Bitch Slapped: the saga of Kathleen Parker continues...

[Memekiller]

From Whoslying.org



If not for blogs, Howell Raines might still be editor of The New York Times; Trent Lott might still be majority leader of the U.S. Senate. And we might never have learned the name of "whatshername," Blue-Dress Girl, Lewinsky.

Kathleen Parker, “Blogs Breaking Logjam of Journalism”, July 14, 2003



Nor might anyone have ever noticed Kathleen Parker’s “massaging” of a quote in an Op Ed piece that ran in various newspapers at the first of this month. But Buzzflash.com came across a wily blogger’s screenshot of the “previous” column, which in turn was stumbled upon by yours truly during his daily browse. We then took it upon ourselves to send variations of the following letter to the editor to the places that ran the column:



In the wake of Jayson Blair’s fabricated stories in the New York Times, our organization, whoslying.org, has found it necessary to keep tabs on stories and opinions pieces to help ensure accuracy in media. In order to further those aims, we will occasionally send letters like this one to the editor to make people aware of questionable stories. On , your paper ran an editorial by Kathleen Parker entitled “Politics are Out of Place in Time of War” that quoted a note given to her by an anonymous “friend and former Delta Force member” as saying “These bastards like Clark and Kerry… should all be lined up and slapped.” The same editorial has appeared elsewhere, including the Whittier Daily News and Daily Camera, with the quote reading “These bastards like Clark and Kerry… should all be lined up and shot.” We do not know how this occurred, but we believe that since this is a direct quote taken from a “note” written by an anonymous source, it is a matter that your editorial board should be aware of and that you owe it to your readers to explain this discrepancy.



This may indeed be due to some minor mishap, in which case it should be corrected. But as you know, allowing indicators like this to slide is what allowed Blair to continue as he did for so long. In either case, it would do Parker, your paper and your readers a service to find out what happened so that we can be assured the reporting your paper prints is as accurate as possible.



Dylan Otto Krider

President of Whoslying.org