I got the following mail back from Japan Today:We'd like to run the article by Doug Thompson but we don't subscribe to Capitol Hill Blue. We either have to wait until truthout.org prints a correction that we can use or -- if you can give us Mr Thompson's e-mail address -- I will contact him and ask for permission to run the story whose link you provided.My reply:
Thanks
OK, we are obviously having a few disconnects here.
1) Doug Thompson is dougthompson@capitolhillblue.com
2) Doug Thompson claims that he has been in email contact with you, and that you told him you got the story from truthout.org- so either you already had his email, or he and I are talking to two different people, or he misled me when he said he had been in contact with you.
3) The story you ran did NOT originate with truthout.org. It originated on Capitol Hill Blue at 0129 EDT on July 8. It was at this URL: http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2518.shtml That URL now has a modified version of the story- the changes are he backed off the assertion that Bush admitted lying, and he removed the part of the story about Wilkinson. A copy of the story was posted on Free Republic at 1442 EDT July 8: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/942434/posts This copy is identical to the one Truthout.org sold to you. You published something that Truthout, a leftist propaganda outfit, plagiarized.
4) Not only was it plagiarized, it turns out it was also containing completely false information. There is no Terrance J. Wilkinson. Does your paper have an ombudsman? Maybe he should take a look at this.
5) If you go to the Truthout.org website, you will find that they don't even have the story up. They were using you to publish a false story.
6) If you search on a phrase from the story, their search engine will find it and show a brief excerpt of it. But if you click on the link to go to it, it now takes you to a completely different story. They are trying to hide that they ever had it up, since their plagiarism was discovered. You can find the details of what they did on this Free Republic thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/943322/posts.
I appreciate that you want to get a retraction from Truthout.org, but you are acting as if they are an honorable organization. They are not. They stole an article, and as it turns out they got caught because through a twist of fate the article they stole was in the process of being proven to contain fraudulent information.
Regards
woodyinscc