Reuters acts responsibly; RW bloggers dazed and confused
February 02, 2010 3:48 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
Reuters recently pulled an article about supposed "backdoor" tax increases hidden in the Obama budget. (Drudge loved the piece!) Media Matters had previously highlighted factual errors in the piece. And according to press reports, the White House called Reuters to complain. Reuters then withdrew the story, with a flak conceding to TPM that were factual problems:
"The story went out, and it shouldn't have gone out," said Courtney Dilan, a spokeswoman for Reuters. "It had significant errors of fact."
In other words, Reuters did what responsible journalists are supposed to when they realize they've published something that does meet traditional standards. (Of course, we're still waiting for an explanation as to how such a poorly reported story could be published in the first place.)
The funny part though, is watching right-wing bloggers like RedState's Erick Erickson act so confused and befuddled by Reuters' actions. (They did what???) It's as if RW bloggers are completely unfamiliar with the notion of journalism ethics and accountability.
Behold "conservative journalism."
UPDATED: Naturally, add Breitbart's Big Journalism to the list of RW sites that have no idea why Reuters would withdraw a factually inaccurate story.
Moron.
From Big Journalism:
Why did Reuters pull the story? One site cited a Reuters rep as saying the piece was withdrawn “due to significant errors of fact” and “should not have gone out.” I think it was the language used in the article that prompted Reuters to pull it. In particular, it was the series of phrases shown below that, combined with the one mentioned above, must have made the hair stand up on the back of Rahm Emanuel’s neck:
They just don't understand that other journalists might actually feel bad about publishing a factually inaccurate article. Breitbart is publishing factually inaccurate articles all the time. It is the bread and butter of his business.