Related post: http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/cair-wants-lgf-investigated-as-hate-site/
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who originally printed a feckless, unquestioning article concerning CAIR bitching to the FBI about comments on Little Green Footballs, has published an ‘apology’ to Charles Johnson….sort of:
From LGF:
Here’s an email received from the Assistant Managing Editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on their uncritical, irresponsible reporting of CAIR propaganda:
Dear Mr. Johnson:
Copies of your blog postings and your exchange with reporter Tim Townsend have been forwarded to me.
First, let me inform you that the following correction will be run in tomorrow’s edition: “Due to an editing error, a story in Wednesday’s Metro section did not correctly describe those making online comments about the Islamic Community Center in St. Louis. The writer Kathi on the blog ”Gateway Pundit“ and writers Amer1can and Arthur E. Hippler on the blog ”Little Green Footballs“ had written comments on those blogs. They were not the authors of those blogs.”
For any possible confusion by readers over the description of those who made comments on your blog, I apologize. For what it’s worth, I want you personally to know that an editor handling Tim’s story added the inaccurate word “blogger” to describe the comment writers and that the error was not Tim’s.Outside of the above, however, I believe that Tim’s article was absolutely responsible and accurate and in no way was a “smear job,” as you have characterized it. In fact, Tim made no characterization whatsoever about your site other than saying it is where some of these comments appeared and that your blog had linked to the local ”Gateway Pundit” blog here.
That is also the reason that he did not feel compelled to get a response from you for this particular story. At issue here were the comments in question, not your blog posting. No one in the article was criticizing or questioning you or your blog or holding you responsible for those comments.Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Adam Goodman
Assistant Managing Editor/Metro
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Charles’ response to the Editor:
“No one was criticizing you or your blog?” I suppose you could say that, if you overlooked the fact that the entire story was published at the behest of a radical Islamic front group, seeking to damage LGF and silence critics. And if you overlook the fact that CAIR was, once again, referred to as a “civil rights group” with no acknowledgement of their well-documented connections to radical groups, or their status as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas funding case.
There was no apology for Townsend’s rude, childish, and insulting tone, of course; which tells you this behavior is not a problem with editors of the Post-Dispatch.
And the CAIR hit piece, unchanged, is still the top story in their ‘Religion’ section.
I’ve said this before, it bears repeating:
The liberal press elite have an agenda for the masses that doesn’t apply to them.
They fear the general public’s ability to access and utilize the internet as a forum to counter their half-truths and confront them on their belief that they and only they can define the facts and how they’re presented.
It doesn’t take a degree in journalism to discuss issues, dissect the blatant leftwing advocacy, fill in the parts they convieniently omit, or point out all the distortions they pass off as “news stories”.
They have an anal fixation with anything that maligns the United States. They trivialize the Islamofascist threat to Western civilization, aid and abet illegal aliens, print national security secrets on their front pages, sympathize with terrorist organizations like CAIR, and demonstrate almost daily that they are squarely on the side of America’s enemies.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch got a rude awakening.