First things first. Do you know why I put names in the blog titles? Besides the obvious reason, I do it because Google loves blogs. In the next day or two, that name will be one of the most searched on the web, and a lot of those searchers will be landing right here. 
Now on to substance.
Blog envy: I secretly love it when leftist bloggers blog about and link to me (not a secret anymore). I like driving them crazy. Dedicating a whole post to little old me must be a way of releasing pent-up frustration. Right or wrong, I enjoy every minute of it. However, I have yet to ignite the ire of a real journalist or even someone who writes guest op-eds. Getting under the skin of someone with a newspaper column would be the “big time.”
Power Line has hit the big time so many times, I’m sure they’ve lost count. The most recent event happened yesterday when the Star Tribune published a guest op-ed written by someone named Camille J. Gage. You may remember the newspaper from the Nick Coleman episode. The poor guy did a poor job at hiding his envy and frustration.
In this week’s episode, Gage accuses Power Line’s John Hinderaker of not checking facts and implies that his allegations of voter fraud in Racine, Wisconsin, are false. She writes:
As a graduate student in public affairs at the University of Minnesota, I recently heard an in-class presentation by John Hinderaker, who, with partner Scott Johnson, runs the Powerline blog. Powerline played a role in breaking the Rathergate affair and was recently named “Blog of the Year” by Time magazine.Prior to Hinderaker’s presentation, the week before the November elections, I visited the Powerline site. To my surprise an Oct. 27 post covered alleged voter fraud in Racine, Wis., my hometown. The charges involved the registering of illegal aliens to vote. The story seemed outrageous, so I made a few phone calls to check it out.
What I discovered was troubling. There was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations. Powerline posted the story based on the word of a single individual employed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). This was hearsay at best, posted as “news” at a time when voter registration efforts by the Democrats and 527 groups were coming under fire by conservatives.
At class I asked Hinderaker if posts to Powerline were fact-checked. He was dismissive of the question, so I asked if he was aware that the Racine voter fraud story was inaccurate. He stated that he was not, slapped his hands together and stated that the blogosphere was all about speed and therefore did not allow for fact-checking. Mr. Hinderaker went on to say, “Our readers let us know when we get it wrong.”
And therein lies the cautionary Catch-22: Bloggers may serve as media watchdogs, but who will watch the blogs? Do you have time to fact-check what you read online?
Gage sounds very reasoned, calm and knowledgeable, doesn’t she? According to John Hinderaker, she is incorrect. He expressed his frustration:
The piece accuses us of a failure to fact-check. The author refers to a news story we linked to last October which related to voter fraud in Wisconsin, and says that she “made a few phone calls” and determined that “[t]here was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations.” No hint as to whom she called, or what information she learned that demonstrated that the allegations in the news story were false….I talked to Commentary Editor Eric Ringham today, and he acknowledged that the Strib didn’t do any fact-checking at all before they accused us of not fact-checking. That’s right: None. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. And Ms. Gage, if that’s really her name, has no knowledge about the voter fraud scandal which has now resulted in a federal criminal investigation.
The voter fraud allegations are now being investigated by the feds, and Gage accuses Power Line of not checking the facts? By the way, who did she call about the allegations, and what did the person say? She says Power Line relied on the “hearsay” of one source, but didn’t she do exactly the same thing? What she just tried to feed us was hearsay. At least Hinderaker named his source. What makes Gage more credible than Hinderaker? Her bias is showing, and it’s not very attractive.
While I don’t like the lies and innuendo of blog-haters, I do enjoy seeing their petty and juvenile envy awkwardly hidden behind pseudo-intellectual meanderings, which are usually nothing more than dressed up ad hominem.
Gage could have gone a few steps further and asked Hinderaker for a quote for her op-ed or at the very least, to clarify her perceptions. She could have easily fact-checked herself but didn’t. Gage wanted to make the point, the insinuation, that “wild, wild west” bloggers can’t be trusted. In a feeble attempt to do so, she turned the mirror on herself. Her bias against conservatives in general and Power Line in particular, was poorly disguised. That Gage is a Howard Dean contributor is the final nail in the coffin of common sense. Nice try, though.
