From Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News (3/9/11), courtesy of reporter Lisa Myers:
We last saw O’Keefe wearing a fur coat and playing a pimp when he managed to take down the liberal group ACORN.
No we didn’t.
As should be well-known by now, O’Keefe used footage of himself wearing a “pimp” costume in his ACORN videos–but didn’t wear the ridiculous costume during his “undercover stings.” Media accounts acted as though he did, though–it took a lot of effort to get the New York Times to finally admit its errors on this count.
If reporters don’t know these facts, they’re bound to get fooled by O’Keefe again.
Peter, I wouldn’t say the corpress was “fooled” by O’Keefe. When you make no attempt to verify the authenticity of these videos until after the damage has been done, and give them wide exposure, rather than exposing them as propaganda, that seems more a matter of wilful ignorance, at best, and complicity at worst, doesn’t it?
And, of course, O’Keefe didn’t take down anyone on his own, did he? The reactionary media made these cause celebres, and their “liberal” counterpart went right along with them, didn’t they?
Your first point has merit, its a fault of press that it rushes to grab any piece of red meat that O’keefe or anyone else throws its way. It is fooled, but really has no excuse to be. It should first research all aspects of any story it publishes, and ultimately the pox is on the reporters who prematurely publish factually questionable stories. I suppose this all has to do with wanting to get a story first or “scoop,” their competition.
However, your second point, that O’keefe didn’t take down anyone on his own, seems like a similar excuse. Would we be correct to say that Napoleon did not win battles on his own, or that Mao did not murder millions of his perceived enemies on his own. Well logically its true that none of these occurrences are examples of things that happened only because of one person, however, figureheads certainly can serve to ferment the causes they champion. And their own motivation makes a big difference in how any scam they pursue becomes successful or not. certainly Hitler could not have conquered most of Europe on his own but does that mean he does not deserve the world’s scorn for being the catalyst that gave rise to Nazi infamy? Of course not!
I remember a Doug Latimer who went to HIghSchool with me. Are you the same guy?