News, Info, and Opinion from the Spawn of Satan (DLC-PPI)

[Doug Henwood]

Seth Ackerman wrote:

>Well, the New York Times - which I consider a serious news outlet (but hey,
>I'm a controversialist!) - once ran a multi-part "investigative" series
>purporting to prove the conspiracy theory that the guy who shot the Pope in
>1981 was part of a KGB plot. The Times commissioned Claire Sterling, a
>discredited right-wing pamphleteer, to report the series. So there's a wide
>margin for error in what a serious news outlet can do.

Years later, after Ronnie had returned to private life, Anthony Lewis 
did a NYT column on all the ridiculous things we heard during the 
Reagan years - the Libyan hit squads, the KGB plot to kill the Pope, 
etc. I wrote Lewis pointing out that his newspaper had done a lot to 
promote the Pope story - even allowing Sterling to violate Times 
style and refer to herself as "I"! Lewis' reponse was - "I'd 
forgotten that." Gotta admire the historical memory of American 
journalism.

Doug