inamerrata

Media Watch on Mike Carlton:

We’re pleased to report Sydney radio, 2UE host and Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton has also corrected the record after lately being full of praise for the ancient and eloquent Democrat Senator – of course were talking America here – Robert C. Byrd.

In spite of Robert Byrd’s background in the KKK having been well known prior to Mike Carlton’s 24th May article; even including a minor controversy springing from his use of the phrase “white nigger” back in March 2001. Michelle Malkin at the time wrote, among other things:

The ex-Klansman later filibustered the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act — supported by a majority of those “mean-spirited” Republicans — for more than 14 hours. He also opposed the nominations of the Supreme Court’s two black justices, liberal Thurgood Marshall and conservative Clarence Thomas. In fact, the ex-Klansman had the gall to accuse Justice Thomas of “injecting racism” into the Senate hearings. Meanwhile, author Graham Smith recently discovered another letter Sen. Byrd wrote after he quit the KKK, this time attacking desegregation of the armed forces.

But fair enough — it’s not possible to know everything you’re paid to have an opinion on, and maybe you might miss out on something like this if you’re just going by Senator Byrd’s official site at the Senate, whose “About Me” page is curiously absent any comment on his formative ties to the Klan. So fair enough that before laying into him Media Watch writes to inform him of his mistake, before laying into him too heavily on national television. Mike’s recanting looks something like this:

Plainly, that renders his background considerably less than admirable.

…

But Byrd’s racism, past or present, does not, of itself, invalidate his criticism of the war on Iraq and the neo-conservative Bush Administration.

It just makes it much harder to support, that’s all.

(He’s wrong, actually. A person’s background doesn’t make their arguments any more or less valid. The only question it affects is how safe you are to trust what they say without carefully checking their claims of fact and their conclusions yourself. One would hope that, as a writer on the opinion pages, you’d be doing this sort of groundwork yourself, rather than uncritically repeating the claims of political heavyweights; but surely that would imply you wouldn’t be particularly concerned about their background, admirable or otherwise.)

So, fair enough, right? Find a misstatement, tell them about it, let them correct it, report on what happened. Everything’s great!

Let’s compare this to Media Watch’s treatment of another columnist who’d come under a misapprehension. Tim Blair had the happy fortune of being the subject of Media Watch scrutiny over the origin of the American flag that briefly covered a statue of Saddam in Baghdad, and made international news.

Do we see Media Watch taking the time to inform Tim privately and seeking a response, not merely to information widely known that he may simply have not noticed as above, but to first hand information Media Watch had obtained from people directly involved? Apparently not — instead it’s straight to television with it. In Tim’s blog, he makes the following response:

I WAS WRONG. The flag that was draped over the statue of Saddam did not come from the Pentagon. Media Watch last night presented two impressive sources who contradict widespread international reports – and my own repeated and, as it turns out, incorrect claims – that the flag was sourced from the Pentagon on September 11.

Media Watch’s pleasure at being able to report this correction of the record also seems to have been somewhat more muted.