Hinderaker is preparing a response, and I know it will be a good one. I will update this post as soon as it’s up.
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Around the blogosphere: Commonwealth Conservative, Real Politics …
Update (5:42 p.m.): Regarding Power Line’s fact-checking, a commenter provided these links: Voter Fraud in Wisconsin and Voter Registration Probe Unearths Potential Fraud in Wisconsin.
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‘I talked to Commentary Editor Eric Ringham today, and he acknowledged that the Strib didn’t do any fact-checking at all before they accused us of not fact-checking.’
Sounds like he just got slagged with what he slags off. Sucks doesn’t it?
Something I found on Camille:
“During the residency I learned more about working with the public on a community art project – The ability to paint every day and to focus completely on my work has energized me in a new and transformative way. The residency experience was a very powerful validation of my artistic vision and my lifetime commitment to creative work. Words can’t really express just how meaningful this is on a deep, personal level.”
— Camille J. Gage, 2004 Resident Artist
Seem she does take to “creative work” well.
“Gage sounds very reasoned, calm and knowledgeable, doesn’t she?”
Yes, LaShawn, and so did Tom Daschle. Gage decided to abandon the “hysterical liberal” stereotype and try the soft approach. Either way, their hypocrisy and vehement aversion to the truth are all too evident.
I guess nobody at the ‘Strib is following the news out of Milwaukee, Racine or Madison, either. The number of articles in papers, not blogs, certainly didn’t come from on source at FAIR.
Actus: Which he do you mean?
Amazing! I guess when you are being hypocritical, it is very difficult to see yourself as you really are.
Whats the saying? When you dig a grave, you better dig two for the first one is for you? Or something to that nature. This woman has buried herself.
‘Actus: Which he do you mean?’
The he that hems and haws and says he doesn’t need to do fact checking because he doesn’t have time for it.
‘Gage wanted to make the point, the insinuation, that “wild, wild west” bloggers can’t be trusted.’
But wasnt it hindracker who said so when he said:
“Our readers let us know when we get it wrong.”
Thats not an insinuation. Thats a pretty clear statement that Hindracker sees himself as someone who applies no standards, who depends on his readers lack of trust to tell him what is correct or incorrect.
A “real journalist?” I believe La Shawn mistakenly referred to the Star reporter as a “real journalist.” Operatives of the MSM/DNC are not “real” journalists. Click on my name for more thoughts.
Taking things out of context there Actus.
Coleman and the ‘Stribites say bloggers can’t be trusted, because they have no oversight (editors) for when they make the inevitable error. Hinderaker holds that bloggers’ readers help fill this role, giving them an editorial board that is potentially as large as the bloggers’ readership.
What the ‘Strib has proven lately, and esp with this piece, is that their paid editors aren’t doing any form of QA/QC to write home about.
He’s (Hindrockety) not above the hoi paloi, answerable to none but himself, he’s answerable to anyone with a browser and the ability to read/write english.
What a bit of hypocrisy little Ms. Gage is. I hope you gets lots of hits, La Shawn.
‘He’s (Hindrockety) not above the hoi paloi, answerable to none but himself, he’s answerable to anyone with a browser and the ability to read/write english.’
Just like a newspaper is answerable to not only its editors — who may be in default — but its readers as well? I don’t see the blogger’s exceptionalism.
Actus, Power Line links to news items. It’s not as if they’re out there, pounding the pavement, filing news stories they research and write. They link to news stories that ALREADY EXIST. Therein lies the blogger’s exceptionalism. If I hand you a newspaper with an article circled that I suggest you should read, should I first be required to research and back-up what has been, supposedly, already researched and backed up? Of course not. The Star-Tribune, on the other hand, has a stated obligation to research and back-up their claims and content, which in this case they most assuredly failed to do.
‘The Star-Tribune, on the other hand, has a stated obligation to research and back-up their claims and content, which in this case they most assuredly failed to do.’
So basically the slur is that we call them a blogger?
