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LATimes:Let us make this perfectly clear — NOT

The Michael Skube LATimes oped saga continues just when it seemed to be somewhat resolved.

Jay Rosen’s Blowback piece just out answers Skube’s charges against bloggers handily and Jay used crowdsourcing in the blogosphere to produce and factcheck the article. It’s solid work.

But as they say in the news biz, questions remain.

Skube has admitted that he had at best a passing knowledge of the existence of TalkingPointsMemo. He said that references to TMP were added to his article by editors at the LATimes.

Based on this note at the LATimes site (not linked from the Rosen article BTW) that may be the case.

Or is it? We know, now forced into the odd task of parsing the note, that Skube agreed with an editor at the LATimes that “it would be helpful to include the names of the bloggers in [his] piece as active participants in political debate.” No telling who did the choosing and the adding from this though.

Did the LATimes editor add TPM or did Skube? Or does it matter? To the last, responsibility does matter in responsible journalism. “Mistakes were made” will not do.

Note: This blog was sourced in Jay Rosen’s article.

1 Comment

  1. Interested observer

    Thank you for posting the link to the note from the Los Angeles Times editorial page editor. I had been looking for a link to it at other blogs but couldn’t find one.

    As you point out, the editor only adds to the confusion over who inserted the specific names in Skube’s column. Can’t he just clearly tell us who added the material?

    Skube is a gifted writer, but before he writes again on this topic, he needs to do his homework. I hope he has learned his lesson, but I doubt that he has. Doors open too easily for Pulitzer winners.

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