Rep. Pete Stark accused—then retracted—a charge against a journalist.

Pete Stark, a twenty (!) term Democrat from San Francisco, accused a San Francisco Chronicle reporter of contributing to one of his opponents. This took place while he was being videotaped, in the Chronicle’s offices. The reporter, who was in the room, said that wasn’t true. Then he said that he’d gotten the name wrong, …

This American Life has retracted their story about Apple.

In January, the always-excellent “This American Life” had a really stunning episode turned over almost entirely to an excerpt of a monologue by Mike Daisey, about working conditions at Foxconn, the Chinese company that manufactures products for Apple, among other companies. Daisey actually went to China, to the factory, and interviewed people about what it …

AP calls out White House officials for anonymized press conference.

From the AP: “The White House organized a conference call with two senior administration officials to preview an announcement by President Barack Obama about an important China trade issue but told reporters that no one could be quoted by name. The officials were U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and the deputy national security adviser for …

CBS News calling a spade a spade.

Further to this happy trend of media outlets pointing out when the subject of their coverage is lying comes a piece by Lucy Madison, writing for CBS News, regarding Rush Limbaugh and Sandra Fluke: “In her testimony, Fluke largely discussed the high cost of contraception and the important medical benefits it can offer women. She …

The New York Times points out an untruth.

Good for the New York Times’ Justin Gillis and Leslie Kaufman for this passage in a story about the leaked Heartland Institute documents detailed their plans to discredit science teachers: “Heartland’s latest idea, the documents say, is a plan to create a curriculum for public schools intended to cast doubt on mainstream climate science and …

The AP demonstrates how to point out an untruth.

I have recently been lamenting the media’s habit of allowing subjects’ false statements to stand, without challenge. This morning I spotted a great example of the right way to handle this, in a story about Mitt Romney from the AP’s Kasie Hunt: “‘I will never apologize for America,’ Romney says often—suggesting that Obama has done …

Warren Olney is emblematic of what’s wrong with modern journalism.

Warren Olney’s “To the Point,” the PRI show carried by NPR affiliates across the country, has long struck me as a bit of a parody of NPR. The name, for starters. I can’t remember the names of any of the faux NPR stations in “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,” but they’re all names exactly like …

The New York Times is wondering if they should provide the truth.

The Times’ public editor is asking, in the form of a blog entry, whether the media should be in the habit of pointing out when a subject is lying. That is, a politician says that black is white, should the reporter covering it point out that, in fact, black is black? It’s shameful that this …