John Kerry intern scandal – Alexandra Polier’s account:
The Education of Alexandra Polier
Falsely accused of having an affair with John Kerry, the “intern” sifts through the mud and the people who threw it.
A great read and a strong young woman: it’s clear from reading this article that she isn’t shallow enough to have done what she was accused of.
It would be heartening to see the press follow up on this and explain just how ephemeral this “story” was, how a few scandal-hungry reporters and editors can trample someone’s good name. It would be something to see their faces on the front page of their own papers with an accurate description of their utter failure as journalists. Brian Flynn at the The Sun (the top-notch paper with a naked girl on Page 3) hid behind his wife to avoid talking to someone he defamed. The guy who ran the faked pictures of British soldiers abusing POWs resigned: this clown should be canned.
<updated> Of course, I can already hear the voices saying, it’s the readers’ fault for buying the papers and fueling the drive to publish more trash. But if that’s true, what do we pay journalists for? As Michael notes in the comments to this post as originally published, there is some tension between the webloggers and traditional media, though not so much as to deter so-called major papers like the The Sun from lifting stories from Drudge.
No, we pay journalists to unmask gossip and innuendo, to ferret out the truth, and cut through the spin and hype. If the traditional news outlets want to differentiate themselves from the great unwashed, they should work to redeem themselves and earn back the trust we used to have.