New Orleans Doctor Contests New York Time Article on Euthanasia During Katrina.

via CourthouseNews, Dr. William Armington, a former doctor at Memorial Hospital in New Orleans where 45 patients were found dead after the flooding of the city during Katrina, is suing ProPublica and Dr. Sheri Fink for their part in supporting and writing the August 25th New York Times Magazine story, "The Deadly Choices at Memorial."

Sabrina Canfield writes:

Armington complains that "But for the defendants' sensational and scandalous article, which has been buttressed by a massive and strategically timed media campaign designed to promote book proposals and to attract critical acclaim, there would be little further interest in criticizing the conduct of physicians at Memorial Medical Center, as these issues have already been investigated fully by prosecutors, coroners, scholars, authors and reporters."

The Times Magazine printed the story for fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The title was later changed to "The Deadly Choices at Memorial."

Armington says that while ProPublica claims to focus on "truly important stories, stories with moral force" in a nonpartisan, nonideological manner, by "adhering to the strictest standards of journalistic impartiality," the manner in which "ProPublica carried out this story - by generating a controversy about Armington through false 'uncovering' of a thoroughly-examined event - is the epitome of partisan, ideological and partial journalism."

Armington claims Fink defamed him by writing that he did nothing to stop the euthanasia of ill patients who could not have been evacuated because of their disabilities and were medicated to death with morphine and other sedatives to prevent undue suffering.

Canfield writes:

Armington says he "has been damaged by the article and the trust that others have in him has been compromised."