But it doesn’t sound like powerline provided a link to a fact-checked piece of media, as you claim. It sounds like it did original and substantive reporting of facts that were not previously public. And it wants to claim blogger exceptionalism for that. It wants to claim that its hands are clean and that fact checking is something they don’t have time to do, and want their readers to do.
“If I hand you a newspaper with an article circled that I suggest you should read, should I first be required to research and back-up what has been, supposedly, already researched and backed up? Of course not.”
In practice it makes you AS reliable as that which you are giving me — if you continuously feed me lies, then you can guess what happens to the next thing you give me.
I’d propose the ethical rule that you are responsible for it to the extent that I wouldn’t have found it without your efforts. The more obscure the thing that you’re handing me, the more responsibility it is that you have to fact check it.
The extreme would be you tell me something non-public: ie, what a newspaper does in reporting. The other extreme would be you tell me something that everyone already knows. The point being there is an in between. There is something between total responsibility and total irresponsibility.
Camille Gage and the msm must feel the same way a bully on the playground feels when he meets his match.Blogs can stand up to the bully and call his bluff.Times ara changin.
My point exactly. People LOVE to make accusations of others. They want to tarnish people’s character.
Now Gage is caught up in something that the left now is so commonly caught up in. And that is the fact that we live in a world now where the left does not control the media.
When will people learn. This is a war of ideas, and facts and how many people can get dissimentated to the quickest.
It is the reason why the Democrat’s strangle hold on our institutions has come to an end. Before 1994 Democrats controlled the majority of governors, state legislatures, the Congress and from time to time the White House. Now the reverse has happened and the left continues to accuse instead of debate on the playing field of ideas.
We centrists/conservatives want a debate on the playing field of ideas. We’d rather that then a refutation of the left’s constant barrage of daily accusations.
And why was she so incensed that there was illegals voting in her hometown?
Was she angry about the facts?
Or was she angry about the fact that it was being covered and investigated by the feds?
That reeks of an agenda right there to silence those who are saying things she doesn’t like.
Baklava: WE will know that we are turning the corner when blogs start affecting all the liberal colleges and the nutty liberal professors on our campuses.Professor Churchill is stepping down so it may be a start.
Affecting is already happening.
I saw a story where for the first time ever Republican clubs and members out number Democrat clubs on college campuses.
I’m not into Republican good and Democrat bad but it used to be way out numbered and uneven.
Suffice to say the professors are feeling the affects also.
Check out David Horowitz’s Front Page Mag.com
Baghdad Bob, move over and meet the new boss, Sandbag Camille
Actus, now you’re Trollin’ for Other People’s Goats. Reread what La Shawn wrote, or better yet go to Powerline.
Powerline named their source as someone in Racine that was pursuing the case — IOW, PL was relaying and amplifying a heretofore MSM/DNC coverup of voter fraud. The fact that the case has legs is borne by the State and Federal investighation of fraud by Donks in Racine now.
SC stated that PL ignored the fact-check question. How do we know that is true? That’s her claim, but she gives no backup, ie corrobating witnesses or a recording. Furthermore, she misconstrued the adage about bloggers being fact-checked by the blogosphere and twisted it to mean that PL “don’t need to do no stinkin’ fact-checkin’”.
The fact that the blogosphere is self-correcting has been noted and discussed for almost as long as it has existed, so I won’t bother to discuss that further. In fact, if you’re looking for pre-blogosphere examples of fact-check, go to Slashdot.
As for your other comments, just more TOPG-ing. Adios
I agree with many of the points stated, but strongly disagree with John Hinderaker’s decision to use his bully pulpit (Power Line) to respond to Ms. Gage’s letter by linking to a site which displays Ms. Gage’s home address.
Feeding a college student’s private information to thousands of angry readers will seem like a very unprofessional, even menacing maneuver to outsiders who are following the story.
‘SC stated that PL ignored the fact-check question. How do we know that is true?’
Because she’s as trustworthy as a blogger? Would it be more trustworthy if she said ’someone told me that PL said’?
