The FBI opened an inquiry late last week into Rupert Murdoch’s media empire amid allegations that British reporters tried to access cellphone messages and records of Sept. 11 victims. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), among the members of Congress who sought the investigation, wrote to FBI Director Robert Mueller, citing news reports that reporters attempted to obtain phone records of victims through bribery and unauthorized wiretapping.

Although these kinds of tactics may come as a shock to the public, I witnessed many of the same tactics while working as a cub reporter for the Globe tabloid in the late 1990s.

Some American tabloids do not operate much differently from British ones. Many of the editors who reign over American tabloid newsrooms hail from Britain, where tabloid “journalists” have justified their tactics by deluding themselves that they are avengers for the working class, exposing the decadence of the rich and famous as well as the royal family.

As tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic have started covering more serious stories involving crime and politics, however, innocent, ordinary people have joined the ranks of their victims.

I observed tabloid reporters and editors prey on the families of murder victims and witnesses by hiring investigators to access their credit card and phone records. My editors sometimes tried to bribe or blackmail government officials for information.

The problem isn’t Rupert Murdoch. The problem is that the culture of tabloid journalism in both Britain and the United States is deeply tied to criminal acts. Without illegal conduct, tabloids could not preempt the mainstream press, and they would not survive.

In 1999, while covering the JonBenet Ramsey murder case in Boulder, Colo., I reported my tabloid editors to the FBI for the attempted extortion of a police detective. My editors had threatened to publish a negative story about his family if he did not illegally leak sealed grand jury evidence. One of my editors also offered tens of thousands of dollars to an expert hired by defense lawyers for a copy of the coveted ransom note.
(more…)

Earlier this week, in a segment on his NPR video exposé, PBS’s NewsHour aired the false claim James O Keefe pleaded guilty to attempting to bug the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:

And last year [O'Keefe] was arrested and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of attempting to bug the offices of Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu.

O’Keefe and company pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses.  There were never any allegations of a plot to bug or wiretap Sen. Landrieu in the FBI affidavit and a law enforcement official conceded over a year ago that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Despite all that, the reporter from PBS makes a definitive and erroneous claim that the activists pleaded guilty to attempting to bug Landrieu’s phones.  What’s more, legal representation for the accused went on record in January of last year, almost immediately after the arrest, stating there were no intentions to tap phones in the Senator’s office.

The bogus media meme that O’Keefe was trying to bug or wiretap a U.S. Senator was proven false a year ago.  We advise PBS and its reporters bring themselves up to speed on this story before they report on it further. (more…)

In the New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial “Gov. Christie shouldn’t cozy up to muckraker of ‘Teachers Union Gone Wild’” published today, October 29, 2010, the editorial board falsely reported that James O’Keefe plead guilty to “tampering” with phones in the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:

I proudly stood behind James O’Keefe on his groundbreaking ACORN investigation. I also defended him when the media, including CNN — during a previous regime, “the Rick Sanchez era” –  falsely reported the Sen. Mary Landrieu story as a “wiretapping” plot gone wrong.

In all these cases the left-leaning media exposed its obvious bias against James because of his contrarian point of view and because the targets of his investigations are protected institutions of the Democrat Media Complex.

However, in my dealings with Ms. Boudreau, she and her producer, Scott Zamost, conducted themselves professionally, and I believe James owes them a candid and public explanation.

From what I’ve read about this script, though not executed, it is patently gross and offensive. It’s not his detractors to whom he also owes this public airing. It’s to his legion of supporters.

The following is a document that James O’Keefe sent to me last night and has authorized me to publish. It is O’Keefe’s version of events in New Orleans. I believe this is the first time anywhere that he has publicly given his full statement of what occurred.

The document was drafted by lawyers based on O’Keefe’s statements, and was intended to be offered as the factual basis for his plea. O’Keefe confirmed for me that this document is an accurate account of what happened.

