Also in Getler’s column today, he defends The Post’s coverage of the rumor that Sen. John Kerry had an affair with an intern, which turned out to be untrue: She neither had an affair with him nor was an intern. Here’s part of what Getler writes:
Although several mainstream news organizations reported Kerry’s denial and briefly explained the situation over the weekend, The Post did not publish a story until Tuesday. [Post Executive Editor Len] Downie explains: “When a former Associated Press reporter issued a public statement [on Monday] saying that she was the subject of rumors about Kerry, that it had caused problems for her and her family and that they were untrue, we published a story about those facts that focused on the role of the Internet in spreading the rumor and how the mainstream media reacted.”
The article may have focused the role of the Internet, but it nonetheless perpetuated the rumor. I don’t know if I would have written the piece that Howard Kurtz did, but I certainly think that would have been enough. But not for Getler:
The Post, it seems to me, acted properly and carefully in this episode, although I have to admit that, as a reader, I was looking for a story by Saturday or Sunday, for sure, explaining what Kerry was talking about.
And then how about a story of what Kerry was thinking about and how he was feeling about it and how his wife felt about and ad nauseum until, as so many of the vicious rumors initiated by the right, they become fact. Read Big Lies.