‘The fact that the blogosphere is self-correcting has been noted and discussed for almost as long as it has existed, ‘
I always thought it was funny that to have a situation where other people tell you that you’re wrong be called ’self-correcting’. Sure, someone on a different blog (not even a comment or trackback) might point out some else’s errors. But people do that for the MSM as well. Does that make the MSM as corrected as the blogosphere?
And what is the mechanism or empirical justification of this self correction? bloggers making updates? the fact that if I google for a particular false story I will hit the debunking of it sooner than the original falsity, if at all? The fact that somewhere out there someone has said something that contradicts a story? The fact that people will cease linking to known liars, and cease improving their google ranks?
I’m curious. Give me a pointer to where this ’self-correcting’ thing is analyzed. I’m sure there are some methods by which it is self-correcting. I’m not so sure that these don’t apply to the traditional media as well, and thus aren’t exceptional.
I must say I have never run into this self-correcting assertion in the left blogs. Just the right ones I read. Curious isn’t it? Maybe its just chance. I don’t think its a purely conservative idea.
‘twisted it to mean that PL “don’t need to do no stinkin’ fact-checkin’”.’
He said its about speed and that readers do the fact checking — post publication, by definition. Maybe he didn’t say these things, but I see no twist. Its the essence of the ’self-correcting’ paradigm: I don’t need to worry about fact checking because it will get ’self-corrected’ (by someone else) in the end, out there, in the ether.
“Because she’s as trustworthy as a blogger? Would it be more trustworthy if she said ’someone told me that PL said’?”
Now I know you didn’t capeche anything in what La Shawn wrote at the top of the page. Must be that whole-language thang.
As for the fact-checking, I already pointed you at Slashdot — hardly the paragon of rightwing creed. Go spend some time researching the subject if you’re serious, instead of defining down “is” ala Slick.
‘Now I know you didn’t capeche anything in what La Shawn wrote at the top of the page. Must be that whole-language thang.’
I did read it. Some grad student writes a guest column for a paper on a famous blogger, and describes her conversation with him and some phone calls she has made. Her editor — not her — fails to fact check an opinion piece, and thus…
‘As for the fact-checking, I already pointed you at Slashdot – hardly the paragon of rightwing creed. ‘
Slashdot is great. They have the Karma system, and the comments and the moderation. I love reading their threads on +5 to just get a feel for the overall top consensus opinions that are out there. I understand that mechanism.
I have no problem understanding that a forum like that can be read as being a sum of disparate viewpoint that forms a correction — though I do think it is more accurate to say that it is better at filtering noise than to say that it actually corrects errors.
I have no idea how this applies to someone who runs a blog with no comments and then says that he is ’self corrected’ by his readers.
Ratso,
I blogged that (Churchill) this morning, only to find that Charles at LGF had beat me to the punch. Damn him being on the left coast
Anyway, like Rather, he’s just leaving his plum post in the public eye, but will still be hanging about.
PL Factcheck at work:
SC did not have ONE factcheck that withstood the truth test. Score PL 1, SC 0, and if there’s libel involved, $$ in the hole for her/Strib. As PL said, stay tuned
Lot of hot air here, folks.
You might find this interesting.
I think it’s Hinderaker that has some explaining to do.
Click on John’s name for post. – Admin
John – Why don’t you just trackback?
Sorry, linkers, but you’re messing up my format.
John, how so? Gage said in her op piece that there was no factual basis for Hinderaker’s post in October. She said she made a few calls. No mention of to whom, or what was said. Just that she made some calls. Hinderaker, on the other hand, named his source (Tully).
Which of these two allows you to evaluate things on your own, and which one is ‘ipse dixit’?
Have you read Gage’s whole piece, or the relev. posts on Powerline, in relation to Racine and the ongoing vendetta the ‘Stribs editorial crew have against Hindrocket and company?
I wouldn’t be so quick to come to the defense of poor persecuted Powerline (i.e., Time Magazine’s Blog of the Year ) on this one.
