We now have official confirmation that there is zero evidence to back up the blockbuster story Rupert Murdoch's New York Post trumpeted last winter about how lazy New York City union workers refused to plow the streets in the aftermath of a crippling blizzard. The story went national and right-wing bloggers, who loved the union-bashing angle, crowed about how city workers put citizens' lives at risk by refusing to do their job.

However, Media Matters noted at the time that the Post's story was filled with holes:

The glaring problem with the story was that the Post's “exclusive” was built around anonymous sources. The key sources were a handful of nameless union workers who supposedly spilled the beans of the slowdown plan to a local Republican city councilman, Dan Halloran. It appeared the Post did not actually interview those sources, but rather interviewed Halloran, who relayed what the nameless sources supposedly told him. (Oy.)

Now, a new comprehensive city investigation confirms that the Post's “exclusive” was a joke.

From today's New York Times [emphasis added]:

But on Friday, a report by the city's Department of Investigation said that investigators, after interviewing more than 150 witnesses and reviewing video from surveillance cameras and from angry residents, had found no evidence of an organized slowdown. In fact, the report found, Mr. Halloran had no evidence for his accusation, and his account of conversations with two workers differed sharply from what the workers told investigators.

And this:

When city investigators spoke to the transportation supervisors, the two said they had no evidence of a slowdown.

This is why news consumers should always be cautious when reading Murdoch's Post, and especially when it splashes partisan “exclusives” on its front page: The paper has a habit of just making stuff up.