Replies

Sent to accuracy@usatoday.com:

Dear Mr. Jones,

In your role as Accuracy Editor, I would like to inform you that USA Today's politics editor was quoted in Editor and Publisher magazine as follows:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000617053
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"Kerry has made his Vietnam service a centerpiece of the Democratic National Convention and the Swift Boat Veterans came out right after that," said Lee Horwich, politics editor at USA Today, which ran a story about the veterans group, and inconsistencies in its accounts, on Aug. 16.
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The fact is, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was founded on May 4, 2004, nearly three months before the Democratic National Convention. They issued a press release - found on their website at http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php?topic=Releases&page=2 (which was apparently missed by Mr. Horwich in his role as Politics Editor at USA Today), and held a press conference which was not attended by any representative of USA Today. They also issued an open letter to John Kerry on that day which was also evidently missed or ignored.

And on May 17, they issued another press release, also missed or ignored, calling on Kerry to cease the fraudulent use of the group photo when all but two of the individuals pictured there oppose his candidacy.

In short, the only reason Mr. Horwich thinks that SBVT came out right after the July 26-29 DNC is because he was either willfully or negligently failed to acknowledge the group for three months.

In short, Mr. Jones, this failing on the part of Mr. Horwich may have resulted in inaccurate statements about the group being published in USA Today. I encourage you to check out this possibility in the interests of accuracy and fairness.

-Michael Pelletier.