Saturday, May 26, 2007
I Love the 90s!
The always literate and insightful Digby has an interesting take on a thoroughly dishonest but (unfortunately) not disgraced "journalist":
Yup, that's Gerth's modus operandi: Get a hot tip from a lying, prevaricating right-wingnut, then regurgitate it into print without actually checking it out to see whether it's true or not. Also, be sure to write it up in an opaque, insinuating style that makes your target look guilty as hell without having to go to the trouble of actually providing evidence of that alleged guilt.
In an alternate universe where journalistic ethics still exist, The New York Times fired Gerth for his lack thereof somewhere around the spring or summer of 1992, soon after the first dishonest Whitewater story was written (but never published), and Gerth is now selling tube socks in the Times Square subway station.
I haven't read the book, so I won't comment on the substance. I have read [Jeff] Gerth's work before, however, and let's just say that after his "investigations" of Whitewater and Wen Ho Lee, he has a teensy tiny credibility problem. Much like his fellow NY Times reporter Judy Miller, he seems to be just a tad gullible when it comes to his wingnut sources. It would appear from early reports about the book that he hasn't learned his lesson.
Yup, that's Gerth's modus operandi: Get a hot tip from a lying, prevaricating right-wingnut, then regurgitate it into print without actually checking it out to see whether it's true or not. Also, be sure to write it up in an opaque, insinuating style that makes your target look guilty as hell without having to go to the trouble of actually providing evidence of that alleged guilt.
In an alternate universe where journalistic ethics still exist, The New York Times fired Gerth for his lack thereof somewhere around the spring or summer of 1992, soon after the first dishonest Whitewater story was written (but never published), and Gerth is now selling tube socks in the Times Square subway station.
