The mainstream media finds its epitaph
In case you haven't seen Glenn Greenwald's filleting of Joe Klein, here's all you really need to know. After writing a news analysis for Time based largely on a flagrant untruth fed to him by partisan sources, Klein offered this sentence by way of an explanation: "I have neither the time nor legal background to figure out who's right."
Comments
Dan Gillmor piles on, including the key context that too few Klein critics bother with - namely, that the man blatantly lied to fellow journalists and to the American public at length in order to enrich himself. Everything else is gravy.
The only way that Klein's "I have neither..." sentence could be more damningly ironic is if he were simultaneously writing for a periodical called Background.
Posted by: Anonymous | November 27, 2007 4:35 PM
Oops. The above comment was submitted by... Joe Klein!
Posted by: Vance | November 27, 2007 4:36 PM
You missed the week of tortured and inconsistent rationalizations between his initially being called out and his uttering that phrase.
Posted by: Sam L | November 27, 2007 6:52 PM
SamL: It's all in that first Greenwald link, if anyone wants to read the whole thing.
Posted by: radosh | November 27, 2007 6:57 PM
Yikes. Having read that post, I almost feel sorry for him. Almost, until I remember how fucking easy it is to say "I was wrong, sorry."
Posted by: Sam L | November 27, 2007 7:18 PM
You missed a great headline opportunity: "Joe Klein Joke Line?"
Posted by: Trout Almondine | November 29, 2007 8:11 AM
It's been done
Posted by: radosh | November 29, 2007 11:07 AM