Erroneous NYT Op-Ed on Veganism Disputed

[Guest guest]

The Public Editor

The Danger of the One-Sided Debate

 

By CLARK HOYT

Published: June 24, 2007

 

THE op-ed page of The New York Times is perhaps the nation's most important

forum for airing opinions on the most contentious issues of the day the war in

Iraq, abortion, global warming and more.

 

We look for opinions that are provocative, said Andrew Rosenthal, the editor of

the editorial page. Opinions that confirm what you already thought aren't that

interesting.

 

But some opinions provoke more than others. Two very different columns by guest

contributors, one last week and one last month, caused enormous reader outcries

and raised important questions. Are there groups or causes so odious they should

be ruled off the page? If The Times publishes a controversial opinion, does it

owe readers another point of view immediately? And what is the obligation of

editors to make sure that op-ed writers are not playing fast and loose with the

facts?

 

The most recent column was by Ahmed Yousef, a spokesman for Hamas, the party

elected to lead the Palestinian government and a group dedicated to the

destruction of Israel. He wrote Wednesday about “What Hamas Wants.

 

Many readers were outraged, complaining that The Times had provided a platform

for a terrorist. One, Jon Pensak of Sherborn, Mass., said that allowing Yousef

space in The Times isn't balanced journalism, it is more the dissemination of

propaganda in the spirit of advocacy journalism.

 

Well, yes. The point of the op-ed page is advocacy. And, Rosenthal said, we do

not feel the obligation to provide the kind of balance you find in news

coverage, because it is opinion.

 

David Shipley, one of Rosenthal's deputies and the man in charge of the op-ed

page, said: The news of the Hamas takeover of Gaza was one of the most important

stories of the week. ... This was our opportunity to hear what Hamas had to say.

 

I agree that Yousef's piece should have run, even though his version of reality

is at odds with the one I understand from news coverage. He wrote blandly, for

example, about creating an atmosphere of calm in which we resolve our

differencesâ with Israel without mentioning that Hamas is officially

dedicated to raising “the banner of Allah over every inch of

Palestine, which would mean no more Israel.

 

Op-ed pages should be open especially to controversial ideas, because that's the

way a free society decides what's right and what’s wrong for itself.

Good ideas prosper in the sunshine of healthy debate, and the bad ones wither.

Left hidden out of sight and unchallenged, the bad ones can grow like poisonous

mushrooms.

 

Rosenthal and Shipley said that, over time, they try to publish a variety of

voices on the most important issues. Regular op-ed readers have seen a wide

range of views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and have a lot of other

information to help judge Yousef's statements.

 

This wasn't the case, however, with a May 21 op-ed by Nina Planck, an author who

writes about food and nutrition. Sensationally headlined Death by Veganism,

Planck's piece hit much closer to home than Yousef’s. It said in no

uncertain terms that vegans vegetarians who shun even eggs and dairy products

were endangering the health and even the lives of their children. A former vegan

herself, Planck said she had concluded a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You

cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

 

Her Exhibit A was a trial in Atlanta in which a vegan couple were convicted of

murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty in the death of their 6-week-old

son, who was fed mainly soy milk and apple juice and weighed only 3.5 pounds.

The column set off a torrent of reader e-mail that is still coming in much of it

from vegans who send photos of their healthy children or complain bitterly of

being harassed by friends and relatives using Planck's column as proof that

their diet is dangerous.

 

If there was another side, a legitimate argument that veganism isn't harmful,

Planck didn't tell you not her obligation, Rosenthal and Shipley say. But unlike

the Middle East, The Times has not presented another view, or anything, on

veganism on its op-ed pages for 16 years. There has been scant news coverage in

the past five years.

 

There is another side.

 

Rachelle Leesen, a clinical nutritionist at the Children's Hospital of

Philadelphia, told me that Planck's article was extremely inflammatory and full

of misinformation. She and her colleague Brenda Waber pointed me to a 2003

paper by the American Dietetic Association, the nation's largest organization

for food and nutrition professionals. After reviewing the current science, the

A.D.A., together with the Dietitians of Canada, declared, Well-planned vegan and

other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life

cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and

adolescence.

 

Planck said she was aware of the A.D.A.'s position but regarded it as pandering

to a politically active vegan community.

 

I won't rehash the scientific dispute in a case in which Planck has her experts

and the A.D.A. paper cited more than 250 studies, but I think The Times owes its

readers the other side, published on the op-ed page, not just in five letters to

the editor that briefly took issue with her.

 

I even question Planck's Exhibit A, poor little Crown Shakur, who was so

shriveled at his death that doctors could see the bones in his body. His death,

she wrote, may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank

discussion about nutrition.

 

Maybe, if by nutrition you mean a discussion about whether you feed a baby

anything at all.

 

The prosecutor argued and the jury believed that Crown's parents intentionally

starved him to death. News coverage at the time said that the medical examiner,

doctors at the hospital to which Crown’s body was taken and an expert

nutritionist testified that the baby was not given enough food to survive,

regardless of what the food was.

 

Charles Boring, the Fulton County prosecutor who handled the case, told me it

was absolutely not about veganism. Planck and Shipley said they were aware of

the prosecutor's contention. Shipley said, We were also aware, though, that the

convicted couple continues to insist that they were trying to raise their infant

on a vegan diet.

 

But the jury didn't believe them, and leaving that out put Planck's whole column

on a shaky foundation.

 

Op-ed pages are for debate, but if you get only one side, that's not debate. And

that's not healthy.

 

The public editor serves as the readers' representative. His opinions and

conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this

section.