Charles Johnson Whines: Why Isn't The Story About Me Anymore?

He bitches that Allah didn't link him initially, but instead to Yid With Lid.

I have to say this again: Charles Johnson had a bad reputation, even when he was nominally on the right, for simply stealing other bloggers' finds. I really should contact one of the people ripped off by him to get him to write a post on this.

So now Charles Johnson is whining that someone else pushed his find, and Allah, not really giving a crap who found it, linked Yid With Lid.

Because, you see, that's the real story here -- Charles Johnson's passport to get treated like a somebody by CNN again.

Am I imagining things, or did LGF break a story about Reuters cropping photographs yesterday? Didn’t Killgore Trout find the first photo and tip me off? Wasn’t LGF the first to publish this? And haven’t we been credited for breaking the story by Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, the Israeli government, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary Magazine, to name just a few?

Did I just imagine all that? No? It really happened?

So what kind of vindictive, unprofessional, unethical creep would write about this story and give all the credit to other people, knowing full well that the story originated at LGF?

This dishonest dirtbag goes by the name “Allahpundit,” and he writes for Hot Air.

UPDATE at 6/8/10 10:14:08 am:

Allahpundit has added a whiny update, complaining about being caught in unethical behavior, and pretending it was a mistake. Just like Reuters made a mistake cropping the photos.

I’ll just point out that numerous sources had already credited LGF for the story when Allahpundit decided to ignore us. So the options are: 1) he’s incompetent, or unwilling to spend time researching sources, or 2) he’s a dishonest dirtbag who thought I wouldn’t bust him publicly for it. Take your pick.

Am I imagining things or did this same Kilgore Trout, a moderator at LGF, go over to Hot Air late at night and vandalize the site by posting the word "Nigger" repeatedly to... um... prove that Hot Air was racist? And did Charles Johnson then not praise him for countenance and defend this stunt? And keep him on as a privileged moderator? (Zimriel writes I overstated initially.)

Did Charles Johnson himself not out the names of people who'd donated money to him in the past, thereby making everyone on the right skittish about donating to other bloggers, wondering who will be the next to turn? *

Was it not Charles Johnson who endlessly accepted, without correcting the falsheood, the media's claim that he had uncovered the RatherGate forgeries?

"BuckHead" just emailed me about stealing credit. He says, "Lot of that goin' 'round, Hoss."

You little, whiny, crazy-ass meglomaniacal-without-a-blessed-reason-to-justify-it bitch.

Allah's corrected to give LGF credit. I am going the other way: I am rewriting that post to deny LGF credit.

* Whoops! Sorry! The way I wrote that suggests that's the only thing wrong with outing private donors who wish to remain anonymous -- the effect on my bank account.

I'm sorry I wrote it that way -- of course it's offensive and unprecedentedly nasty in the first place.

I meant to write something like it was a two-fer, like not only did id it do x but then it further sabotaged the right by having effect y.

However, I'm a self-centered guy, so yeah, the effect on me I guess was a little too foremost in my mind.

Did Charles Johnson Refuse to Credit The Real Story Breaker? Elder of Ziyon had it first.

CJ credits "Kilgore Trout" with the "find." Okay, where did he find it?

Here's One Example... Dan Riehl became annoyed when LGF became, somehow, the one who broke the old Hezballah ambulance story. Or non-story.

As the originator of the Red Cross Ambulance story, I would urge the elements of the blogosphere still running with the story to at least slow down, if not back up. They are increasingly looking like the very drive by media against which we so often rant, running the risk of being exploited by propagandists on another side of an issue. And no matter how much many of us may support that side, propagandists on both sides do exist. For the record, I'm guilty, too.

The fact is ZombieTime's post does not do what it claims, proving the ambulance attack demonstrably false. And if they had operated the way bloggers should, by co-operating and communicating, instead of taking another's story and making it their own, perhaps they would have held back from making some of the unprovable claims they do. As I said, I am no innocent here. Most likely, being frustrated at how some have co-opted much of the work I did is certainly part of why I backed off and started to take a clearer view.

Sorry, but there is no excuse for lgf and Powerline to even be claiming a role in this story, or being cited by the Jerusalem Post as individuals actually in the know. And ZT's analysis really doesn't hold up. I doubt anyone related to those sites, excluding ZT, has done a fraction of the research which has been done. Much like a large media network relying on stringers, they are ultimately inflating their stature without having done the real work, or verifying the facts. And, frankly, it is time to end the show, which I intend to do right now.

Now, I sort of understand that the media doesn't care which blogger actually broke a story. They just call us all "bloggers" and don't really parse us out. I understand that; we're nobodies, after all.

And I understand why it should be the case that once Charles Johnson is on the media's rolodex they would just keep calling him over and over again for this story and that story; he'd become the only (or one of the only three) bloggers who exist at all, in the media's simplified telling.

Fine.

But actual credit does matter to the bloggers involved -- so why didn't/doesn't Charles Johnson ever correct the record and give the bloggers who broke a particular story the credit the media isn't interested (understandably) in giving them?

Why is he... oh, let us use the word "comfortable" about allowing the media to claim he broke this and broke that when he knows, better than almost anyone (except for the person who actually broke the story) that he didn't?

Not be all Hero of Will Folks-Level Integrity, but when Slublog dumped his big story into my lap -- the famous "Passion of the Toys" (well: blog-famous, anyways) -- I told him that I would LOVE to "break" that story, but since it was already all done and buttoned up, why the heck shouldn't he publish it himself and get the traffic and clear credit for it?

I don't believe Charles Johnson would have offered him the same advice.

Hey, Charles? You've been wrongly credited, and you've wrongly accepted credit, for most of the stories that made your still-no-one-knows-you "name."

How about you take that into account and let some of this slide, buddy?

Oh, and credit Elder of Ziyon, since that site seems to have had the Reuters Combat Knife Crop story first. Since you're so big on proper credit for scoops.

posted by Ace at 03:00 PM

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