Fantastic piece in the Washington Independent (the Windy, we call it) by Dave Weigel about the shoddy standards of British journalism (!).
By which he means the Telegraph and the Sunday Times, which Weigel basically says will print anything they hear at a party, and which I must say comports with my reading experience. I speak here only for myself as a reader, not for the Guardian. But basically those two outlets have a bit of a history of publishing gossip – and wouldn't you know it, most of it just so happens to mesh fairly nicely with Republican talking points! – that kinda goes down the tubes on inspection.
Remember the famous Sunday Times piece from last year that Sarah Palin's daughter and her beau were going to get married in October, thus (so it was said) benefiting the McCain campaign? Turns out it was just some BS a few people at McCain HQ were slinging around one day. They knew no US outlet would print it. But they knew someone who would! Weigel:
'They're cheap dates,' said one former McCain campaign staffer. 'If you give something to the British press you know it'll make it into their story and then whether it gets around is a matter of whether other people want to take it seriously.' The staffer pointed to the example of a Sunday Times (UK) story that quoted McCain staffers, accurately, as saying that they'd talked about a pre-election 'shotgun wedding' between Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston. The plan was scuttled, but the gossip was real, so it became a story that bounced all over the political media. 'That was a lot of fun.'
They'd "talked about" it. Campaigns "talk about" many things, far more things than they actually, y'know, do. I suppose you could argue that it's "news" because they "talked about" it, but the Times just looked stupid and gullible. Today of course, Bristol and Levi are splitsville. Win some lose some. Or, as the stereotypical journalist's quote goes: "Well, it was true at the time."
