Yeah...yeah...nonexistent but true?
The rightous ones did not have the guts to come clean; they qualified their retraction by inserting "specifically".
Good point. Throw Jason Blair, Dan Rather, or Newsweek in the face of the journalism industry and watch how defensive they get.
That's OK. We'll get the last laugh when the circulation figures come out (and those that have been faking them to cover the massive drop in the MSM audience get sent to jail).
The erring reporter and conniving editor(s) should be hanged. This is a serious crime with global repercussions.
"There are so many questions that arise from this that it’s hard to know where to start. First of all, why would an editor add such content to a guest column? Did he call the reservist and interview him? Did he tell him some of his comments needed amplification and then OK the added quotes? Apparently not. He just made them up. Again, how does this happen? By what rules of reporting and editing does this take place in any responsible newsroom? It is not a “production error” when the editor forgets to take out the completely made-up content he added to a guest column. "
This is from later in the article, which talks about text that was simply added to a guest column written by a soldier. You'd have to go to journalism school to really understand this.
I was there 25 years ago and had a course about Profiles---long pieces about a famous person. The professor said that after spending days with a subject you are writing a profile on, when you see them in a dramatic incident, you simply "know" what they are thinking. And that being the case, it is OK to write that thought into the article---as if it was a spoken quote.
I suppose this kind of idea has been proliferating ever since I left school. At the time, the professor's statement shocked me. But I suspect for today's journalism student---statements like this are routine.
I strongly suspect journalism students today are taught it is OK to make things up.
Sheesh! The Master Puppeteer-wannabes are getting the strings all tangled.