It looks like the Wall Street Journal's bobbling of the Zephur Teachout story is blowing up in their faces, as new questions are being raised in
Raw Story about the editorial board's own conflicts of interest:
The chief editorial writer at the paper which disparaged two progressive blogs over accepting money from Howard Dean's campaign serves on President Bush's fellowship board with Armstrong Williams--and is being hired as chief speechwriter for the Bush Administration, RAW STORY has learned.
William McGurn, chief editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal serves with fallen columnist Armstrong Williams on the President's Commission on White House Fellowships.
[snip]
McGurn's association with both Williams and the Bush administration--along with assertions that the Journal fabricated a quote in an article attacking liberal blogs MyDD and Daily Kos-have raised serious questions about the Journal's motivations. The paper was roundly criticized by other media outlets for their "overblown" coverage. The Washington Post and the Associated Press, after making calls, decided not to run an article, the bloggers said.
The story also goes into the revelations by the Wall Street Journal's Jeanne Cummings that the authors of the Zephyr story concocted a "fake quote" based on an off-the-record conversation.
It looks like the real story here is not the ethics of the blogosphere, but the ethics of the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
Update [2005-1-16 21:2:5 by pontificator]: There were some good comments below about being careful not to impugn the newsroom staff at the Wall Street Journal because the editorial staff may have a conflict of interest (In most newspapers, newsroom and editorial operations are separate). I also notice that Raw Story has updated its article to reflect that point:
McGurn’s association with both Williams and the Bush administration alone is not itself indicative of conflict of interest since the editorial pages and newsroom function autonomously, though there is usually some synergy between the editorial page and a paper’s news voice.
But in combination with assertions that the Journal fabricated a quote in an the article attacking liberal blogs MyDD and Daily Kos questions are bound to surface about the Journal’s motivations. The paper was roundly criticized by other media outlets for their “overblown” coverage. The Washington Post and the Associated Press, after making calls, decided not to run an article, the bloggers said.