Talk:Fox Butterfield

"Apparently such dishonesty is the way they operate at the Times"
In February 2008, Dinesh D'Souza testified "from personal experience" that the sort of weasel-behavior that produced the allegations about John McCain's infidelity "is entirely in keeping with the way the New York Times does business."

Dinesh D'Souza explains: "Several years ago one of the paper's leading reporters Fox Butterfield did an article on The Dartmouth Review, which I edited as an undergraduate in the early 1980s. Seeking to discredit me, Butterfield quoted me as having written in the paper, 'The question is not whether women should be educated at Dartmouth. The question is whether women should be educated at all.' A witty line, perhaps, only I didn't write it. The line was actually written by another student, Keeney Jones. When I called Butterfield to point this out, the man insisted, 'No, you wrote it.' … I protested, 'But I was merely citing controversial lines that had appeared in the student paper. How can you say I wrote that line when I made it very clear that Jones wrote it?' To this Butterfield responded, 'But by quoting it you have made it your line.' I was dumbstruck. …apparently such dishonesty is the way they operate at the Times."

Normally, I would add something about this story to this article, but it is too short, isn't it? Asteriks (talk) 11:40, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah. It would give undue weight one incident. Steve Dufour (talk) 15:22, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Origin of the Butterfield Effect
The article says that the term was coined in response to a 2004 article by Butterfield. However, the sources given refer to an article written in 1997 and it appears that Butterfield made the same claim (about the relation between incarceration and crime rates) in many articles over years.--Victor Chmara (talk) 20:28, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Requested changes
I am the marketer for Butterfield's new book, IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE. Fox is requesting the following information be removed. The information, he believes, has been added by the Manhattan Institute, with whom he has been in conflict about this eponym for years. As this is a living person biography, and could be harmful to Fox and the publication of his new book, we would like it removed as defamatory.

FROM THE INTRO, REMOVE: Butterfield is the eponym for "The Butterfield Effect", used to refer to a person who "makes a statement that is ludicrous on its face, yet it reveals what the speaker truly believes", especially if expressing a supposed paradox when a causal relationship should be obvious.[5][6] The particular article that sparked this was titled "More Inmates, Despite Drop In Crime" by Butterfield in the New York Times on November 8, 2004.[7]

REMOVE THE CRITICISM SECTION: Butterfield was noted for writing a sequence of articles[12] discussing the "paradox" of crime rates falling while the prison population grew due to tougher sentencing guidelines, without ever considering the possibility that the tougher sentencing guidelines may have reduced crime by causing criminals to be imprisoned.[6][13] "The Butterfield Effect" is often brought up by James Taranto in his column for the online editorial page of the Wall Street Journal called Best of the Web Today, typically bringing up a headline that displays the effect with the joke "Fox Butterfield, Is That You?" and later switched to "Fox Butterfield, Call Your Office."
 * ❌ The criticism is verifiable and well supported to reliable sources. Unfortunately, Wikipedia does not remove criticism per the subject's request if it is verifiable, well-supported by reliable sources, significant and written in a suitably encyclopedic tone. Please see this page. If you feel that any part of the criticism is not well-sourced of credible, then you may make another edit request detailing explaining why you believe so, detailing the specific part to be removed. Thanks. Darylgolden(talk) Ping when replying 06:19, 1 July 2018 (UTC)