Last month, New York Times reporter James C. McKinley Jr. falsely reported that an FBI informant who helped to thwart a left-wing terrorist plot had actually encouraged the conspiracy. In the article “Anarchist Ties Seen in ’08 Bombing of Texas Governor’s Mansion” published February 22, 2011 online and in the print edition a day later, the Times indicated that former left-wing activist and BigGovernment.com contributor Brandon Darby urged two anarchists to firebomb the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota [emphasis added]:

Yet federal agents accused two men from these circles of plotting to make firebombs and hurl them at police cars during the convention. An F.B.I informant from Austin, Brandon Darby, was traveling with the group and told the authorities of the plot, which he had encouraged.

We brought this to your attention on February 24th when we asked the Times to correct the record. We noted that according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, the assertion Darby “encouraged” the plot was patently false. On February 27th, we brought in Matthew Vadum, an expert on the circumstances surrounding the plot, to provide broader context to the Times’s smear.

Still, the error remained uncorrected.

Then, last week, a source informed BigJournalism.com that the New York Times reporter acknowledged the charge they published against Darby was in fact bogus, but still, the Times did not correct the article.

As of this writing, the false charge against Darby remains in tact.

Today, Brandon Darby filed a lawsuit against New York Times for libel and defamation. An official letter from Mr. Darby:

We’ll be following the story as it develops on BigJournalism.com and BigGovernment.com.

Earlier today BigGovernment.com, BigJournalism.com, and Breitbart.TV published a shocking video investigation from Lila Rose’s pro-life organization, Live Action, showing a Planned Parenthood employee advising a “pimp” on underage sex trafficking and secret abortions for minors  The post had only been live for a few hours when NPR began to run interference for Planned Parenthood, the government-supported clinics widely known for counseling women on abortions.  There are factual errors in the piece that NPR ought to address.

First, note the original headline of the NPR article:

The article by Eyder Peralta was originally given the title “Group Behind ACORN Undercover Videos, Sets Up Planned Parenthood ‘Sting.’”  The ACORN investigation was conducted by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles for O’Keefe’s Veritas Visuals organization, while the Planned Parenthood investigation released today was conducted by Lila Rose and her team at Live Action.  Ms. Rose was not involved in the ACORN videos.  NPR has since corrected the headline, which is especially convenient because we also take issue with their comma usage as well as their decision to use scare quotes around the word “sting.”  The URL slug of the updated version of the post still contains the original headline:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/02/01/133403770/group-behind-acorn-undercover-videos-sets-up-planned-parenthood-sting

The folks at Live Action discreetly let NPR know they had mischaracterized the organization, and NPR obliged with a correction, but the fact that this error was made at all is extremely revealing.  Live Action’s investigation clearly demonstrates a manager of a government-funded organization, trusted to abide by the law, advising young people to perform illegal (and immoral) activities, even offering tips to not get caught, yet NPR ran the story with the aforementioned headline.  Their editorial staff used a false fact as an attempt to diminish Live Action’s findings, portraying the investigation in a controversial light instead of letting their audience simply see and hear the facts for themselves.  While we appreciate the correction, this was a mistake that diligent and honest journalists never would have made.

But wait, there’s more.

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From Paul Bond at The Hollywood Reporter:

Forgive the political right while it gloats over Keith Olbermann’s reign coming to a close at MSNBC. After all, with a few exceptions, they’re being rather civil about Friday’s surprising news.

At Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze.com, for example, there’s a straight story and video about Olbermann’s departure, with opinion left to those who take the time to post comments, and they were into the hundreds within a few hours.

“See…. There is a God,” one responder wrote. “Now that’s the kind of Hope and Change I like,” wrote another.

Ditto over at BigJournalism.com, run by conservative rabble-rouser Andrew Breitbart. There was a just-the-facts story with a link to the New York Times, and lots of readers weighing in, some of them rather clever in their disparagement of Olbermann.

“Keith will land on his feet. Maybe Al-Jazeera is hiring,” said one. “Is KO gonna be the new White House Press Secretary?” said another. (more…)

In Max Blumenthal’s article “James O’Keefe’s race problem” for Salon.com of February 3, 2010, Mr. Blumenthal makes a number of unverifiable and provably false claims regarding James O’Keefe’s attendance at a 2006 conference called “Race and Conservatism.”  Below are the list of quotes containing misinformation and an explanation of why they need to be addressed by the editors of your publication.

From left: Marcus Epstein, Jared Taylor, Kevin Martin, and John Derbyshire at what Max Blumenthal dubbed “a white-nationalist confab”

We kindly request corrections to all:

According to One People’s Project founder Daryle Jenkins, O’Keefe was manning the literature table at the gathering that brought together anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism.

As noted in this post here by Larry O’Connor, we contacted Mr. Jenkins, who identified David Weigel as his source for the claim that Mr. O’Keefe was manning the table.  Mr. Weigel has denied that Mr. O’Keefe manned the table and has no knowledge to suggest Mr. O’Keefe was involved in the orchestration of the event at any level. In an interview with BigJournalism.com, Mr. O’Keefe denied having planned the event.

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