February 15, 2017

Marcijane Kraft
Vice President & Assistant General Counsel
The New York Times Company
620 Eighth Avenue, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10018

Dear Ms. Kraft:

Thanks for your February 10, 2017 e-mail explaining that you handled concerns regarding employees
at your newspaper and inviting me to share my concerns with you. Id appreciate you reviewing the
following information and providing me with an answer to a quick question.

Im the son of Henry J. Heimlich MD, known for the Heimlich maneuver, the first aid treatment for
responding to a choking emergency. I have a journalism background and in 2002 my wife and I began
researching my fathers career. To our astonishment, we uncovered an unseen history of fraud that
revealed my father to be a dangerous charlatan. Since then, our work has been the basis for a couple
hundred mainstream media reports1 which exposed what one medical journal called my fathers
overreach and quackery.

As a result, I've had the privilege of working with some of the best journalists in the business and I'm
pleased to report that some of the stories based on our work have received journalism awards, most
recently an LA Press Club Award.

Heres why Im writing you.

Throughout his unusual career my father lied to reporters, therefore I suspected that accurately
reporting his obituary might be a challenge. After his death on December 17, that suspicion turned out
to be accurate.

To prove the point, a January 31 Washington Post article by Erik Wemple, Media outlets choke on
Heimlich obituaries, reported my successful efforts to obtain published corrections/amendments to
errors in obituaries about my father published by the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal,
Reuters, the Washington Post, the Cincinnati Enquirer, National Public Radio, and your newspaper. 2

Needless to say, journalists can be reluctant to publish corrections, therefore I was impressed by the
professionalism and courtesy I experienced at most of those news outlets, especially at the Post, the
AP, and Reuters.

In contrast, heres what happened at your shop.

Robert D. McFadden's December 17, 2016 obituary about my father in your paper included some
factual errors along with what I considered to be some reportorial errors.

For example, Mr. McFadden incorrectly reported that actor Halle Berry had been saved from choking
by my father's namesake maneuver and that the American Medical Association had coined the term
Heimlich maneuver. Both claims had been contradicted in stories published in 2014 by the Hollywood
Reporter and CNN, respectively.

Assuming our countrys newspaper of record was interested in providing its readers with accurate
information, on December 18 I sent an e-mail to obits@nytimes.com requesting guidance on how best
to proceed.

1 Including a March 4, 2003 report in your paper, Malarial Treatment for Chinese AIDS Patients Prompts
Inquiry in US by staff reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. (The inquiry was triggered by our letter.)
2 Mr. Wemples article suggested I may hold the record for corrections/amendments for a single news topic. To
my knowledge a total of 11 leading news outlets have published corrections after receiving my requests.
The next day, Mr. McFadden e-mailed me and left me a welcoming voice message explaining that hed
been asked to contact me by obituaries editor Peter Keepnews. I promptly responded and we had a
good phone call which I followed up with an e-mail detailing what I considered to be the errors.

Come January 9, I hadnt received a reply from Mr. McFadden, so that day I e-mailed the information
to Peter Keepnews please click here for a copy --and courtesy-copied senior standards editor Greg
Brock with whom Id exchanged some cordial unrelated e-mails about a week before. Based on
published information from mainstream media sources, my e-mail thoroughly documented the factual
errors and what I considered to be the reportorial errors.

I never received a reply from Mr. Keepnews, however, to my surprise I received a January 24, 2017 e-
mail from Mr. Brock. Heres the gist of it:

(My) recommendation to (Peter Keepnews) is that he not respond (to you); I do not intend to
respond to further notes.

I do not understand the issues at hand as they pertain to our reporting.

First, its unclear why Mr. Brock chose to interfere in my correspondence with Mr. Keepnews. Second,
its unclear why, since he admitted he didnt understand the issues, Mr. Brock considered himself
qualified to evaluate the material. Third, Mr. Brock failed to address any of the reportorial issues in my
e-mail to Mr. Keepnews, so I cant be certain that he even read it.

