Rove's Lawyer: Truthout's False Claim of Indictment is the "anti-Rathergate"

Meaning, a case where the blogosphere did not correct a media inaccuracy, but rather pumped an inaccuracy into it.

Here's something pretty obvious. It took a week for the MSM to get interested in Rathergate, despite the fact that rightwing bloggers were showing their work. They did not rely upon claims of personal knowlege; they did things like type up the "1972 typewritten document" on modern day MS Word and showed the two in comparison (LGF) or interviewed the man who, literally, wrote the Bible on a typewriter font indentification and authentication (Bill From INDC).

Despite that -- despite the fact that the media was not required to accept anyone's personal say-so that the documents were fake -- it took a week for the MSM to acknowlege the controversy.

And when it did, it tended to lie. For example, the NYT, I believe, interviewed Bill From INDC's source and cherry-picked his quotes so as to suggest that he thought the Rathergate docs were real. He didn't think that at all. He said they were most likely fake but that he had to check a few things to be sure; they wrote that up as him saying the documents seemed authentic as far as he knew.

Now, compare that to the MSM's behavior when a story comes from the left side of the blogosphere, and concerns someone they don't like.

The story gets talked up a lot more, and quicker, too, eh?

Gee. I wonder why that should be.

Sort of Related: Kausfiles notes that Kos' "Screw them" comment is far more offensive than anything Ann Coulter's ever written.

So why all the scrutiny and criticism for Ann, and none for Kos?

Before anyone says "Because he's just a blogger" -- ummm, unfortunately, no he's not anymore. He's a bonafide new media and netroots phenomenon, courted by real Democratic politicians-- including candidate for president Mark Warner.

I don't see any Republican politicians cozying up to Ann Coulter. They know the media attacks would be vicious.

So.... why, exactly, the pass for Kos?

Correction: Bill From INDC says:

Sorry Ace, but this is sort of untrue - the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, NYTimes and Globe had prominent stories within 24 hours of that first blogging day. And of those four, only the Globe tried to spin it that the docs were real. The WaPo ran a front pager on the online site that night.

Ah. The Globe. That's right. That's the one I incorrectly remembered as spinning the expert's words to suggest the documents were real.

While there were stories -- I stand corrected -- I don't think they did much more than note the documents had been challenged.

When there was substantial evidence that very first day to make a provisional determination they were fake.

Teachout's claims may not have been treated by the media as Gospel, but they sure seemed to make it on to Hardball and Olbermann and the like.

posted by Ace at 07:24 PM

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