Sour Koolaid Causes Belch, Digestive System Retains Contents
A reader (name kept private by request) emailed to direct my attention to a followup post on Unclaimed Territory and asked if I thought my post from yesterday had anything to do with it. First, let's look at the latest, where Hume's Ghost issues a correction on his "Faux News" post:
Well, I don't call my blog The Daily Doubter for nothing. Looking at my first post here, it has come to my attention that sloppy writing on my part in the post on the widespread infiltration of faux news reports is misleading and needs to be corrected. I'm not sure what the blogging ethics of this are, so I'm going to identify the corrections here and then add this Addendum onto that post.
The way I have it written, it sounds as if the bulk of the VNR's being investigated by the FCC are government sponsored. That is not the case. The vast majority of video news releases are created by corporations (the VNRs tracked in the CMD's report were corporate sponsored ones).
*snip*
But here is the most misleading part of my post
But here is what bothers me about this story. We already knew this. Back in January of 2005, the New York Times reported that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had found that these undisclosed VNR's constituted illegal "covert propaganda."
Ok, we already knew that the press had been corrupted by fake news, but the GAO had not found that "these" VNRs constituted covert propaganda. It could not have, because the GAO was only commenting on the use of government sponsored VNRs. Obviously, what I had written makes it sound if all the VNRs in the CMD's report were government propaganda. This should have been written as:
... We already knew that the press had been corrupted by fake news. Back in January of 2005, the New York Times reported that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) had found that the creation of undisclosed VNR's (by the federal government) constituted illegal "covert" propaganda.
Credit where credit is due - Hume's Ghost does acknowlege that his original post gave the impression that the majority of the VNRs being investigated are from the government. However, none of the VNRs being investigated are from the government, and Hume's Ghost stops a little short of saying that.
The heart and soul of Ghost's post (bashing the administration over VNRs) was based on a dishonest piece in the Independent (which was the focus of my post), and had he believed that none of the VNRs being investigated were from the government, then his entire post would have merited retraction starting with his tone-setting opening remark:
Allthough it hasn't managed to garner much attention, the FCC is currently investigating one of the most significant (at least to me) scandals of the Bush administration.
And ending with:
Why is it that the American public seems to not mind the manipulation of the truth in an effort to subvert democracy?
Also, Hume's Ghost doesn't credit anyone for his correction, and there's no indication that it's the result of anything other than his own introspection. And since planted stories shilling cadillacs, candy and chondroitin quite obviously present little threat to democracy, it appears to me that the thrust of his message remains intact.
So, the answer to my reader's question is no - I had nothing to do with it.
As far as the other blogs that I linked, I know a couple of them read my post (from the referral list on my stats page), and one of those squelched my trackback. And a couple of whois searches popped up as well, but I see those frequently after linking lefty blogs. No surprises here.
And DragonFlyEye has entered the room - I'll promote and address his comments in my next post.
