September 12, 2004

LA Times: Blame Blogs For Forgery Story

The Los Angeles Times chonicles the role of blogs in exposing the CBS forged memos, but ends the story with some quotes that suggest the paper believes that, A) the memos are authentic and, B) Karl Rove forged them.

Media experts said the role of the bloggers illustrated a significant development in the relationship between mainstream news and the still-nascent phenomenon of blogging. This was the first time, some said, that the Web logs were engaging in their own form of investigative journalism - and readers, they warned, should be cautious.

"The mainstream press is having to follow them," said Jeffrey Seglin, a professor at Emerson College in Boston. "The fear I have is: How do you know who's doing the Web logs? And what happens when this stuff gets into the mainstream, and it eventually turns out that the '60 Minutes' documents were perfectly legitimate, but because there's been so much reporting about what's being reported, it has already taken on a life of its own?

Seglin is an interesting choice for a quote selected to uphold the honor of 60 Minutes and support CBS' claim of authenticity of the memos. In addition to teaching journalism courses at Emerson College, Seglin is a columnist on ethics for the New York Times Syndicate. The New York Times Co. owns the Boston Globe, which has been collaborating with CBS on the forgery-based smear.

UPDATE: Scott W. Johnson at PowerLine has a much more lengthy analysis of the LATimes' story.