Wednesday, November 05, 2003

How big a story is this really? I've always loved the way blogging lets ordinary people talk back to journalists. It's never bothered me that conservatives pick exclusively on liberal errors and visa versa - newspapers of every political orientation get error checked by someone.

I couldn't help thinking this seven month timeline of the commentary on Maureen Dowd's misuse of ellipsis was a little much. When I read the story, I wondered what the heck was going through her head when she used them as she did - it wasn't as if there was a credible hope nobody would notice, and calculated scheming would have made it much worse. But now ...

It is my intention to continue to push this story until The New York Times runs an actual correction and distributes that correction to all the papers who printed Maureen Dowd's column through The New York Times syndication service. I will update this with information as I get it. If anyone has a story link to add to this list please send an email.

At this point, if there are no demands for corrections of distortions by Ann Coulter, you have to suspect a partisan agenda. If we were talking about a distortion by a president it would be different, but this did not affect the national debate in any major way. Checking up on the big guys is one of the things I love about the blogosphere, but arbitrarily trying to declare that something is news until the Times corrects it in the way critics consider appropriate is just silly. Meanwhile, I hope some sneaky liberals aren't getting other stuff by while everyone is distracted.

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