Photo credit to Lindsay BeyersteinNow that the accusations that the Lieberman campaign spokespeople made - Dan Gerstein in particular - turned out to be false and dishonest, it's time to point out how pathetically dishonorable the press was in perpetuating the story. First of all, it wasn't hard to figure out that this was incompetence and not malice. I raised enough doubts within two hours to call into question the whole story. Joe2006.com is after all still down, which is all the proof you need about this primarily being about incompetence.
But that's not really the point. You see, on the day of the election, the news cycle was buzzing with this false and misleading story put out specifically by the Lieberman campaign as an obvious cover-up of their own incompetence. The story could have swung the election, even though its basis was false. Now, if a reporter puts out information that is false without checking it, that reporter should be severely disciplined or fired. I don't care if he or she is just quoting someone else. Quoting a verifiable lie is wrong, and it doesn't matter how many qualifiers there are in the story. It. Is. Wrong.
Now let's take the consequences for Sue Haigh, who reprinted the lie. I don't believe there has been one story on how the Lieberman campaign outright lied about the Lamont campaign hacking their site. There hasn't been a retraction or clarification of AP reporter Sue Haigh's disgraceful piece on the issue. There hasn't been an examination of the Lieberman campaign's use of dishonest tactics to create fake controveries. There hasn't been a a story about how the website is still down, and how the Lieberman team blamed its own operational problems on its challenger, and used the FBI's time to politicize its own incompetence.
No, Lieberman's election night lie about his web site being hacked is still on the record, unchallenged by the disgraceful pest Sue Haigh. Dan Gerstein is still the spokesman, and he'll be quoted by journalists as if he has credibility as anything but a professional liar.
I dislike the modern profession of journalism because it allows this pollution of the public discourse to continue, unchallenged. It's morally wrong to be a stenographer when your job is political journalism. Where is the accountability for Lieberman's outright lie and abuse of the FBI's time and money? Where? Where is the accountability for Sue Haigh's reprinting of the Lieberman press release on the eve of the most important election in several years, with issues of war and peace on the table? Where is it? You call yourselves journalists, you call yourselves above the fray, you say you call it like you see it. Well where's the accountability, then? Where is it?
I want stories about this. Why did they lie? What happened? Who made the call to go to the FBI? Did the Lieberman campaign take the time to understand what happened before coming out with public accusations? Have they retracted them? Why or why not?
If stories don't start coming out over the next few days answering these questions (check out TPM Election if you need help), then political journalism is truly pointless and a miserable failure.
Update: Ok, it gets even worse. The AP's Pat Eaton-Robb reiterated the Lieberman lies today. Here we see that the AP isn't up on the latest nonsense from the Lieberman camp.
The site, Joe2006.com, appeared to have suffered from a so-called "denial of service" attack, in which computers overwhelm a site with fake traffic so real visitors can’t get through, said Richard M. Smith, an Internet security consultant in Brookline, Mass.
This is false. DOS attacks do not allow the posting of messages on websites, which the Lieberman camp did. They just take the site offline, and the Lieberman site isn't offline. There's a disclaimer on the site. But even if you refuse to learn about the technology on which you are purporting to report, the Lieberman camp changed their story, and isn't sure that they suffered a denial of service attack.
The AP is a disgrace. Shame on them.
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