Right-wing group smears NBC producer as anti-Semite; won't produce hard evidence

Michael Calderone at Politico has been tracking this stunning case of conservative press-bashing, which seems to break new ground with its reckless execution.

The short version is that Americans for Limited Government has sent out three press releases claiming that a producer at NBC News, Jane Stone, after receiving an ALG email alert, returned the email to a ALG staffer with the anti-Semitic note,  “Bite me Jew Boy!”  NBC News chief Steve Capus immediately, and adamantly, denied the claim and announced that a complete IT email analysis by NBC proved the email the producer sent to ALG  never included the hateful "Bite me Jew Boy!" phrase. (Instead, it simply read “Take me off this list!”)

Since late last week, ALG has refused to produce any sort of hard evidence back up its vicious smear, such as the email headers that came attached to the supposed anti-Semitic message.

And today, Calderone notes:

Communications director Carter Clews told me that ALG does not plan to release email “headers”—as NewsBusters was told Saturday—or a taped phone conversation with Stone, where she allegedly first claimed to have not sent any email to the organization. Clews mentioned the taped phone call on New Majority. Also, ALG declined my request to visit the group's Fairfax office to look at their evidence firsthand.

Calderone correctly concludes, "NBC firmly stands behind Stone, and I feel the burden of proof is now on ALG to produce something that clearly ties her to this allegation."

And so far, it's crickets from ALG.

UPDATED: In his denunciation of ALG, NBC's Capus mentioned he was "shocked" by the group's irresponsible behavior. I guess my question is, Why? I suppose Capus was shocked because NBC was the unfortunate target this time. But honestly, the right-wing is addicted to this kind of hateful, anti-press garbage, and the sooner mainstream news outlets admit that and start reporting on it, the better off we'd all be.