Thursday, September 23, 2004

Fake But Accurate

It only took a couple of weeks for the Guardian to correct the 'Bush memos' story. Even the BBC were faster (5 days), though stealth editing makes it harder to spot.

UPDATE - Scott Campbell corrects me - it only took them one week.

Victor Keegan's piece is pretty straight though.

"Although papers such as the Washington Post were on the case, the retraction would not have happened when it did but for the efforts of an army of bloggers - writers of online journals - in exposing the documents as fraudulent, including some who authoritatively questioned the authenticity of the documents almost as they were released."

Dan Rather's defence appears to be that of Greg Dyke over Andrew Gilligan's dodgy BBC reporting, and Piers Morgan's over the Daily Mirror's fake abuse photos.

"Alright - so the story isn't true. But it illustrates a wider truth."

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