Where were the copy editors?

Jack Shafer of Slate eviscerates the New York Times Sunday Magazine cover story on sex slaves in America. (More at the Radosh Blog).

Without rehashing everything, suffice to say that every question Shafer and Radosh pose sound exactly like the questions I would’ve expected a copy editor to ask.

There’s gonna be times when reporters and their assigning editors get so psyched about their stories that they fail to notice the butt-naked emperor traipsing through the story. That’s the copy desk’s job, to flag the questionable stuff before the Internet sinks its teeth into it and exposes us as headline-chasing frauds.

I’ll concede I’ve seen instances where the desk flagged issues that the bosses chose to ignore. I’m willing to give our colleagues on the Times’ mag desk
the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s what happened this time. Otherwise I have to assume they were asleep at the switch.