What Really Happened in New Orleans

Factual Basis

On January 25, 2010, Messrs. James O’Keefe, Stan Dai, Joe Basel, and Michael Flanagan (collectively “Defendants”) entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building located at 500 Poydras Street, New Orleans, Louisiana (“Hale Boggs Building”), with no intent to commit a felony, but rather an intent to engage in political speech with respect to pending national healthcare legislation (the “Healthcare Bill”). During the several days before their entry to the Hale Boggs building, Defendants discussed opportunities to engage in independent journalism and political advocacy. One of the ideas raised during those discussions was a method to test the truthfulness of Senator Landrieu’s statements as to the reason for the inability of Tea Party members and other Louisiana constituents to contact her staff on the telephone to discuss her vote on the Healthcare Bill. The Defendants were advised that this was a recent story in the news in New Orleans. (more…)

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…)

This is what libel looks like.

New York Magazine has claimed:

When we read this morning that ACORN-sting videographer James O’Keefe pleaded guilty today to attempting to tamper with the phones in Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu’s office, we wondered how Andrew Breitbart would react.

That is an outright falsehood. O”Keefe entered a plea to the misdemeanor crime of entering a federal building under false pretenses. The government couldn’t prove that he attempted to tamper with the phones in Landrieu’s office — which is why the charges were reduced to the far less serious misdemeanor charge.

The story links to another story at New York Magazine bearing the headline: “Activist James O’Keefe Pleads Guilty to Tampering With Senator’s Phones.” Wow — all of a sudden he’s not just “attempting to” tamper with the phones (which he never did) . . . in the headline they claim he actually pled guilty to tampering with the phones (which he didn’t do and didn’t plead guilty to). Here is the text of their bogus and false story:

Andrew Breitbart acolyte and sorta ACORN stinger James O’Keefe pleaded guilty, along with three other conservative activists, of trying to tamper with the phones in Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu’s office. O’Keefe, 25, will get three years probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $1,500 fine, but will no longer, presumably, be grounded. [WP]

False.

Let’s get screenshots in case they try to do a stealth correction, shall we? We shall: (more…)

In the New Jersey Star-Ledger Continuous News Desk post “James O’Keefe, three others plead guilty in New Orleans senator phone prank” of May 26th, 2010, the writer says that James O’Keefe and three other conservative activists attempted to “wiretap” the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:

O’Keefe, known for his stunt with ACORN while posing as a pimp, was involved in a scheme where two activists posed as telephone repairmen as they entered the office, attempting to wiretap it.

O’Keefe and company pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of entering federal property under false pretenses.  There were never any allegations of a wiretap plot in the FBI affidavit and a law enforcement official conceded months ago that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Despite all that, the reporter from the Star-Ledger makes a definitive and erroneous claim that the activists attempted to wiretap Landrieu’s phones.  What’s more, legal representation for the accused went on record in January, almost immediately after the arrest, stating there were no intentions to tap phones in the Senator’s office.

The bogus media meme that O’Keefe was trying to bug or wiretap a U.S. Senator was proven false four months ago.  We advise the Star-Ledger and its reporters to bring themselves up to speed on this story before they report on it further.

We respectfully ask the New Jersey Star-Ledger to issue a correction/retraction.

It’s hard to believe this mistake is still being made.  Actually, it isn’t that hard.:

In the column “CPAC Goes For X Factor With Young Conservatives” of February 19, 2010, David Gauvey Herbert of the National Journal refers to a wiretapping plot by James O’Keefe at the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:

Conservatives who celebrated O’Keefe after that takedown distanced themselves from him after he was arrested Jan. 25 in an attempted wiretapping scheme at the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.

There are no allegations of any “wiretapping scheme” plot in the the FBI affidavit that was released nearly a month ago, which your reporters could have easily consulted in numerous places. Also, a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to bug the phones in the Senator’s office.

We kindly ask you to issue a correction/retraction to the story.

We have made similar requests of numerous news sources to correct similar errors. The Washington Post, MSNBC’s David Shuster, Talking Points Memo, CBS News, the Associated Press, Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic and TIME, among others, have already posted corrections or retractions.

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

“It’s journalism malpractice”

UPDATE: HuffPo corrected the post but did not post an update aknowleding a previous version of the story contained false information.

Moments ago the Huffington Post published an article by Lila Shapiro that requires a correction:

On Monday night, conservative activist and alleged wiretapper James O’Keefe went on Hannity to give his first interview since getting arrested in the New Orleans office of Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

It is provably false to claim any allegations of wiretapping.  There are also no allegations of any wiretap plot in the FBI affidavit that was released early last week, and a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  In addition, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to tap phones in the Senator’s office.

