A New Low?
[posted by Callimachus]
This is based on a minor side-plot the Frost family/SCHIP story, a plot that I've watched mostly via Protein Wisdom, who is reporting on the goings-on at a blog called The American Populist, who is reporting on what it says someone told it. So the usual caveats apply. But the thing that's getting under my skin here is something tangential to even that sub-plot.
When Michelle Malkin published information on the Frost family, The American Populist struck back by "publishing Malkin’s home address, telephone number and an aerial shot of her home" [PW]. A day or so later, that post disappeared and this explanation was offered:
So, wait a minute. A news reporter who is working on a story is calling someone to change the narrative of the story before she has written it. She says (or, he says she says) she wants to make the subject of her story appear less sympathetic than she might appear. So she alters the reality to suit the pre-set bias of the story.
That, in my book, would be a new low. It's possible that this is just one of the many self-described "journalists" of the Internet who mistake having a blog with a masthead for being a newspaper reporter. But if this later comment, which PW traces to the author of the American Populist posts, is an indication, it is a reporter for a major, respected American big city daily newspaper:
Emphasis added by me.
This is based on a minor side-plot the Frost family/SCHIP story, a plot that I've watched mostly via Protein Wisdom, who is reporting on the goings-on at a blog called The American Populist, who is reporting on what it says someone told it. So the usual caveats apply. But the thing that's getting under my skin here is something tangential to even that sub-plot.
When Michelle Malkin published information on the Frost family, The American Populist struck back by "publishing Malkin’s home address, telephone number and an aerial shot of her home" [PW]. A day or so later, that post disappeared and this explanation was offered:
It’s not here anymore. Yeah, I killed it. Why? Because I received an e-mail from a Newspaper Reporter/Blogger telling me that they’re doing a investigative piece on Michelle Malkin. She didn’t want Malkin playing the victim card. So, it’s gone.
If she’d been just a run of the mill Blogger, I would have told her to get bent… But she’s a reporter, She writes for a living. (lucky bastard! ) So, out of respect. I removed the article.
So, wait a minute. A news reporter who is working on a story is calling someone to change the narrative of the story before she has written it. She says (or, he says she says) she wants to make the subject of her story appear less sympathetic than she might appear. So she alters the reality to suit the pre-set bias of the story.
That, in my book, would be a new low. It's possible that this is just one of the many self-described "journalists" of the Internet who mistake having a blog with a masthead for being a newspaper reporter. But if this later comment, which PW traces to the author of the American Populist posts, is an indication, it is a reporter for a major, respected American big city daily newspaper:
The cute part is how I was attacked… I said it on my blog and I’ll say it here. I wasn’t defending SCHIP, not at all, I was defending that families [sic] right to privacy. That’s why I put malkin’s real address, Phone number and Arial [sic] picture of her house on my blog. I removed it after a reporter for the Baltimore Sun asked me to kill it, because they were doing a story on Malkin.
If Malkin wants to try painting me as moonbat, fine. I’ll just paint her as the right wing fascist that she is.
Emphasis added by me.
