The WashTimes stands by its fabricated “racist” attack on ACORN

Written by Eric Boehlert

Published

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.