http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/09/blogopshere-sha.htmlBlogosphere lynches 'Palin hacker,' minus evidence
A fact-light report from WREG-TV in Memphis. Can someone please arrest the blogosphere and put them all away? Don't worry about gathering evidence or building a case, just lock them up and throw away the key — they'd do the same to you.
Drunk on the prospect that the 20-year-old son of a Democratic legislator in Tennessee was behind Wednesday's Palin e-mail hack, many blogs, political and otherwise, have summarily convicted the young man based on an impressive array of rumors, recycled nonfacts, misinterpretations and outright negligence. Then some TV stations and newspapers picked up the canard, running stories whose factual underpinning was that the hacking accusation was "the topic of heated discussions by bloggers all day."
The whole circus started with the resemblance between a pseudonym of someone who claimed to be the hacker, and the supposed e-mail address of the politician's son. Both contained the word "rubico." For many reporters, that might prompt a few phone calls. For bloggers, it was enough to light the torches.
Leading the misinfo-pack is conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, who began a post on the subject by quoting Nashville's Tennessean newspaper's report that, among other things, that "the son of state Rep. Mike Kernell has been contacted by authorities in connection with a probe into the hacking."
But — and this bears strenuous emphasis — the Tennessean has completely changed its tune. Without a note or correction, it soon replaced the version that Malkin quotes with one in which Rep. Kernell merely acknowledges that his son "is at the center of heated Internet discussion into the hacking."
...
So, to recap: A pseudonymous message on a nonarchived discussion board famous for mischief and anonymity was rescued by another anonymous user (Malkin's), and Malkin unquestioningly posted it on her blog. From there, the account was passed around until it was picked up by a British computing site that mistakenly attached Kernell's name to it — based on an e-mail address someone found by Googling the pseudonymous rubico.
Then, with the fiction gaining steam (but no fact), Gateway Pundit and others were free to run with it until — surprise! — their posts were linked by Malkin, who helped create the story in the first place. Ain't it pretty?
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