NYT Covers Harper's Investigation… Sort Of

As Steve Rendall noted here (1/22/10), Scott Horton's explosive Harper's report (3/10) on several ostensible suicides at Guantanamo has received very little mainstream media attention–despite the fact that Horton's account suggests that the prisoners were murdered by U.S. officials at a "black site" within the Guantanamo facility.

But never fear–the story has finally broken through. And in the New York Times, no less!

Sort of… it's on the letters page.

To the Editor:

Re "Editorial Shake-Up as Harper's Tries to Stabilize in a Downturn" (Business
Day, February 1):

I'd like to clarify your report of something I said at a Harper's Magazine
staff meeting on January 27. When I complained that "the mainstream media is
ignoring it to death," I was referring not to the magazine itself but to our
March cover story by Scott Horton, which challenges the official government
account of the alleged suicides by three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.

John R. MacArthur
Publisher, Harper's Magazine
New York, February 6, 2010

So just to be clear: The Times story about Harper's referred to the magazine being ignored by the rest of the media–and the Times managed to omit the specific story the publisher said the media were ignoring.