jf noonan <jfn1 at msc.com> said:
> This really pisses me off. I can actually remember where I was
> sitting when I read that column and the story has stuck in my
> mind and every time I think of the LP I think of their 'bad'
> position on abortion. Somebody said something the other day
> about "poorly sourced Cockburn crap" or some such -- well here's
> an example.
To be fair to Alex, it isn't one his egregious examples. On Doug's radio on Thursday, Adolph Reed said that he's been hearing this canard for years -- it seems to have been in general belief throughout the left long before Alex wrote his article and it didn't occur to Alex it wasn't true. So, as the thread title says, it was a case of passing along hearsay as reporting. But it isn't as bad as when Alex reports something as a fact that no one but he thinks is true -- the charge that things are "thinly sourced."
When Alex is in top form, he's great as a commentator, not as a reporter. He believes everything should be written forcefully to produce maximum effect. The risk of overstatement or even misstatement doesn't seem to bother him as much as the risk that his writing will make no one do a double take. Where he's really shined in recent years IMHO is on topics that have been written to death, like Monica or Kosovo, where the facts are not in doubt and where style is the difference. And where it's a pleasure to have someone stoke your flagging outrage back to full heat.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com