Why Do Journalists Keep Falling For O'Keefe's Smear Jobs?

[n2doc]

It took days for someone to factcheck the NPR "sting"—and then the job fell to Glenn Beck's (!!) site.

— By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery

Mon Mar. 28, 2011 3:00 AM PDT
To the list of journalism's greatest disgraces, let us now add James O'Keefe. O'Keefe calls himself an investigative reporter, though as far as we can tell the only group of journalists he has anything in common with are habitual fabricators like Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, and Janet Cooke.

But that's not the scandal we're talking about. The real scandal is that—even though by the time he posted a "sting" of a top NPR fundraiser, O'Keefe was notorious for creating deceptive video smear jobs (ACORN? Hello?)—the media repeated the allegations uncritically. Let's review.

O'Keefe's "scoop" debuted March 8 on the conservative Daily Caller. Edited down from a 2-hour conversation, the 12-minute clip purports to show NPR head fundraiser Ron Schiller wooing fake prospective donors who claimed to be part of a group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. To curry favor, Schiller slags tea partiers, calling them xenophobic and racist; he also says NPR could get by without federal funding.

more
http://motherjones.com/media/2011/03/james-okeefe-npr-sting-mohammed-nabbous

I think it is because he tells them stories that they want to believe. He plays to their prejudices.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. First, it appeals to the populist inclinations of viewers.

Next, there's a race to be "the first" or one of the first media to "break" the story. Corrections can be made later. 'Cept the corrections are rarely made in the same blaze of glory or timely made at all.

Next, across-the-board news divisions have had their budgets cut. They don't have the money for independent investigation that is needed in a case like O'Keefe.

[shraby]

2. He has a track record, it's because they willfully ignore the

truth of what he is doing.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Because all our major media are owned by the same six corporations, and

they want to keep the masses ignorant and scornful of anything that might endanger their power.

Journalism has nothing to do with it. We're in pure propaganda land.

At least the Soviet citizens KNEW they were being fed a line of bull.

[mod mom]

13. EXACTLY!

[aSpeckofDust]

4. Simple answer? Because they are paid to. n/t

[warrior1]

5. they don't know who he is

[nykym]

6. There has got to be

enough footage of this slimy little POS out there for someone to do an expose on him and make it viral through YouTube.

[JustAnotherGen]

7. I've thought the same thing

I know there are other DU'ers in Central NJ . . . I bet if we just walked around the town of Princeton one day asking the questions . . . we'd find the dirt.

[Taverner]

8. The banality of the media never manages to surprise me

[Johonny]

9. If only NPR had some media outlet at their use to expose him

[EFerrari]

12. LOL. When he burned them

I expressed the same wish at their website.

:)

[blondeatlast]

10. Because above all--they are LAZY. What, you expect them to back

up a juicy tidbit with a phone call or two?!

I'm not being cute or funny, either. Laziness is doing as much damage to journalism as the tax-exempt Heritage Foundation/Koch Brothers's Press Room.

[gratuitous]

11. I posed that precise question to NPR

They were, after all, the folks victimized by the lastest fabrication out of O'Keefe's Lie Factory. I got a canned corporate response to the effect that "NPR and the fundraiser {they didn't even have the nerve to name Ron Schiller} have mutually agreed to terminate their professional relationship." Yeah, I know; but that's not the question I asked.

How many times will the Villagers come a-runnin' when this little boy cries "Wolf"? In my e-mail I gave NPR a quick recap of O'Keefe's lying shenanigans. It's like they didn't want to know. They had a juicy story, or they were afraid of being scooped, and they rushed on the air with all the breathless details. Where does Ron Schiller go to retrieve his reputation? How does ACORN go about re-establishing its mission? What penalties have been exacted on this serial liar, and why is he still walking around free after attempting to tamper with the phone system of a U.S. Senator during war time? In the last 10 years, people have paid a higher price for having the wrong bumper sticker on their car, or for turning their backs on a speaker.