Furthermore, Shapiro sources the term “alleged wiretapper” to an Associated Press article that contains no mention of wiretapping or bugging.  The source is bogus and the term “alleged wiretapper” goes wholly unverified.

Last week, we requested the Huffington Post correct this post by Jonathan Turley.  That correction is still outstanding.

Please issue corrections/retractions to these stories post haste.

In a news brief published by the Greensboro News & Record on February 1, 2010, the segment “James Who” contains a reference to an attempt to “bug” Sen. Landrieu by James O’Keefe and three other conservative activists in New Orleans:

O’Keefe was busted last week and charged with attempting to bug U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s phone in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans

It also contains a claim O’Keefe attempted to tap the phones of the Louisiana Senator:

But he said that nobody should take his backing of the resolution, filed months ago, as an endorsement of O’Keefe’s attempted phone tapping.

There are no allegations of any attempt to “bug” or “tap” Sen. Landrieu’s phones in the FBI affidavit, and a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to wiretap.

We kindly ask the Greensboro News & Record to issue a correction/retraction to this story.

We have been/will be making similar requests of other news sources to correct similar errors.  Some, such as the Washington Post, MSNBC’s David Shuster, Talking Points Memo, CBS News, the Associated Press, Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic and TIME have already posted corrections or retractions.

UPDATE: The Richmond-Times Dispatch issued a correction to this story. We thank them for their diligence.

In the column “Gotcha Games: Stung” of February 1, 2010, Staff Reporters refer to a wiretapping plot by James O’Keefe at the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:

Now O’Keefe has been stung himself — busted in what looks like an attempt to tap the phones of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, though a lawyer for O’Keefe and his co-defendants say they were just trying to get some undercover footage. Either way, they’ve landed in the deep sheep-dip.

There are no allegations of any wiretap plot in the FBI affidavit that was released early last week, which your reporters could have easily consulted in numerous places. Also, a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to bug the phones in the Senator’s office.

We consider this error particularly egregious, despite the reporters’ attempt to ameliorate the false claim with the words “looks like,” considering that the Richmond Times-Dispatch published this article several days after the release of the affidavit which confirms there was no attempt to tap phones.  We kindly ask you to issue a correction/retraction to the story.

We have been/will be making similar requests of other news sources to correct similar errors.  Some, such as the Washington Post, MSNBC’s David Shuster, Talking Points Memo, CBS News, the Associated Press, Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic and TIME have already posted corrections or retractions.

I was wondering how I had initially gotten the idea that James O’Keefe had been accused of trying to wiretap Mary Landrieu’s phones. After all, if you look at my original post — in which I mistakenly said O’Keefe had been arrested for “allegedly attempting to bug Mary Landrieu’s office” — I linked a Times-Picayune blog post as my source. Follow that link, and you’ll see it begins as follows:

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O’Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group’s credibility.

Hm. Nothing about wiretapping there.

When I read the affidavit later that day and saw there was no allegation of wiretapping, I tried to figure out why I had messed it up. I went back and clicked on the above link to the Times-Picayune blog post, where I saw the language quoted above. So, I assumed that I had just misread the story, and had leapt to a bad conclusion.

As it turns out, I hadn’t. The Times-Picayune blog post originally said something different: (more…)

An Associated Press article dated Janary 27, 2010 on the incident involving James O’Keefe at Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s office was published by the Dallas Morning News with the following misleading headline:

ACORN foe arrested by FBI in plot to bug senator’s office

There are no allegations of any attempt to “bug” or wiretap Sen. Landrieu in the FBI affidavit, and a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to wiretap.

We kindly ask the Dallas Morning News to issue a correction/retraction to this story.

We have been/will be making similar requests of other news sources to correct similar errors.  Some, such as the Washington Post, MSNBC’s David Shuster, Talking Points Memo, CBS News, and the Associated Press have already posted corrections or retractions.

In Jordan Fabian’s post, “ACORN: O’Keefe couldn’t have deserved it more“ of January 26th, 2010, Fabian refers to a wiretapping attempt by James O’Keefe and three other conservative activists at the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:

ACORN took to Twitter to express its satisfaction with O’Keefe’s arrest with three other individuals after they were caught attempting to wiretap the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.):

There are no allegations of any wiretap plot in the FBI affidavit, and a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to tap phones in the Senator’s office.

