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| Think at your own risk. |
| Friday, March 24, 2006 |
| A pain in the blogside |
A funny thing happened when the MSM tried to suck up to the right wing blogosphere...
Domenich resigned today from the three-day-old WaPo Red America blog (well that was fast.) But the egg is just beginning to drip from the faces of the Post, RedState.org, which Domenich co-founded, and around the right wing blogosphere, which has had a bit of its dirty laundry hung out in the front yard. Here's the statement from WaPo editor Jim Brady:
In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.
An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.
When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.
Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.
We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism.
We also remain committed to representing a broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies in our Opinions area. Hm. Well, yes, I'll bet they appreciate it lots ... But the trouble with Ben Domenich isn't just that he's an apparent plagiarist (caught by ObsidianWings here and by a Kos diarist here) -- that's bad enough to cause even his right wing blogfriends to turn on him at this point.
The problem also is in his capacity as a political operative turned blogger, he has repeatedly said any number of things that should have raised the eyebrows of the Post editors well before they signed on the dotted line. And as the paper searches for a new "voice of the right" to "balance" journalist Dan Froomkin, might I remind them that while the plagiarism is (hopefully) unique, the bile periodically issued from the PC of Mr. Domenich is not at all unique, and they'll likely have to vet the postings of any right wing blogger pretty thoroughly before they try this again. Let's face it -- calling Corretta Scott King a Communist the day after her funeral (mea'd and culpa'd here, along with an explanation of young Mr. Domenich's thinking on Black babies, crime and abortion...) isn't exactly unusual among a particular blogset, who when they're not sliming anyone who disagrees with them as a Commie or a cheese eating surrender monkey, spend lots of time whining about how mean the "moonbats" are to President Bush.
The truth is, the vocal right can be pretty nasty, as we got a taste of via those mean old leftie online researchers at Media Matters, which dug up some of the bile Domenich has written over the years, all of which has gotten only applause from his fellow travelers ... at least, until it became embarrassing. David Brock's outfit called for Domenich's firing on those grounds, even before the plagiarism came to light. The Post has left more than a few people puzzled about how on earth they thought the rantings of a crassly political blogger could be a credible counterpart to a blog by a journalist. (It would be like NPR hiring Bill O'Reilly or ESPN hiring Rush Limbaugh ... oh, dear ... they did that already ... hm... and of course we await the convergence of Glenn Beck and CNBC...) But WaPo went for it because it was the slick, pandering thing to do. Now they look like idiots.
Funny that.
Sidebar:
A refugee from RedState reacts (who knew the site was the anti-Free Republic, banning automated Bush-botsardent Bush supporters instead of banning people for not being automated Bush-bots ardent Bush supporters... hey, why go into the weekend fighting?)
The Red Staters stand by their man...
MyDD checks out what else the Red State team is up to... (poll tax, anyone?)
The "Carnivorous Conservative" sticks up for Ben...
Previous:
Tags: Blogs, Bloggers, News, Media, Politics, WaPo, Washington Post |
posted by JReid @ 2:12 PM   |
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