72 Million More Reasons To Doubt The Mainstream Press

New York magazine occupies one of the top rungs on the media elite ladder. Surely it would never publish a piece that hadn’t been thoroughly fact-checked and edited.

Turns out the $72 million-kid story had gone through those steps. The magazine even sent a fact-checker to the 17-year-old’s home to view a bank statement.

Plus, Pressler’s tale fit comfortably with how liberals view Wall Street – as little more than a lottery where someone can “score” millions by “playing” the market. So why bother being skeptical of the kid’s tale?

But the story was, in fact, a complete hoax. The teen in question, Mohammed Islam, apparently was a member of an investing club at his high school, but he had never put a dime of actual money into the market.

Not everyone was fooled by this easily debunkable story. Twitchy, a conservative site that tracks Twitter feeds, almost immediately cast doubt on it after noticing a stream of tweets saying it couldn’t possibly be true.

And when the New York Observer did some actual reporting, it quickly uncovered the deception.

Meanwhile, the University of Virginia gang rape story continues to unravel, exposing new depths of laziness, recklessness and bias at Rolling Stone.

–Investor’s Business Daily–

Sneering is a default liberal mechanism. When in the ’80s my political stance changed from generic liberal to a “a plague on both your houses” neutrality, I started to notice all the sneering. In media, I noticed the sneering underlying NPR’s reporting on a Reagan victory. In bumperstickers: “Vote Republican. It’s easier than thinking.”

I haven’t read the Rolling Stone article (and would frankly rather not). I would think, though, that the sort of palpable sneer you describe would be a giant red flag to ANY editor worthy of the name — this writer is too heavily invested in the story for responsible journalism!

Then again, there were multiple giant red flags here, weren’t there, starting with the sole witness who insisted that no other witnesses be contacted… and the “journalist” who went along with it! Unbelievable.

The writer wanted these frat brats’ guts and she wanted their heads on her wall above the fireplace in the spot Sarah Palin saves for Bambi’s mom. You could feel it.

A lot of vitriol contained in that one word.

Were I an editor I might get the same sort of nudgings from a story, any story, about a guy named Mohammed Islam. Or if the 72 million dollar kid were named Single Mother.

Or Oliver Klosoff.

I’d like to see more data, too, but when I look back on the last decade or two, all the major hoaxes I can think of were on the left. Stephen Glass, Jason Blair, Pat Smith (you may not remember her, but I do because she wrote for the Globe and I had always liked her writing), and now these two.

I’m not talking about a minor fact gotten wrong here and there.