Notice how Hinderaker never denies Ms. Gages’ allegation that he never fact-checked the story about alleged voter fraud in Racine that he posted about on Oct.27. http://powerlineblog.com/archives/008330.php#008330
Instead, he tries a double bait-and-switch.
First, he states that a response is being prepared which will primarily focus on the Strib’s failure to fact-check Ms. Gage’s column, thereby neatly sidestepping the issue of whether he fact-checked his Oct. 27 post.
Second, he states that “Ms. Gage, if that’s really her name, has no knowledge about the voter fraud scandal which has now resulted in a federal criminal investigation.” While I am aware that there is a federal investigation of alleged voter fraud in Milwaukee, I have googled and googled and googled but have found nothing indicating the existence of any federal criminal investigation of the “voter fraud scandal” specifically referred to by Hinderaker in his Oct. 27 post (i.e., that 2 people posing as illegal immigrants as part of a “sting” operation by an immigration reform group named FAIR were permitted to register to vote) . I did, however, find a Nov. 4 story on FAIR’s site complaining that Milwaukee’s District Attorney was not pursuing any prosecution’s based on FAIR’s “sting” operation and had in fact warned private groups from “to keep out of investigating [alleged voter fraud] on their own. [http://www.fairus.org/Research/Research.cfm?ID=2580&c=54] Further, none of the stories I read about the Milwaukee federal probe give any indication that it includes the alleged fraud claimed by FAIR. Thus, it appears to me that Hinderaker is trying to mislead his readers into believing that the feds are looking into FAIR’s claims of voter fraud which he unquestioningly passed on, when there is no indication that these claims are part of that investigation.
From what I can see, it seems clear that, just as Ms. Gage says, Hinderaker did not fact-check the story upon which he based his Oct. 27 post (Parenthetically, I would note that the “news story” linked in Hinderaker’s Oct. 27 post came from reporter –”Chad Groening” — and news source –Agapepress.com “Reliable news from a Christian Source” — which cursory checking would have demonstrated were, charitably put, somewhat less than unbiased.
I will concede that from what I looked at, I can’t say with all certainty that FAIR’s allegations as to what happened in Racine had “no factual basis” as Ms. Gage claims, although she claims in her column that she, unlike Hinderaker or me, actually called people to check out the claims. I can say, however, that Hinderaker’s claim that Gage “defamed,” “slandered” or “libelled” him is riduculous, that his calling Gage a “miscreant” was classless and unwarranted, that his response to this whole issue seems very misleading, and that it seems to me that Ms. Gage was correct in accusing Hinderaker of hypocrisy.
LaShawn: Sorry, I don’t often use trackback:)
I love how she starts off…
“As a graduate student in public affairs at the University of Minnesota”
Yawn. So what does that have to do with anything? I’m sure Dan Rather is a graduate student of something also
So what’s her point?
Pat M, I see your point, and also checked out John’s blog, but far from being a slamdunk, you have to admit PL left us with a cliffhanger, a teaser of things to come if you will.
As I commented at blogenlust, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. So let’s wait & see what PL cames back with in their next installment.
Tried the trackback thing, La Shawn, but it gave me a nasty error message. I found a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article on the voter fraud case in Racine from only a week ago.
Andy,
While I agree that PL has left us hanging, I still think its fairly clear that Hinderaker did not fact-check the article he posted about – thus supporting what I viewed as one of Gage’s primary points, i.e., Hinderaker’s hypocrisy in constantly berating the dreaded MSM for poor fact-checking when his own efforts leave much to be desired.
I would concede, however, that if, in fact, the FAIR allegations Hinderaker blogged about are part of a federal investigation, it makes Gage’s claim look quite bad. If, however, it turns out that Hinderaker’s reference to a “federal investigation” was actually to an investigation into voter fraud allegations other than the FAIR allegations, I think it would pretty clearly indicate that Hinderaker was intentionally trying to mislead. I guess we’ll have to just wait and see.
heyla,
Stumbled upon your blog over at http://www.theblackrepublican.net/ , i’ll be back. Are you planning anything for Black History Month?
The Casual Observer
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