Over the past several months I have had the honor of being Big Journalism’s official Correction Alpaca.  I’ve requested over two dozen corrections at Big Journalism and many others on Big Hollywood, Twitter, and via email.  Some of the news organizations I’ve addressed have done their journalistic duty and set their respective records straight, while others have neglected to fulfill this journalistic responsibility.  Others still have delivered what Patterico refers to as “stealth corrections,” that is, where a post is corrected without formal acknowledgment by the publication that the public record had been amended. We acknowledge there is a time and place for this, but it’s done far, far, far too often in the internet age.

If you recall, my responsibilities as Correction Alpaca commenced in order to alert the blogosphere of the mainstream media’s culpability and ineptitude in its mostly incorrect reporting of the James O’Keefe caper at Senator Landrieu’s Louisiana office earlier this year.  As of Wednesday, this saga, dubbed “Watergate Jr.,” by MSNBC has come to an end, with O’Keefe pleading guilty to mere misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses and getting a proverbial “slap on the wrist” sentence.

So, in memory of “Watergate Jr.,” I would like to draw your attention to these sites, which at the time of this publication, still have published unforced errors regarding the prank in New Orleans:

Newsweek
The Los Angeles Times
The Atlantic… (more…)

UPDATE after the jump.

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The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana has filed a court document admitting that James O’Keefe did not intend to tamper with the phones at Mary Landrieu’s office, or commit any other felony.

Oh — and the good folks at the Department of Justice don’t particularly want you to know that. This post reveals that, at O’Keefe’s hearing, the Assistant U.S. Attorney tried not to read that part of the document in court. What’s more, the U.S. Attorney pointedly omitted this critical information from their press release.

The news of the Government’s admission broke yesterday, when Big Journalism’s Larry O’Connor reported that a court document filed in James O’Keefe’s criminal case bearing the title “Final Factual Basis” contains the following language:

In this case, further investigation did not uncover evidence that the defendants intended to commit any felony after the entry by false pretenses despite their initial statements to the staff of Senatorial office and GSA requesting access to the central phone system. Instead, the Government’s evidence would show that the defendants misrepresented themselves and their purpose for gaining access to the central phone system to orchestrate a conversation about phone calls to the Senator’s staff and capture the conversation on video, not to actually tamper with the phone system, or to commit any other felony.

This news, which O’Connor relayed at the end of a post about Media Matters’ dishonesty, is a significant piece of news that deserves its own post. It is especially noteworthy because this paragraph comes from a version of the facts that the Government has agreed to by way of stipulation. The document contains the following language showing the Government’s agreement: (more…)

FOUR MEN CHARGED WITH MISDEMEANOR OFFENSE OF ENTERING FEDERAL PROPERTY UNDER FALSE PRETENSES

NEW ORLEANS, March 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – Joseph Basel, age 24, Stan Dai, age 24, Robert Flanagan, age 24, and James O’Keefe, age 25, were charged in a one-count bill of information with entering real property of the United States under false pretenses, a misdemeanor, announced the U. S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

According to the Bill of Information, between January 20, 2010, and January 25, 2010, Flanagan, Basel, O’Keefe, and Dai met on several occasions.  During their meetings, they discussed, among other things, possible scenarios in which they would talk with members of the staff of Senator Mary Landrieu inside of her New Orleans, Louisiana office, in the Hale Boggs Federal Building, and record the interaction using audio and visual equipment.  As a result of this planning, on January 25, 2010, Basel and Flanagan entered the Senator’s office dressed as telephone repairmen, said they were following up on reports of problems with the telephone system, engaged in conversation with the staff members, and pretended to test the phone system.  O’Keefe, who had also entered the office, recorded the interaction between Basel, Flanagan, and the staff members.

If convicted, Flanagan, Basel, O’Keefe, and Dai each face a maximum term of six (6) months in prison and a fine of $5,000.

The United States Attorney’s Office reiterated that the Bill of Information is merely a charge and that the guilt of each defendant must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The investigation of this matter was conducted by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Deputy Marshals with the United States Marshal’s Service.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg.

News is all over the country that the often criminal group the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is dead, folding its tent, kaput. All this is because, as Politico puts it, of a “conservative assault that never prompted any prosecutions.”

But let us not get our hopes up that ACORN is defeated. It isn’t. In fact, most of the groups that huddled under ACORN’s left-wing are just changing their names and moving on with all the same people involved as if nothing ever happened. And this isn’t anything new. The fact is, ACORN activists have always hid behind dozens of false front organizations and corporate identities to disguise their criminal network.

In California, for instance, one of the ACORN affiliates is changing its name to “Californians for Community Empowerment” and one of the New York offices will now be known as “New York Communities for Change.” But all the same people that ran these former ACORN offices in these states are still there, no change has been made but the name.

We also saw the shady groups connected with ACORN but not named ACORN just last year during the Doug Hoffman, New York-23 election. There, an ACORN affiliate had created a fake political party in order to funnel cash to the Democrat running in that race. One of the organizations hip-deep in that election was a political group called the Working Families Party. Of course, the WFP is more-or-less a front for ACORN in New York and not a real political party at all. (more…)

Tonight on “Hannity,” James O’Keefe gave his first public interview since his arrest in New Orleans:

“It’s journalism malpractice”

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann broke from his self-described pattern of not offering commentary, and called for an end to the media’s self-imposed editorial silence concerning the U.S. government’s response to a terrible natural disaster.

Okay, it was a different disaster during a different administration. But did you hear what he said? A week into the Hurricane Katrina recovery he declared that,

But now, at last, it has stopped getting exponentially worse…and having given our leaders what we now know is the week or so they need to get their acts together, that period of editorial silence I mentioned should come to an end.

As the chaos of recovery efforts in and around New Orleans became the big story, old media commentators fired barrages of harsh rhetoric toward President Bush and members of his administration directly involved with disaster relief. Never mind what part of that criticism was justified, and what part was driven by political preferences. It was a blend. (more…)

Haiti is on my mind and I am very sad today.

I was in Port-au-Prince twice in 2009.

When I arrived the first time and walked through the streets, the people stared at me cold.  At first glance, it was an unwelcoming place.

My dear friend Jean-Marc de Matteis, whom I hope is alive and well tonight, smirked a bit and said, “The thing with Haitian people is that they’ve been through a lot.  It’s a hard life here and people wear it on their faces.  But that’s not the true nature of Haitian people.  Watch what happens if you make eye contact and simply say ‘bonjour’ to someone.”

I did.  And I always got a smile.   Sometimes a quick flash of a smile and back to a glare, but the glare became an easier glare.  Sometimes they’d smile a massive smile and say “bonjour” back.   It’s an amazing feeling of getting a smile 100 times out of 100 attempts.   The country really was a welcoming place.

I don’t exaggerate when I tell you I said “bonjour” to almost everyone with whom I made eye contact.   And Port-au-Prince is a crowded place, which means a lot of people to greet.  My friend and interpreter, Alain Charles, who, as of this moment I cannot locate — and it’s taking me enormous restraint to not cry — took notice and would often laugh whenever I said “bonjour.”  To him it seemed like I was kind of insane.  Like I would if he tried it in L. A. or New York City.  But I loved doing it. (more…)