September 02, 2008

Washington Post: America's finest source for bad reporting (Palin "slashed" funds story)

The Washington Post recently published a blog post about Sarah Palin (in their words) "slash[ing]" funds to a non-profit group. Except, what they got from the state of Alaska alone was over three times what they got from all government sources combined in 2006. Let's take a look at the WaPo's "downstream", the three-eyed fish who gobble up what the WaPo sludges out.

First, there are several digg posts on the story. These link to the WaPo article; looking at the histories of who posted them is left as an exercise:

digg.com/political_opinion/Palin_Slashed_Funding_for_Teen_Moms (UPDATE: now has 1771 diggs, but is also marked as "May be Inaccurate")
digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Slashed_Funding_for_Teen_Moms_That_s_gotta_hurt
digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Slashed_Funding_for_Teen_Moms_2

Oddly enough, the last two were submitted in the same minute. These posts link to other sites:

digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Slashed_Funding_to_Help_Teen_Moms
digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_cut_1_1_million_in_assistance_for_teen_moms_in_need
digg.com/politics/Palin_personally_cut_funding_that_gave_unwed_mothers_a_place
digg.com/political_opinion/The_Issue_IS_Sarah_Palin_She_Cut_Support_for_Pregnant_Girls
digg.com/2008_us_elections/Palin_Opposes_Funding_for_Teen_Moms_ToTheCenter

Those last five link to:

dailykos.com/story/2008/9/2/19220/39740/973/583820 (typical airhead DK "reporting" that puts an even more partisan spin on the WaPo's spin)

rawstory.com/news/2008/Palin_cut_1.1_million_from_funding_0902.html (a bare rewrite of the WaPo story from Nick Langewis)

americablog.com/2008/09/palin-personally-cut-funding-that-gave.html (Joe Sudbay simply wraps the WaPo story with his brief commnets, such as "Sarah Palin apparently wants those unwed mothers out on the street.")

allspinzone.com/wp/2008/09/02/heres-where-the-issue-is-sarah-palin-cuts-support-for-pregnant-girls/ (braindead attempt at breezy commentary that discusses the WaPo story in a couple paragraphs but takes the WaPo's word for it)

tothecenter.com/news.php?readmore=6991 (just a sploggish rewrite of the WaPo story)

Others discussing this include:

mahablog.com/2008/09/02/what-did-i-miss (mentions it in passing but completely takes WaPo's word for it)

slog.thestranger.com/2008/09/palin_to_teen_moms_drop_dead
(Dan Savage simply intros a WaPo excerpt with his own vile spin; post is titled "Palin to Teen Moms: Drop Dead")

UPDATE: These others are just as bad or worse than the ones above and all, of course, simply take the WaPo's word and none do any thinking or reporting:

salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/09/03/palin_slashed_teen_mom_funding (from Lynn Harris)

blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/09/03/palin-s-handling-of-other-people-s-pregnant-teens.aspx (from Michelle Cottle)

thinkprogress.org/2008/09/03/palin-mccain-mothers (from "Amanda")

truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20080902_palin_cut_funds_for_teen_moms

washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_09/014534.php (Steve Benen; links to Cottle instead of the WaPo)

jezebel.com/5044818/
ask-not-what-bristol-palin-can-do-for-you-ask-what-sarah-palin-can-do-for-your-pregnant-daughter (from "Jessica")

motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/09/9554_palin_veto_teen_moms.html (from Jonathan Stein)

UPDATE 2: Isaac Fitzgerald and Tana Ganeva from AlterNet offer "8 More Shocking Revelations About Sarah Palin" (alternet.org/election08/97350). One of those "shocking" items is as bad as the posts above. It's got over 2600 diggs here, but it's also marked as "May be Inaccurate":
digg.com/politics/8_More_Shocking_Revelations_About_Sarah_Palin_2

UPDATE 3: As anyone familiar with his blogging could have been expecting, Matt Yglesias fell for the WaPo's tale too:
yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/life_begins_at_conception_and_ends_at_death.php
(The link here before was to another post where MattY got things wrong:
yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/palin_and_special_needs_children.php

UPDATE 4: NPR also fell for the WaPo's tale, but at least they printed a correction: npr.org/blogs/politics/2008/09/lineitem_irony.html

UPDATE 5: Somewhat surprisingly, ThinkProgress offered somewhat of a correction, noting in an update to their post that the executive director of the non-profit disagreed with the WaPo's assessment. This is similiar to past TP "corrections" in which they just slip something in at the end without making a big deal about it. But, it's at least better than most of the others above.

Posted to Bloggage at September 2, 2008 09:29 PM