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"I think it would be hilarious if thousands of people did not believe it."
— Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri
This is the story of what happens when journo-bloggers read things -- check absolutely nothing -- and re-report information in this era of blogging "journalists."
Last Wednesday, Dec. 15, Southeast Missourian columnist Mike Jensen thought he had a huge scoop. In this era of government bashing and tales of spending run wild he "reported" something he knew would capture everyone's attention: A member of Congress pushing a 48 Billion Earmark.
Read the UNOFFICIAL BLOG on the Congressional Black Caucus CREW OF 42
Read the UNOFFICIAL BLOG on the Congressional Black Caucus CREW OF 42
"I think it would be hilarious if thousands of people did not believe it." — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri
This is the story of what happens when people read things -- check absolutely nothing -- and re-report information in this era of blogging "journalists."
Last Wednesday, Dec. 15, Southeast Missourian columnist Mike Jensen thought he had a huge scoop. In this era of government bashing and tales of spending run wild he "reported," in snarky fashion, something he knew would capture everyone's attention: A member of Congress pushing a 48 Billion Earmark.
Wow! Did you say a 48 billion dollar earmark? That sure as hell would get the attention of everyone. "Redistribution on Steroids," the title of the piece read. The first sentence of the piece: "Rep. Cleaver has proposed a $48 billion earmark."
There was only one problem. The story wasn't true.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who was elected in Congress in 2004 and is also the former Mayor of Kansas City, had not proposed a 48 billion dollar earmark. The amount of the earmark alone -- $48 billion -- should have prompted Southeast Missourian writer Michael Jensen to check with someone before hitting the "send" button." But nah, this is the internet. We read things and we believe. The goal is "clicks" and attention and speed to move advertising. That is what the energy is put into. What does accuracy have to do with anything?
Never you mind that this one earmark would be three times the cost of all of the congressional earmarks in the 2010 budget. It would be the biggest earmark in the history of Congress.
For the next 48 hours straight every blog with a "government bashing/government waste" theme ran wild with the story. The falsehoods were then repeated over and over. "The Mother of All Earmarks...Liberal Representative Emanuel Cleaver has proposed a whopping $48 BILLION EARMARK that would redistribute wealth to the inner cities...." reported Jim Hoft at RightNetwork. "Congressman Cleaver's $48 Billion Earmark (Reparations)" said the folks at Freerepublic. At least even the freepers were not dumb enough to report the information independent of saying they got it from Mike Jensen at the Southeast Missourian.
The fact that the $48 billion dollar earmark that never happened was for "urban revitalization" ignited writers to focus on a theme of "racial reparations." Meanwhile, none of it was true. The earmark was simply listed with 200 others that had been SUBMITTED to Rep. Cleaver. That people SUBMITTED ideas to Rep. Cleaver's office sure as hell didn't mean anyone proposed that idea to House Appropriations.
"Every year people come to us and say they want to do ‘XYZ’ earmarks they would like to see funded, he said, "we never submit the crazy ones." Rep. Cleaver told McClatchy news service: "Some ideas are absolutely crazy," he said. "But we don’t say to them, ‘You’re stupid and this is a crazy idea.’ So we put all of these requests up. People don’t like to be dismissed."
Turns out Rep. Cleaver is one of the more than 25 or so members of Congress who lists ALL earmark ideas submitted to his office. No matter how crazy. No matter who from. He does this in the name of transparency.
Writer Jensen of the Southeast Missourian didn't read the Congressman's website carefully -- if he read it at all. The bogus story had been in a blog the week before Jensen wrote his piece so there's a chance he could have been simply re-"reporting" his info from a blog. Whatever the case, Jensen has offered no apology and the Southeast Missourian no retraction -- they have however added a laundry list of links to the article -- all of which are embarrassing.
"Do you think I would request a $48 billion earmark in a city that is broke? ... I mean, it's absolutely ludicrous," said Cleaver to McClatchy.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/...
Accurate facts began emerging regarding this story after after an actual journalist at McClatchy named David Goldstein wrote a piece on what happened. His piece, "A $48 billion earmark? Blogosphere runs wild with erroneous report," ran Friday.
Read the UNOFFICIAL BLOG on the Congressional Black Caucus CREW OF 42