Via Atrios and Kevin Drum, a story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
“As a graduate student in public affairs at the University of Minnesota, I recently heard an in-class presentation by John Hinderaker, who, with partner Scott Johnson, runs the Powerline blog. Powerline played a role in breaking the Rathergate affair and was recently named “Blog of the Year” by Time magazine.
Prior to Hinderaker’s presentation, the week before the November elections, I visited the Powerline site. To my surprise an Oct. 27 post covered alleged voter fraud in Racine, Wis., my hometown. The charges involved the registering of illegal aliens to vote. The story seemed outrageous, so I made a few phone calls to check it out.
What I discovered was troubling. There was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations. Powerline posted the story based on the word of a single individual employed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). This was hearsay at best, posted as “news” at a time when voter registration efforts by the Democrats and 527 groups were coming under fire by conservatives.
At class I asked Hinderaker if posts to Powerline were fact-checked. He was dismissive of the question, so I asked if he was aware that the Racine voter fraud story was inaccurate. He stated that he was not, slapped his hands together and stated that the blogosphere was all about speed and therefore did not allow for fact-checking. Mr. Hinderaker went on to say, “Our readers let us know when we get it wrong.”
And therein lies the cautionary Catch-22: Bloggers may serve as media watchdogs, but who will watch the blogs? Do you have time to fact-check what you read online?”
Hindrocket disputes this:
“The piece accuses us of a failure to fact-check. The author refers to a news story we linked to last October which related to voter fraud in Wisconsin, and says that she “made a few phone calls” and determined that “[t]here was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations.” No hint as to whom she called, or what information she learned that demonstrated that the allegations in the news story were false.
We are, of course, preparing a response. It will focus, I think, on the fact-checking that the Strib did before they printed Ms. Gage’s attack on us. I talked to Commentary Editor Eric Ringham today, and he acknowledged that the Strib didn’t do any fact-checking at all before they accused us of not fact-checking. That’s right: None. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. And Ms. Gage, if that’s really her name, has no knowledge about the voter fraud scandal which has now resulted in a federal criminal investigation.”
Since he has not posted the promised response yet, I don’t know whether he will also dispute Gage’s account of what he said. This is important: if he did in fact say that “the blogosphere was all about speed and therefore did not allow for fact-checking”, that is, in my view wrong, and it should also be very important to Powerline’s readers. If not, that would also be good to know. One way or the other, I hope he addresses this question.
It’s also worth noting that I haven’t found any evidence that the allegations he discussed in the post Gage refers to have “resulted in a federal criminal investigation.” (There was a federal investigation into other allegations of voter fraud in Racine, which has resulted in criminal charges.) As far as I can tell, this was the response to the allegations Gage was talking about:
“Also Thursday, the Racine County district attorney’s office said it has had difficulty proving allegations by a Michigan organization that Racine members of Voces de la Frontera, a group that aids migrant workers, committed any violations in registering voters.
The Federation for Immigration Reform alleged that two of its members posed as people who are not eligible to vote who then worked through Voces de la Frontera to register voters in Racine and Milwaukee.
The district attorney’s office said in a statement that an audiotape from FAIR purporting to document the violations is difficult to hear and contains “no clear evidence that a crime was committed.””
Leaving these issues aside, however …
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