Filed under: Journalism, New York Times, John McCain, Vicki Iseman, J.P. Freire, American Spectator
J.P. Freire, managing editor of the conservative American Spectator magazine, is outraged. Simply outraged that the New York Times would have the sheer audacity to run a questionable article about a possible tawdry affair between Sen. John McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman. That the so-called Paper of Record would dare hint at a sex scandal.
“If you want to have reliable journalism, or any sort of standards when it comes to reporting the right things, maybe what you should do is…avoid going to the New York Times,” Freire said last Thursday on Neil Cavuto’s FOX News program (YouTube below). “They can’t be relied on to tell a decent story, especially when it comes to John McCain.”
Freire went further. He wants people to boycott the publication. Cancel their subscriptions. Rip the paper to shreds.
“It’s sloppy work,” Freire insisted. “It’s not properly attributed.”
Stop the presses. Doesn’t Freire work for the same American Spectator that unabashedly pursued a story involving someone named Paula Jones (they only referred to her by first name in the beginning) and her allegations of an affair with President Bill Clinton? Didn’t the American Spectator rely on several unnamed sources in that situation? Didn’t employees of the American Spectator long pursue a whispering campaign, fostering rumors that President Clinton fathered a child out of wedlock with a young African American woman? Didn’t they leak that unfounded story to Matt Drudge in 1999?
The magazine, it turns out, is a verifiable glass house.
Still, we have no doubt that Freire’s outrage is real. But, perhaps, it stems from a source other than indignity over journalistic standards. After all, before working for the American Spectator, Freire did work at the New York Times. And he was forced to move on when his boss got demoted.
Now he’s throwing stones.
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