In any event, in a next-day e-mail to public editor Liz Spayd, I explained the situation and provided
her with my e-mail to Mr. Keepnews. The next day, without addressing any of the reportorial issues,
she replied:

I have reviewed your letter and the correspondence you have already had with Greg Brock, and
I am not going to pursue this further.

Unless Im missing something, the standards editor and public editor of the New York Times either
dont know how to fact check a story and/or dont care about providing your readers with accurate
information.

In any event, I e-mailed Ms. Spayd a courteous reply and reiterated that Mr. McFaddens article
included factual errors and what I considered to be reportorial errors. I also made this polite request.

(If) you disagree that the errors merit corrections, I'd appreciate an explanation why not. Per
your e-mail, if you don't wish to discuss this further, would you please direct me to your
superior?

I didnt receive a reply, however, I did receive an inquiry from Mr. Wemple at the Washington Post.
(Id copied him on my second e-mail to Ms. Spayd) That resulted in his article about my corrections
request odyssey which described how Mr. Brock and Ms. Spayd gave me the bums rush.

Thats when Peter Heimlich turned to the Erik Wemple Blog, a bastion of accountability in
relation to medical history. He CCd us in an appeal to Spayd that included this elbow:
Needless to say, for the paper of record not to correct factual errors is a slippery and troubling
slope. I also think failing to correct the errors is a disservice to a good reporter like Mr.
McFadden whos left owning the goofs under his byline. We have asked Spayd for a further
explanation; she referred us to Brock; Brock says that a correction is in the works.

Via your papers February 1, 2017 list of published corrections:

Because of an editing error, an obituary on Dec. 19 and in some editions on Dec. 18 about Dr.
Henry J. Heimlich, who developed the Heimlich maneuver, erroneously included one person
among those who have said they were given the maneuver. While it had been widely reported
that it was performed on the actress Halle Berry, she herself has denied this.
In other words, it took pressure from a reporter at another newspaper to get Mr. Brock to do his job
or at least part of his job. The AMA error and the other reportorial concerns about Mr. McFaddens
article remain unaddressed.

Its unclear how the handling of my corrections request benefits your readers, but thats not my
concern. As Mr. Wemple reported, my concern is accurate reporting.

Since Mr. Brock and Ms. Spayd refused to further discuss the matter with me and since Mr. Brock
instructed Mr. Keepnews to not respond to me, the only available avenue I could think of was to
determine if any employment guidelines had been violated. If thats the case, then presumably Id be in
a position to re-submit my corrections request.

With that in mind, heres my question.

According to your papers Guidelines on Integrity:

Reporters, editors, photographers and all members of the news staff of The New York Times
share a common and essential interest in protecting the integrity of the newspaper. As the
news, editorial and business leadership of the newspaper declared jointly in 1998: "Our
greatest strength is the authority and reputation of The Times. We must do nothing that would
undermine or dilute it and everything possible to enhance it."

...(It) means that the journalism we practice daily must be beyond reproach.

Corrections. Because our voice is loud and far-reaching, The Times recognizes an ethical
responsibility to correct all its factual errors, large and small. The paper regrets every error, but
it applauds the integrity of a writer who volunteers a correction of his or her own published
story. Whatever the origin, though, any complaint should be relayed to a responsible
supervising editor and investigated quickly. If a correction is warranted, fairness demands that
it be published immediately. In case of reasonable doubt or disagreement about the facts, we
can acknowledge that a statement was "imprecise" or "incomplete" even if we are not sure it
was wrong.

In processing my corrections request, did any employees violate the Guidelines on Integrity or any
other guidelines or policies?

Thank you for your time/consideration and I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Peter M. Heimlich
3630 River Hollow Run
Peachtree Corners, GA 30096
ph: (208)474-7283
website: http://medfraud.info
blog: http://the-sidebar.com
e-mail: peter.heimlich@gmail.com

cc: Erik Wemple, Dean Baquet