We kindly ask you to issue a correction/retraction to the story.

We have been/will be making similar requests of other news sources to correct similar errors.  Some, such as the Washington Post, MSNBC’s David Shuster, Talking Points Memo, and CBS News already have posted corrections or retractions.

Update 1/30: CBS News updated the link text highlighted below.

We thank them for their diligence.

***

Thanks to the sterling work of Patterico, CBS has corrected numerous errors in their coverage of James O’Keefe’s latest investigation.  Before: here.  After: here and here.  Still, CBS has thus far failed to correct a link alledging O’Keefe and the the other three conservative activists are being suspected of bugging.  A screenshot taken today just after 4pm PST:

There are no allegations of any bugging plot in the FBI affidavit, and a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to bug phones in the Senator’s office.

We kindly ask you to issue a correction/retraction to the story.

We have been/will be making similar requests of other news sources to correct similar errors.  Some, such as the Washington Post, Talking Points Memo, MSNBC’s David Shuster, and CBS News have already have posted corrections or retractions.

In the msnbc.com staff and news service report ”Activist filmmaker arrested in senator’s office” published January 26th, 2010, it is noted on two occasions that James O’Keefe is being accused of a plot to wiretap Senator Mary Landrieu.  First in the sub-headline:

Man who exposed ACORN accused of seeking to wiretap Landrieu’s phones

And again with a link to the FBI affidavit:

FBI affidavit filed in alleged wiretapping plot (PDF)

There are no allegations of any wiretap plot in the FBI affidavit, and a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to tap phones in the Senator’s office.

We kindly ask you to issue a correction/retraction to the story.

We have been/will be making similar requests of other news sources to correct similar errors.  Some, such as the Washington Post, your own David Shuster, Talking Points Memo, and CBS News already have posted corrections or retractions.

In Megan McArdle’s piece “A Tape Too Far” of January 26th, 2010, Ms. McArdle repeatedly refers to an alleged wiretapping plot by James O’Keefe at the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu:

James O’Keefe, the guy who did the ACORN sting, doesn’t seem to understand the difference between a completely legal recording of an interview between you and someone else, and a completely illegal and reprehensible wiretapping of someone’s phones. Journalists are not spies, and there are very good reasons that you need a warrant to bug a telephone system or otherwise eavesdrop on third-party conversations.

Like many 24-year olds, he may not have fully appreciated why what he was doing was wrong, but if the allegations are true, I hope that the judge explains it to him while handing down a stiff penalty.

There are no allegations of any wiretap plot in the FBI affidavit, and a law enforcement official has conceded that the four men were not attempting to wiretap or intercept calls.  Furthermore, legal representation for the accused has gone on record stating there were no intentions to bug phones in the Senator’s office.  The Atlantic’s own Politics blog recently published a post acknowledging there was no attempt to wiretap.

We kindly ask you to issue a correction/retraction to the story.

We have been/will be making similar requests of other news sources to correct similar errors.  Some, such as the Washington Post, MSNBC’s David Shuster, and Talking Points Memo already have posted corrections or retractions.

In addition, Mr. O’Keefe is 25-years old.

The government has now confirmed what has always been clear:  No one tried to wiretap or bug Senator Landrieu’s office.  Nor did we try to cut or shut down her phone lines.  Reports to this effect over the past 48 hours are inaccurate and false.

As an investigative journalist, my goal is to expose corruption and lack of concern for citizens by government and other institutions, as I did last year when our investigations revealed the massive corruption and fraud perpetrated by ACORN.  For decades, investigative journalists have used a variety of tactics to try to dig out and reveal the truth.

I learned from a number of sources that many of Senator Landrieu’s constituents were having trouble getting through to her office to tell her that they didn’t want her taking millions of federal dollars in exchange for her vote on the healthcare bill.  When asked about this, Senator Landrieu’s explanation was that, “Our lines have been jammed for weeks.”  I decided to investigate why a representative of the people would be out of touch with her constituents for “weeks” because her phones were broken.  In investigating this matter, we decided to visit Senator Landrieu’s district office – the people’s office – to ask the staff if their phones were working. (more…)