Chutzpah Revisited

Now we have the king of chutzpah, the Virginia Blogger who is the antithesis of ethics, Ben Tribbett, lecturing a Washington Post reporter on journalism.

Did Tim Craig not attend journalism school? Does he not have a ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITY to site [sic] the published sources???? What a bunch of crap.

Now, just what is it that has Ben's panties in a bunch?

It seems Ben's hero, Lowell Feld posted a story about someone who has the temerity to run against a Democrat, (you know, like what's his name did in Connecticut a while back), exposing a prior legal problem. There was one glaring inconsistency, though. The names did not match, even though all other details seemed to fit.

Lowell is a blogger. A Democrat blogger. And as such is under no obligation, (in the minds of Ben and Lowell, anyway) to follow up and substantiate his story. Lowell was more interested in smacking down this idiot who dared to challenge Warner (like what's his name did earlier in Connecticut) than he was in verifying the story, so he ran with it.

At about the same time, Tim Craig of the Washington Post finds the same story. Only Tim Craig is an ethical journalist. The renegade Democrat running against Mark Warner now has a different name than the one he was using at the time of his legal problems. That required some verification by Craig in order to ensure that the two names did, in fact, belong to the same person. In Tim Craig's words;

I did not get it from Raising Kaine. I got a clip of the Roanoke Times article emailed to me this afternoon from a Democratic source. I then had our Washington Post researchers independently verify the article through a search of court records After that, I called the gentleman in question to speak to him. I did scan Raising Kaine at one point this afternoon and never saw a headline about this matter.

As for you assertion, it is laughable for you to lecture me or any member of the Richmond press corps on journalistic ethics.

Posted by: Timcraig | December 04, 2007 at 04:38 PM

The ironic part of all of this is that if Lowell or Ben had followed standard journalistic ethics and followed up with a simple phone call before launching their attacks this, yet another Ben Tribbett scandal, would never have occurred.

First complaining about the consequences that his own actions posed to a candidate he supported. Now lecturing a respected writer for the Washington Post on the subject of ethics.

Sheesh...