What Can Bloggers Do That Reporters Can't?

Jack Shafer writes in Slate Not that long ago, you had to be a professional reporter to publish defective copy. Not any more. Thanks to blogs, the journalist monopoly on the wide-scale propagation of blunders, boo-boos, and bloopers has vanished. Now, complete amateurs can embarrass themselves before huge audiences.

Bloggers demonstrated their skill at botching a story last month when a swarm of them accused the Washington Post and ABC News of journalistic malpractice. The two news organizations had reported on the existence of a GOP talking-points memo about Terri Schiavo. The bloggers asserted it was a Ratherian fake.... After the Post and others proved the legitimacy of the document on April 7, bloggers proved themselves the equals of their mainstream media colleagues once more by ignoring or glossing over their goof.

The memo did turn out to be written by a low level staffer on the Republican side, but I still have not seen any evidence that the MSM was right in saying it came from the Republican leadership or that all Republicans had seen it (in fact I have seen reports to the contrary)

Paul @PowerLine blogged To the extent that Shafer includes Power Line in this verdict, his claim is baseless. On the evening of April 6, we learned from the Washington Post's Mike Allen that the Schiavo memo was written by a Martinez staffer. Earlier that day, I had characterized the memo as "questionable if not fake." As soon as I learned that a Martinez staffer was the author, I updated my post to state that the memo was not a Democratic dirty trick, and that it came from a Republican source. Since then, Rocket has written a Weekly Standard piece about the memo called "It Wasn't Fake," and has stated that he was mistaken in concluding that it was. Compare this with the conduct of CBS. It claimed for about two weeks that its fake memo was authentic. Eventually it backed away from that claim, but still has never said the memo was fake.

Mark blogged People have been having a field day with their mistaken assumption that the Schiavo memo was a Democratic trick (see this truly idiotic post by paid Dean shill Markos 'Kos' Zuniga, but be forewarned, it's full of childish profanity - and remember, folks, this is the most popular liberal blog by a LOOOONG shot). Power Line has admitted the mistake, as have, to my knowledge, all bloggers who thought the same (including myself). Incredibly, there are still those who maintain the 60 Minutes II memos were genuine, and it was precisely CBS and Rather's baffling decision to hang on to the story despite its quite obvious phoniness that did them in. None of that pertains here

Giacomo blogged Another point worth making is that there are many on the left who insist that this memo was a Republican leadership directive from which all the Republicans were working, despite an absence of facts to support that contention. While it was obviously purely speculative to surmise that it was a Democratic trick memo, it is similarly speculative to believe it is more than it currently seems - a shoddily-prepared and ill-advised memo from a freshman senator's legal staff.

Captain Ed blogged I should make clear that I disagree with Shafer's assertion that Power Line and Michelle Malkin got the Schiavo memo story incorrect. First off, Michelle never drew any conclusions from the memo story except that the initial reporting from ABC and the Washington Post left much to be desired, which is still the case. Both media outlets pushed the memo as having come from GOP party "leaders" and treated it as a smoking gun for hypocrisy, neither of which held up when the true story came out. Power Line postulated that the memo could have come from Democratic staffers as a dirty trick -- but as only one of a number of possible explanations, and clearly stated that as speculation. All of us were surprised that a Republican staffer for a freshman Senator would be stupid enough to create something this illiterate and foolish memo ... but it turned out it was.

jeff1999 blogged Here's my last word on the issue: those on the left acting all outraged at us conservative bloggers for speculating that the media used forged memos, is sort of like chastising a woman for accusing her cheating boyfriend of having another affair when this time he "only" had his hand on her butt.