January 09, 2007

Jamilgate: Ex-WaPo Reporter Blasts AP Over Partisanship

Jonah Goldberg shared an email exchange with former WaPo reporter / LA Times columnist Michael Schrage. Jamilgate was the topic. The text:

Subject: You are, indeed, missing something -

I wrote this piece for the washington post a year ago. It speaks for itself...but the jamail hussein saga is a classic example of unprofessional, plame-like hypocrisy by the AP...

They named their source - many, many times - and it was challenged...there
was a myriad of ways they could have handled the query: they could have
called in a favor and gotten one of the AP-member newspapers in iraq to
'interview' the guy to vouch; they could have done a podcast with the guy;
if the bloggers still insisted the guy was a fraud, then AP itself would be
literally accused of not just perpetrating a hoax but perpetuating one...

...the bottom line here is a vile hypocrisy: the msm will protect their own
people - jill carroll, for example - but they will freely publish the names
of vulnerable iraqis who are (were) sympathetic to the US...

...the principle here has nothing to do with truth, accuracy or public
safety - it has to do with partisanship...

to make a comparison from nro itself: it's nice that the new york times
has finally published a correction for its flawed Sunday magazine story
about abortion - isn't it a pity it wouldn't have done so without a column
from its ombudsman...likewise, it's wonderful that AP finally vouches for
their source - isn't it a pity that it does so in a manner that increases
the man's vulnerability...?

...partisan - and unprofessional...

Michael schrage
(ex-washington post)

ht: Newsbusters

By Good Lt. at 04:22 PM | |