CNN's Roland Martin: Michelle Malkin owes me a correction and an apology!
February 19, 2010 3:36 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
More unsightly "conservative journalism" in action? Sure looks that way.
CNN's Roland Martin claims right-wing blogger Malkin falsely attributed controversial comments to him, comments Martin says he never made. Worse, Malkin made the sloppy mistake not on her blog, but in her nationally syndicated column, which means every newspaper that prints her column has to deal with the fallout.
In her latest column, Malkin attacks the "warped worldview" held by Martin and others who claimed that race played a key role in the recent campus shooting in Alabama, where a professor who was denied tenure opened fire on colleagues. That kind of thinking, wrote Malkin, was just "Tea Party-bashers claim[ing] that the murders were a manifestation of racist conservative influence on the American landscape."
Slight problem: Martin says he never wrote, nor did he ever give any interviews, about the Alabama shooting.
Instead, it appears Malkin picked up the bogus Martin commentary online, where another blogger mistakenly assigned the words to Martin. (That blogger has since corrected the record.) But as of right now, the Martin citation appears in Malkin's column, which sits atop her website.
Cue Martin:
I have demanded an apology for Malkin admitting she lifted this and actually didn't research this herself to verify it's veracity, and I want an apology from her editor on this as well. And I want a correction sent out to every paper that carries her column, and Malkin MUST write a correction on her own blog admitting to her error and apologizing to me.
I am absolutely offended with her inability to perform a basic task of a journalist of verifying something first before you repeat it!
Behold "conservative journalism."
UPDATED: From Malkin's site:
This quote was not made by Martin. My syndicate editor caught it last night and removed it from the syndicate version of the column. I forgot to remove it from my blog version. I apologize to Martin and regret the error.
UPDATED: Give Malkin credit for posting the quick correction. Question: Why can't conservatives like Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Reynolds, Greg Pollowitz, and Patterico do the same when confronted with their own shortcomings?
Geez, if the rightie bloggers had to do that, they'd have nothing to write.
So aren't we all offended by that? Well, all of us that care about the truth? Everyone SHOULD be offended by that. Sad to say, not all are.
Now if we can get Olberman to take some lessons!!
Michelle Malkin couldn't do the right thing - even if you gave her step-by-step instructions.
http://twitter.com/rolandsmartin/status/9351806629
Just got tweet. @michellemalkin has apologized to me for error in her column. Thank you.
Tell me you didn't get a shudder through your body when you read Malkin's redaction/apology...
It's like seeing Haley's Comet
The few who actually have some principles.
MMFA included the "update" a week later, but never issued a retraction. Seems MMFA and Malkin are cut of the same journalistic cloth.
My post was only trying to point kydem in that direction in the hopes it could understand the difference between the complaint with MMFA regarding the lack of a retraction in the story it attempted to link to vs. the malkin situation.
Malkin did not "quote a falsehood posted by another blogger." Malkin made the claim herself:
Which is why Malkin quite rightly retracted the claim and apologized.
MMFA really did quote someone else making a false claim. Then they posted updates when the claim was called into question. It's unreasonable to expect MMFA to "retract" someone else's words, or to apologize for them.
And that's what, exactly, the difference is.
Her entire argument disappeared right out from under her and the post is still up. What gives?