|
||
Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Recent Entries
First-World Problems...Part Quarante-Quatre
It's Not A Crisis; It's Who They Are! The Democrats Are Socialists Sunday Morning Book Thread 03-07-2021 EMT 3/7/21 Saturday Overnight Open Thread (3/6/21) Saturday Evening Movie Thread 03-06-2021 [TheJamesMadison] Saturday Afternoon Chess thread 03-06-2021 Ace of Spades Pet Thread Saturday Gardening and Puttering Thread - Is it March where you are? [KT] Thread before the Gardening Thread, March 6 [KT] Cutting The Cord And Email Security
|
« Exxxxtreme Winter! (By Which We Mean "A Very Mild Winter," Which Used To Mean "A Good Winter") |
Main
| Irony Alert: TNR Claims Weekly Standard's Anonymous Sourcing For Beauchamp Retraction Is Weak »
August 07, 2007
Not Just TNR: WaPo Doesn't Fact-Check Easily Fact-Checked "Fact;" Still Refuses To CorrectThis story, by Jose Antonio Vargas, claimed: Build a liberal site such as Daily Kos, as the Persian Gulf War veteran and former Republican Markos "Kos" Moulitsas Zuniga did five years ago, and bloggers either join the discussion or not. This is not true. As I related yesterday, his own bio states he spent nearly the entirety of his hitch in Bamberg, Germany. In an article about himself for TAP, he wrote: Eight weeks later, I emerged a brand new person, this one weighing 140 pounds. And after my three-year stint, while I was stationed in Germany and missed deploying to the Gulf War by a hair, I emerged as a Democrat. Why did Jose Antionio Vargas write that Kos was a "Persian Gulf War veteran"? Well, probably because Kos tends to say things like "I wore combat boots. I served during the Gulf War," as he stated on Howie Kurtz's Reliable Sources on CNN. Those statements are technically true, but seem calculated to create a very large misimpression in the public's mind about precisely what Kos was doing during the Gulf War. Curiously, he doesn't say "I wore combat boots. I served in period of complete peace during the East-West German reintegration," or the like. Now, this was all easily fact-checked before the piece went out. However, it was not fact-checked. Kos' likely statement "I served during the Gulf War" was simply changed to him being a "Gulf War veteran," without the reporter ever searching for thirty seconds (it's alll it took me, and I suck) on Google to see if this was accurate. Worst than that, the story remains uncorrected. And I have contacted the WaPo about it, citing them chapter and verse the documentation proving their error. Who have I written? Well let's see: 1) Jose Antiono Vargas, the author, himself. 2) The Post's editors, through their letters to the editor address, and, fearing they may have missed the latter, 3) to the Post's own media critic Howie Kurtz, through an intermediary he knows and frequently has on as a guest and whose email, therefore, he would presumably bother to read. So the Washington Post has been informed three different ways to three different parties who would be interested in the accuracy of their story -- author, editors, in-house media critic -- and has of yet not corrected the story. The only correction they've provided is for a silly misspelling of a blogger's name -- the sort of correction papers like to make, as they're so trivial, and thus credit them as good about making corrections while costing them nothing at all. It's the larger errors they shy away from correcting -- at best, they offer a later "walk-back" which states the facts correctly without ever acknowledging their previous report was in error. If it is now the Washington Post's explicit style guidance that a man merely serving during a war is in fact a veteran of that war, then I expect them, in accordance with this odd new ruling, to begin referring to President Bush as a "Vietnam veteran." He served, after all, during the war. In Texas, sure, but Bamberg, Germany is no more within striking distance of Iraq than Texas is to Vietnam. a And, like Kos, he could have been called to serve in Vietnam at any time; apparently that's enough to make one a "veteran" of a war. I trust, having made this decision regarding Kos, the Washington Post will now go through eight years of articles about Bush and correct each one of those, elevating him to the status of "Vietnam vet." The dirty little secret isn't such a secret, and it's not so little: The MSM simply does not fact-check, except to the most trivial degree, and even when obvious errors are pointed out to them, they refuse to correct them. Because the act of correcting so many large errors would be a tacit admission of that which they dare not confess: They simply do not bother checking their facts beyond the absurd "smells good" standard. | Recent Comments
creeper:
""Democrats are designed to losing the House in the ..."
BackwardsBoy - Psychos Rule! No, really. They're in charge now.[/i][/s][/b][/u]: "[i]The inner party doesn't believe a word of it. T ..." GnuBreed [/i] [/b]: "[i]I was in the car a couple of days ago and happe ..." banana Dream: ">>> Heh. I have to admit that the first time I rea ..." Deplorable Jay Guevara[/i][/s][/b] : "[i]They may not believe in communism at all. They ..." G'rump928(c): "Ayn Rand was a profound fool but she knew her enem ..." Quint: " think they are desperate because Trump woke a lot ..." Vic[/i]: "Biden just issued another illegal executive order. ..." illiniwek : ""..shotcallers, who are true believers that THIS t ..." G'rump928(c): "[i]There is, however, such a thing as too long of ..." callsign claymore: "4, the communist rhetoric is for their foot soldie ..." Christopher R Taylor[/i][/s][/b]: "[i]I would classify much of Seinfeld's stand up ma ..." Recent Entries
First-World Problems...Part Quarante-Quatre
It's Not A Crisis; It's Who They Are! The Democrats Are Socialists Sunday Morning Book Thread 03-07-2021 EMT 3/7/21 Saturday Overnight Open Thread (3/6/21) Saturday Evening Movie Thread 03-06-2021 [TheJamesMadison] Saturday Afternoon Chess thread 03-06-2021 Ace of Spades Pet Thread Saturday Gardening and Puttering Thread - Is it March where you are? [KT] Thread before the Gardening Thread, March 6 [KT] Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Election Projection Federal Review Real Clear Politics Rasmussen Reports Gallup Zogby Sabato/Crystal Ball Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |