AP Goes Rogue When Fact Checking Palin
The Associated Press put eleven(!?!) reporters on Sarah Palin’s book to “fact check” it?
Is this the same AP that steadfastly refused to do any such fact-checking on all things Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign? Why, I believe it is.
Much speculation has centered around how President Obama’s popularity has fallen so far so fast. Might one reason be that many Americans–especially those who consumed the AP’s highly-politicized gruel masquerading as news–are finally finding out what the AP hid from readers last fall?
After all, the AP only has so many reporters and most of those were busy digging through trashbins in Wasilla, AL during the campaign. Dirt on the GOP VP was more important than hard reporting on the man who would become our president.
That constituted a wise use of the AP’s limited resources in 2008. Eleven Sarah Palin–who is a private citizen–fact checking gnomes is this year’s version of the AP’s sage allocation of its resources.
The AP is only one of the MSM that is headlong rush into the financial toilet. Instead of monitoring blogs that might use an AP headline in their stories (DBKP doesn’t), the news collective might be better served by monitoring the efficient use of their resources.
Eleven reporters fact-checking a book–even one written by one of the AP’s least-loved Americans–doesn’t sound very efficient.
John at Powerline agrees. Below is one of his kinder thoughts on the AP.
From Fact-Check This:
It appears to be a tribute to the factual accuracy of Palin’s book that eleven hostile AP reporters can’t come up with anything better than this.
Mark Steyn adds a more sublime dose of ridicule: Rogue’s Eleven
If you wonder why American newspapering is dying, consider this sign-off:
AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report.
Wow. That’s ten “AP writers” plus Calvin Woodward, the AP writer whose twinkling pen honed the above contributions into the turgid sludge of the actual report. That’s 11 writers for a 695-word report. What on? Obamacare? The Iranian nuke program? The upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
No, the Associated Press assigned 11 writers to “fact-check” Sarah Palin’s new book, and in return the 11 fact-checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors. That’s 1.8333333 writers for each error. What earth-shattering misstatements did they uncover for this impressive investment?
Steyn goes on to fact check the fact checkers. He finishes with:
Coming next:
PALIN: How many AP fact-checkers does it take to change a lightbulb?
FACT: Palin has gone seriously “rogue” in her facts here. AP fact-checkers are prevented per union regulations from changing lightbulbs.
AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this joke. We’ll be here all week.
We’re not as optimistic that at least some of the AP writers involved will “be here next week”. Might not at least a few of them be soon looking for work in another sector of the dying Mainstream press. The “Going Rogue” affair is only the latest reason for that prediction.
MORE: Top McCain aide: Palin’s lying about what happened with Couric.
You just knew that the AP and the McCain campaign–most notably Head Weasel Steve Schmidt–would team up at every opportunity. The AP, because it fits their narrative; Schmidt, because he wants to work again and doesn’t want to shoulder the blame for a campaign that will one day be searched on Google under the term “Loserpalooza”.
NOTE: We just became aware that Jules Crittenden called the whole affair a “Palin-palooza“.
AND: The Wall Street Journal asks “Can Sarah Palin Make a Comeback?“. The Journal says “yes”.
We’d argue that no comeback is needed, just exposure to Americans through media venues other than the decrepit Mainstream one that savaged her at every opportunity during the election–and since. Which is exactly what Ms. Palin has been doing…
[...] AP Goes Rogue When Fact Checking Palin [...]
If they think the book is not important, why are they throwing so many fact checckers at it?
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