You can not, nor should you hold blogs to the same standards at Newspapers for this simple reason: Major papers have fact checkers, blogs don't. I write for a college newspaper in a major American city, I don't have the support that the Post does. I also read blogs all the time to help dig up stories. I can tell you that this Russert fabrication is small potatoes compared to some of the lies I've run across. The real story here is what made the Post decide to get someone to write a blog for them. Blogs are cool and sexy right now, they help the internet fullfill its promise to democratize information, but that doesn't mean that they rise up to the level of straight journalism. But then again, newspapers weren't always the bastians of correctness which we make them out to be. Is this perhaps the next step in journalism? I mean Fox and MSNBC aren't exactly spreading truth either, but do we hear any serious outcries? The truth is most people have always seen newspapers as a sort of entertainment. Something to do while they sit on a train or aplain or leisurely read through the Sunday paper.

All this kid did was to confirm it. It's like the sticker says, Orwell underestimated. The truth is most people who get the news don't want to get NEWS. THEY. WANT. TO. BE. ENTERTAINED!

Oh, and something else, there is a goodly number of people in this nation who would vote for Bush no matter what he does because he believes that Jesus died on the cross to save him from his sins. To these people, Russert and the other media is and will always be the liars in the situation. They will see Domenech as a casualty by the left, NOT as someone who should get the door becaus he lied.

Where does anyone get the idea that a college student doesn't understand about plagiarism? College students are relentlessly warned, threatened, cajoled, etc., etc., about plagiarism, why it is bad, and especially why getting caught at it is a bad career event.

No one understands the risks better than a college student.

Sigh. I'll throw my 2 cents on the pile.

I was home-schooled. I'm 28. I'm a "card-carrying" liberal. And I'm terribly disturbed that the right is co-opting "home-schooling" as a code for ultra-conservative fundamentalist Christians. People home-school for a variety of reasons; saying one was "home-schooled" does not serve as an accurate shorthand for what a person's background and beliefs are.

Joe, please don't use the term as if it applies only to people of Ben Domenech's ilk. Please don't let the right take this phrase away from us too.

When I was in J-School before my brief career as an ink-stained wretch, we had a movie reviewer at the campus paper who was caught copying reviews out of Rolling STone. It turned out he had also been writing fan letters about himself to the "Letters to the Editor" under various names. He was instantly shown the door. There was no talk about it having been "a mistake" or that "he's only in college."

It will be more interesting to see how the WashingtonPost.com deals with this. My observation is that media outlets aren't very good at acknowledging blunders until somebody with power calls them on it. A few years back I saw that a local political cartoonist had copied a cartoon by another artists from the 1960s. I pointed this out to the paper's editorial page editor. She forwarded my e-mail to the cartoonist, who sent back an e-mail to the effect of "Yeah, so what? It doesn't matter! And anyway you don't know what you're talking about anyway!" So I imagine the washingtonpost.com will use the smokescreen defense, saying at most that "there is a controversy" and "there are allegations" and that "according to some reports" their new hire was lifting stuff wholesale.

Jerome wisely wrote:

"I find this confusing. Is there no source for a video of the New Hampshire debate on January 7, 2000? This is not the 1800s. The truth exists and should be relatively easy to get."

There sure is:

http://cspanrm.fplive.net:554/ramgen/cspan/kdrive/c2k010600_debate.rm

or

http://tinyurl.com/f8ypj

Watch for yourself on CSPAN. (Thanks to Brendan Nyhan's blog

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2006/03/ben_domenech_bl.html

for the link.)

Faced with the evidence, Domenech chose to blame an AP article for misquoting Russert, although no such article can be found, except for a copy of a supposed Boston Globe piece that Domenech quotes on his website. It includes the Russert quote:

http://www.bendomenech.com/globe.htm

According to Nyhan again, "I've found two AP articles that mirror parts of his in Nexis, but the key passage, including the fictitious question from Russert, does not appear in any articles in Nexis or Westlaw."

So the real question is, what is the source of the article that Domenech posts on his website as an AP article, which includes the Russert quote? (Domenech's unhelpful heading: "1/7/00 Boston Globe (Pg. Unavail. Online)")

Why doesn't this version of the article seem to be archived anywhere? Who is the unnamed AP writer and can he or she clear this up? Surely if this erroneous report was filed somewhere or sometime so that Domenech was able to snag it and be fooled by it, some record of it exists somewhere... right?

I mean, the quote didn't just appear in the article out of nowhere... right?

Conason alert, nice. Washington Post has continually written pro-Iraq invasion, pro-Iran confrontation, and little about no-bid contract scam in Iraq. Hope, we get some peace. People reading less and less of Washington Post. Rather read counterpunch.org or Huffington.

Here:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/washpostblog/2006/03/new_blog_red_america.html#comments

And here:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/washpostblog/2006/03/publishers_note.html

Have fun! And be nice ;-)

Michelle Malkin suggests that now that he's been caught red-handed, we all ("the left") cease our "sick gloating" and leave the poor baby and his family alone.

Yes, much like those on the right ceased their sick gloating and left Bill Clinton and his family alone when he was caught doing something not too nice, but not exactly illegal. Oh, that's right. THEY'RE STILL AT IT TO THIS DAY.

The blatant hypocrisy employed by these "crooks and liars" knows no bounds. But the eerie part is that they really do believe their own lies, even when the truth is staring them in the face.