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March 23, 2005
Another Fake Memo?
Prominent bloggers are looking into stories the Washingotn Post and ABC News did about a supposed talking points memo that the Washingont Post and ABC News claim was passed out by a Republican in congress. Hindrocket writes:
The memo is not only "unsigned," as it was described by the Washington Post; it is not on House or Senate letterhead, nor is there any indication of source or authenticity. It is a memo that anyone could have typed and distributed, as a reader confirms:I work for a Republican Senator, and I thought I’d offer some clarification as to how the Senate mail system works. Simply put, an anonymous memo could be distributed by ANYONE who wished to do so via a number of different channels."
Big Trunk points to evidence that the memo was copied froma sources outside of congress:
Reader Charles Henkel points out that commment 35 of the string on that post asks what objective evidence shows the memo is fake and points out that the bill number on the memo is wrong (S.529 instead of S.539 and ultimately S.686). More to the point, the commenter points out that most of the text of the memo is copied (typo and all) from this post at the Traditional Values Coalition site.
Jim Geraghty of TKS writes about the Washington Post defense of the story:
Washington Post reporter Mike Allen's defense of his source — "The memo is unsigned. Because of the conditions under which it was provided to us, we frustratingly cannot tell our readers all that we know about its provenance. But I would not have put it in an article if I were not certain of its authenticity and relevance — i.e., senators had it on the floor" — sounds eerily like Dan Rather's "our source is unimpeachable."Look, I'm sure Allen is a nice guy and a hard worker, but he ought to know that the blogs have developed a very certain, specific skepticism about memos that appear mysteriously from unnamed sources at opportune times to damage GOP lawmakers. It's not like this hasn't happened before!
Neither the Washington Post nor ABC News has released a PDF of the memo to the public and neither will say who their source is, but expect us to trust them. It seems they may have learned the wrong lessons from CBS. None of this proves for certain the memo was fake or a plant, but a reporter saying that a document is true, without revealing his sources or even providing a copy of the actual docuemnt in question, is not good enough.
Posted by Pete at March 23, 2005 10:33 AM
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» What Media Bias? from Dangerous Dan
The recent kerfuffle over the faked Republican Schiavo talking-points memo smacks of liberal media bias. In this case, the media folks have been all about reporting on the content of the memo and they seem not all concerned about the origin of the thi... [Read More]
Tracked on March 28, 2005 10:55 AM