This Is News?

June 11th, 2004 | by Craig |

So, we have an unverifiable rumor, circulated by anonymous email (always a credible source of information), and the Lee chain, among other outlets, run it as straight news.

Read the following paragraph (the 8th of 14 total):

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said Thursday that his office received no report from the U.S. Embassy in Kazakhstan about such behavior, and independent reporting done by the Gazette State Bureau earlier this week did not turn up any evidence supporting the allegations in the e-mail.

In other words, “We didn’t turn up any evidence, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a story!”

I repeat: the source of this was an anonymous e-mail, a graf in the story basically says that it’s a non-story, yet there it is.

As an experiment, perhaps I should circulate an anonymous email about $PROMINENT_CANDIDATE who is no longer beating his wife. The headline could then read, “$PROMINENT_CANDIDATE denies rumors of wife beating.”

  1. 3 Responses to “This Is News?”

  2. By Sarpy Sam on Jun 11, 2004 | Reply

    Hey the wife beating one happened quite a few years ago when Bill Yellowtail was running for, I think, congress. Somebody let out a rumour that he was a wife beater among other things. He subsequently lost the election. Montana politics at its finest.

  3. By Wulfgar on Jun 11, 2004 | Reply

    Hey, I ain’t voting for Rehberg, but sheezeLouise, this just stinks to high heaven. However …

    How many times did the press report that the Clintons denied ordering the killing of Foster? (wink, wink, nudge, know what I mean?)

    How many times has the press repeated the factually untrue soundbite that Ronald Reagan had the highest approval rating ever?

    Sadly, the denial is straight news, and if people care to fact-check, they will. If they don’t, well then they deserve the governance they get. Personally, I think Denny, when confronted with the allegation, should have fallen to the floor in a fit of painful hysterical laughter. THAT would be newsworthy.

    “Representative finds ludicrous claim made in email hysterically funny.”

  4. By Craig on Jun 11, 2004 | Reply

    I know I filed this under “Liberal Media,” but it really is a non-partisan issue.

    If there is no story, then there is no story. Frankly, if I were reporting real news, I’d be embarassed to have my byline on something like that.

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