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Saturday, January 14, 2006

This Is How It's Done -- Pt. 4



Murray Waas has more on the GOP/Brent Bozell-financed Murtha smear:
The Post article in amplifying the allegations of the Cybercast News Service, also, in turn quotes an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The article included a 1996 quote from Harry Fox, who worked for former representative John Saylor (R-Pa.), telling a local newspaper that Murtha was "pretending to be a big war hero" Fox, who lost a 1974 election to Murtha, said the 38-year old Marine veteran had asked Saylor for assistance in obtaining the Purple Hearts because the office believed he lacked adequate evidence of his wounds.
What the Post leaves out of its story is that Saylor is deceased, and well, has been for some time now. (Saylor died way back in 1973, something that the Cybercast "News" Service, noted in their news story-- not to impugn their reporting practices.) In short, the Washington Post is relying on something said by a person with an axe to grind (Fox), who is quoting someone who is deceased (but who the newspaper forgot to tell you is deceased.) But it is even somewhat worse than that: the Post is quoting the ever-so-reliable and unbiased Cybercast News Service, which is quoting a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, which includes an allegation by Fox... who is citing someone now deceased.
Don't forget the little tidbit about Fox that Cybercast buried in the bottom of the article:
"Cybercast News Service attempted to contact Fox for this article, but learned that the health of the 81-year-old was too poor to allow him to communicate."
Fox made those comments about Murtha in a 1996 article. And now he can't be questioned about it either. And yet Howie Kurtz lets Thibault get away with saying "We won't run anything against anybody if we don't have the goods."

There is just oodles of journalistic integrity spilling all over this one, no?

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