The Newspaper Game: Buying Lies.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently ran a Molly Ivins column that repeated the hoax about the U Mass Student who claimed to have been visited by Federal agents for wishing to check Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book” out of the library. The story was fishy from the start, but the Left – ever ready to believe that Bush is a Nazi – bit on it and it became a story in the outermost fringes of the kook Left including Molly Ivins and Ted Kennedy.

This became a discussion topic on FreeRepublic.com and I subsequently e-mailed the editorial page editor, Paul Harral, to get his response. I reprint it in full below.

Thanks for your comments about the UMass student which have been passedon to Molly Ivins.

You do understand, don't you, that she does not work for this newspaper?She's a syndicated columnist in the same way that Cal Thomas, whom wealso print, is a syndicated columnist.

That does not lessen our responsibility, but it is to say that hermaterial is not the property of the Star-Telegram. She writed forCreators Syndicate: http://www.creators.com

I have forwarded your messages along to her.

Paul K. Harral
Editorial Page Editor
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
PO Box 1870Fort Worth, TX 76101
817 390-7836

The formulation: “You do understand, don’t you…” is obviously meant to be translated as: “You dunce...”

Then there is the phrase “That does not lessen our responsibility...” This reminds me so much of the excuses that come out of Washington when things go wrong. Someone steps up and “takes full responsibility,” following which nothing happens. It’s as if the famous sign on Harry Truman’s desk was changed from “The buck stops here” to “The buck stops here; now move on.”

This morning I wrote Mr. Harral back.

Thank you for your reply.

Your response, however, it begs the question. What is your responsibility when you print something that has been proven to be a hoax?

It seems to me that in view of the numerous instances of journalistic malfeasance that have occurred - and been revealed - in the recent past, responsible newspapers would have instituted some more stringent quality controls.

If a car dealer sells a defective auto, or a pharmacist knowingly sells a defective drug it is held responsible. The fact that the car was not made by the dealer or the drug by the pharmacist does not absolve them of responsibility. Are newspapers held to lower standards than car dealers or pharmacists? Does it absolve you of responsibility if you don't have a liar on your payroll but simply buy lies via syndication?

I realize that “freedom of the press” provides the press special privileges that are not afforded other industries. You have a constitutional right to print falsehoods. However, I believe that it is not just a betrayal of the implicit agreement you have with your readers, but it is a bad business practice. Newspaper circulation has been dropping partially because of a perception of untrustworthiness. Making excuses that the untruth you provide is done via syndication and the promise to pass this along to the liar does not provide the consumer (me) with the feeling that you believe you have a problem.

These are not rhetorical questions. I work in a highly regulated industry where millions of dollars change hands based on a verbal handshake. Trust is vital in an increasingly interconnected world where, for the first time, your industry can be fact-checked by thousands of pajama clad critics who will make every misstep known worldwide.

Your situation is not unique and I am earnestly asking all editors these questions. I am very interested in their replies.

Thanks again for your response. I hope that you will favor me with a reply.

(signed)

I'll post his reply if there is one.

UPDATE:

Paul Harrell replied to my e-mail on 12828/2005 with:

We are continuing to check the story. We have a reader advocate here and he is backtracking. He is making contact with the newspaper that originally handled the story. We don't ignore these kinds of issues --but neither do we rush to judgment on them.

At a certain level this makes sense. Having been stung by a lie in the first place, a responsible organization would want to make sure that it does not compound the error. However, the newspaper that originally published the story - the Standard Times - has already, publicly exposed the story as a total fabrication. So far the only thing missing is the student's name, a fact that was withheld in the original article. So the need for a personal contact by the "reader advocate" of the Fort-Worth Star Telegram would seem superfluous in terms of printing a correction.

This is a common phenomenon. For example, remember the story of guards flushing the Koran down a toilet at Gitmo? The "flushed Koran" story received immediate, sensational and universal space on the pages of newspapers, magazines and the electronic media. Would I be overstating the case that there was a "rush to judgement" on the part of the media in that case? The improbability, nay the impossibility of the act never fazed the editors. And the "corrections" if they came, came weeks later; after the original lies led to an international black eye for the US and the deaths of people in far off lands.

Does anyone else find it strange, even suspicious that errors in reporting never seem to favor the Bush administration? Coincidence? You decide. I'm sure the Fort-Worth Star Telegram carried the original flushed Koran story. Would it be a low blow to ask if their "reader representative" is checking his sources on that story even now?

UPDATE 2 (12/30/2005):

I received another e-mail from Mr. Harral:

FYI ... Molly Ivins takes note that she fell for the hoax in her latestcolumn and we are publishing both that and an official correction.Correction runs Friday am. Column runs Sunday.

Stay tuned for the printed corrrection and see if we misjudged Mr. Harral. There is no misjudging Milly Ivins. Here "paper trail" is too long.