for that.

Or, more likely (a family member, after all, is considered a good source) the New York Times could not confirm this directly, i.e. They were not able to get in contact with Jimmy Carter or a spokesman, or any other member of the family. Nobody repeated this to the New York Times. The New York Times had that information only from combined dispatches from other news sources.

It is apparently the policy of the New York Times never to rely on other news agencies, unless they have worked out an agreement. They do rely on the Associated Press, of which they are a member.

They only had the video of Jimmy Carter speaking, which, however, was probably under copyright protection or something.

The New York Daily News does have the story (on page 2) three paragraphs and an additional senetence, which cites the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The name of the grandson was Jeremy Carter, and that he was 28 years old. No cause of death was announced.

The New York Times also cites the Atlanta-Joutnal Constitution, butthe Daily News headline s more definite:

Carter grandson
dies in Ga. at 28

I don't think the New York Post has anything, and I don't think it made it into the printed edition of the New York Times. It didn't seem to be in the Wall Street Journal, but I didn't look thoroughly.

From what I saw on television, Jimmy Carter said his grandson was first unconscious, and may have been revived for a time, or maybe they just gave themselves hope. The Daily News says that, on Saturday, his mother had found him with his heart not beating hours after he had announced he was not feeling well and had started a nap. They did take him to a hospital. Death was pronounced at something like 1:30 am Sunday.

Does this sound like a drug overdose of some sort?; 12/21/15, 9:54 AM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: From the story, Jimmy Carter is the person spreading the rumor.; 12/21/15, 9:58 AM
TWW said...: nd, if true, how did he say it?; 12/21/15, 10:03 AM
bleh said...: 47 percent chance this is true.; 12/21/15, 10:09 AM
madAsHell said...: One of my childhood friends died of cancer. The cancer had spread to his brain. He was always a bullshitter, but when the cancer hit his brain, he started telling out-of-this-world stories.

Maybe Jimmy isn't as cancer free as he might guess. It seems like just a few months ago he told us his time was near.; 12/21/15, 10:24 AM
CStanley said...: The way this is being reported is very odd all the way around. The focus of the story is completely on Jimmy Carter teaching a Sunday school class after announcing his grandson's death, with little to no facts about the death itself, it seems like app attempt to deflect, so my guess is that the death was drug related (I did find one article mentioning that the young man had recently seen a doctor for muscle pain and he hadn't been eating- so maybe a mental illness like an eating disorder.)

And it's fine, if there were sensitive issues, for the daily to ask for privacy- just strange to put grandfather Jimmy out there as a distraction instead of being more forthright about things.; 12/21/15, 10:35 AM
CStanley said...: As for the 47% remarks- Jimmy has many grandsons. One of them was involved in the Romney recording, another ran for governor of GA (and lost to incumbent Nathan Deal), and Jeremy was another one.; 12/21/15, 10:42 AM
traditionalguy said...: Peachtree City is a southern tier suburb of Atlanta. It is a planned city laid out for upper middle class homes and churches with golf cart paths connecting everything and store with rustic facades only. It was first populated by the DeltaCaptains when they were all rich, being 18 miles south from the Airport with traffic free access.

In other words, it is a perfect place to find drug usage among the young..; 12/21/15, 10:57 AM
Ann Althouse said...: So I guess there's a general rule at the times that they can't state the fact of a death based solely on hearsay from a family member, and they don't make a saintly ex-President exception.; 12/21/15, 11:03 AM
Curious George said...: "saintly ex-President"

Jimmy Carter is a nasty vindictive piece of shit.; 12/21/15, 11:13 AM
JAORE said...: "Jimmy Carter is a nasty vindictive piece of shit."

Yes, yes he is. But he can (could?) turn out a beautiful piece of furniture.

Just a few years ago the D's acted like they never heard of the guy. I suppose it was the sin of losing to Ronald R.

Then he was resurrected as an elder of the party.

Perhaps a reflection o the growing embrace of the Muslim side in the ME.; 12/21/15, 11:46 AM
Kansas City said...: Is Carter nasty and vindictive? I thought more of him as hapless and one of well intended, but very bad judgment. Where does nasty and vindictive come from?; 12/21/15, 12:03 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Not nasty and vindictive, just a big liar. And also wrong on many things, because he trusted experts and not anybody else.; 12/21/15, 12:31 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Jimmy Carter being behind the "October Surprise" theory, which I think he was, yes, personally, does not really make him nasty and vindictive. That was just to help his reputation.; 12/21/15, 12:32 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: Jimmy Carter has coveted honor since the mid-1980s. He would take honor from anybody. The two biggest contributors to the Carter Preidential Center were the person in charge of BCCI (the Bank of Credit and Commerce International) that is Agha Hasan Abedi, and one of the people in Japan responsible for Pearl Harbor (Ryochi Sasakawa, who in the early 1940's had business interests in China and personally flew to Mussolini in 1939 to persuade him to let Japan join the Axis.)

YOU COULD LOOK IT UP.

Although his history is all in bits and pieces.; 12/21/15, 12:49 PM
Sammy Finkelman said...: So I guess there's a general rule at the times that they can't state the fact of a death based solely on hearsay from a family member,

Hearsay, I think, in the sense that the family member did not speak personally to anyone from the New York Times.

Every obituary seems to say his or her "death was confirmed" by somebody or they quote somebody in the famly, or an associate or a business office. Maybe also if a New York Times reporter witnesses the death or was told by a doctor or somebody that knew the person.

Not always.

This one does not cite a source

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/20/obituaries/ryoichi-sasakawa-96-rightist-and-gambling-figure-in-japan.html; 12/21/15, 12:56 PM
Michael K said...: "Where does nasty and vindictive come from?"

He thought Menachem Begin double crossed him on the Palestinian issue

Carter was disappointed to find out that Begin seemed to be backing away from elements of the agreement, and had even announced the construction of new settlements on the West Bank.

Carter has hated Begin and Israel ever since. The fact that the Palestinians never observed the rules and Sadat was assassinated by the MB never budged his hatred.; 12/21/15, 1:05 PM
Johanna Lapp said...: Was there nothing whatsoever noteworthy in the allegedly dead man's life? Was there no accomplishment (positive or negative) more interesting to report than rehashing a 35-year-old election defeat? Classless.; 12/21/15, 3:13 PM