Putzie Buries The Lede

Reporter Jack Kelley stands accused by his former employer, USA Today, of making shit up on a global basis. The paper reports:

Seven weeks into an examination of former USA TODAY reporter Jack Kelley's work, a team of journalists has found strong evidence that Kelley fabricated substantial portions of at least eight major stories, lifted nearly two dozen quotes or other material from competing publications, lied in speeches he gave for the newspaper and conspired to mislead those investigating his work.

You have to read the whole article (and all the sidebars) to grasp the extent of Kelley's misdeeds, which occurred over a period of years. Kelley is not yet ready to confess his sins, and has unveiled a Marion Barry defense: "I feel like I'm being set up."

Atrios comments that:

I'm sure the brothers Hack, Glenn and Mickey, will spend weeks discussing how this guy's race and religion allowed him to get away with things that other journalists couldn't get away with.

That appears to be sacrasm.

The nation's preeminent media reporter, Howie Kurtz, has already decided this story is not particularly newsworthy. In his Media Notes Extra column, Kurtz buries the Kelley story beneath a number of long, stale excerpts of Kerry bashing. (It seems Kerry took a vacation, which disqualifies him from being president.) So instead of headlining a story which is actually a media story (journalist fabricates news), the Putz gives top billing to a bunch of worthless clips on a non-media story (Hugh Hewitt slimes Kerry -- now that's newsworthy!)

Remember, Kurtz is the man who "ha[d] to" take time away from his honeymoon to report on the calls for Howell Raines's resignation in the aftermath of the Jayson Blair scandal. According to the Washington Post's online archives, Kurtz wrote at least 12 stories in which Blair was named in and/or the subject of the article's headline, not including the multitude of stories about the resignation of Howell Raines in the aftermath of the Blair revelations. A cynic might wonder if the fact that Kelley's a white evangelical Christian writing stories generally favorable to the Bush Administration instead of an African-American working for the supposedly left-wing NYT has anything to do with Kurtz's lack of interest in the Kelley story.

Don't worry, though, this blog will shine the spotlight on the misdeeds of Kelley and continue to dog the fraudlent media reporter, Kurtz.