The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik has been busy writing about the recent NPR controversy. Since the story of the James O'Keefe's attempted sting broke last week, seven of the last ten blog posts on Zurawik's newspaper blog have been about NPR.
The only problem? None of them have acknowledged that the O'Keefe tapes have been revealed to be highly edited and done so in an unethical way to make the comments from the NPR executives seem much more damning than originally believed.
What's ironic is that when the story first broke, Zurawik wrote a long item about the ethics of undercover stings and how it's crucial for those behind them to be honest and tell the truth. Zurawik was also highly critical of NPR executives, calling the comments captured on tape “troubling” and “disturbing.” He denounced the NPR “stupidity” and arrogance" as presented by O'Keefe, while hyping the "bombshell" NPR sting, and suggesting O'Keefe was effective at getting “at the lies some people in the media tell us.”
Missing from any of Zurawik's media analysis? The simple acknowledgement that the O'Keefe tapes have essentially been debunked.