The WashTimes stands by its fabricated "racist" attack on ACORN
October 08, 2009 9:53 am ET by Eric Boehlert
But Howard Kurtz says the WashTimes is far more fair and balanced these days!
Whatever. The fact is the Times' Joseph Curl on Monday fabricated news. He made stuff up and the Times published it as news. Not once but twice. Media Matters documented the clear fabrication and the Times, to date, still has not corrected the bogus reporting, let alone apologized for it.
Behold conservative "journalism," where nobody--and I mean nobody--is restricted by facts. Instead, 'reporting,' is whatever story you want to tell on any given day. (Nice work if you can get it, right?)
Curl on Monday went to hear ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis speak at the National Press Club and while he was there, Curl heard Lewis say something that no other reporter in the room heard; he heard Lewis lash out at ACORN critics by calling them "racist." Reporters for CNN, and Reuters and the Wall Street Journal and Politico were all at the same Press Club event, but only Curl heard Lewis call her foes "racist."
So Curl typed it up in two different dispatches as news. Again and again he claimed that Lewis had played the race card. Of course, Curl never actually quoted Lewis saying anything about critics being "racist." (How could he quote her when Lewis never said it?) Yet over and over Curl simply concocted news. He weaved his fictitious, GOP-friendly tale, and spread an incendiary lie through the pages of the WashTimes. And when confronted with the truth--when the Times was called out for sending a 'reporter' to a news event and then letting that reporter come back to the newsroom and make shit up--the Moonie daily didn't do a thing to fix the problem.
Think about it. Under editor John Solomon's leadership, it's now okay for the Times to dispatch reporters around town and have them manufacture allegations. To literally invent quotes from public figures. The Times is fine with that. And when the lies are called out, Times editors will sit on their hands and not fix the egregious errors.
That's not journalism. It's propaganda and the Times is a proud practitioner.
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The Midnight Review
Mum Is The Word
An independent press is a very important part of our society. I know that newspapers invented yellow journalism. I'm not ignorant of history, for the most part. But I did think that most of the deliberate fabrications could be laid at the feet of cable and TV news, and mostly because of a race for ratings. To have a nationally recognized daily like the Washington Times not only blatantly lie, but to further it by allowing that lie to stand? It sickens me. Why bother to have a free press if it is not going to be truthful? Who needs a free press that is only turning out propaganda?
I realize there are many many local papers throughout the country doing a fine job, and informing those they serve on the issues without being so factually challenged as the Washington Times. It's just a sad chapter in the history of journalism.
I think it bothered me on a less than conscious level, but I didn't put two and two together as I was concerned with a different aspect of the case.
You know that if FOX had found any actual systemic evidence of fraud or other illegality, it would have been all over the news by now. They didn't, because it doesn't exist, so they ran with what they had, which honestly wasn't much. My math says the 'scandal' involved around .002% of all ACORN employees, and none in senior levels.
FoxNews has no one who is left of center. They have a few people who are far right, and one or two who are center. FoxNews claims to be fair and balanced. CNN has Lou Dobbs, Campbell Brown and Kitty Pilgrim who are all right of center, and no one who's left of center besides maybe Rick Sanchez, although I think he's simply fair-minded. And CNN's right of center people claim to be independent. MSNBC has hours of right of center talk from people like Joe Scarborough and Andrea Mitchell, and Chris Matthews leans a little right.
What's "quite funny" is that you think you made a point. What's quite funny is that think that by claiming that you think other groups push propaganda, you can excuse the fact that the Washington Times undeniably pushed false propaganda here!!!! Two wrongs don't make a right, but apparently you don't even understand the difference between false propaganda and true propaganda.
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I'm calling what the Washington Times did 'propaganda' because of the definition of that word: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.
What the columnist wrote was a lie, and he wrote it because he was seeking to smear ACORN and it's current leader Ms. Lewis. It became propaganda when the paper not only printed it, but refused to issue a retraction, correction, or apology.
Am I denying bias? Hardly. I generally go on a case-by-case basis, and scrutinize what I am told (by anyone!) for factual accuracy and rhetorical soundness. In the case of FOX Propaganda, they have taken the time and trouble to prove to me that such a case-by-case strategy is no longer necessary. They are dedicated to Republican talking points, opposing our President, and fought a court case for the right to lie to the American people on the public airwaves. They won that right. FOX does not 'lean right', they help define it, much as Limbaugh does.
Millions of so called "Christian" Americans have been lead around by the nose by a man who claims Christ was a failure who now serves Moon's dead son in heaven. Millions of so called "Christians," who are on constant alert that the antichrist might slip up on them and mislead them, are tripping over the number one candidate and they don't seem to care, WHY? Because they are aren't Christians, they are a right wing political movement that uses Christ as a shield for their politics.
Why doesn't anyone do a piece on the hundreds of millions - likely billions - of dollars the highest courts in Japan have ruled the Unification Church has swindled - targeting widows with their scams that funds thigns like the WT? Members and Moon's former daughter in law attest that the cash is delivered to the USA by the shopping bagful. Moon's co-messiah wife ordered her daughter in law to bring cash in the country illegally in her make up case. The WP reported Moon gets 70% of its cash from Japan that he uses to fudn his activities here. The UC admitted they could not even fund their church in Korea, it is Japan that keeps them afloat.
John Solomon is nothing more than Moon's tool.
Worth repeating until one day people start to understand.
Quoting the very conservative first editor of the WT, James Whelan.