AP Picks Up Huff-Po Blogger's Lame Smear Alleging Palin Plagiarism

If you would like a great example of how the Old Media takes a story that has no legitimacy at all and uses it as the basis for a smear job, the Associated Press offered a wonderful sampling of the tactic for you on June 8.

From a headline that makes the issue seem more weighty than it is, to the lack of competent reporting from both sides of the matter, AP employed this favorite Old Media tactic by taking another swipe at Governor Sarah Palin with little by way of substantive evidence. It's another "seriousness of the charge" story despite the complete lack of evidence as well as a lack of any gravitas on the part of the original source of the charge.

At issue is the false charge leveled by a Huffington Post blogger that Governor Palin "plagiarized" a section of her speech as she introduced talk show host Michael Reagan in Anchorage, Alaska on Wednesday, June 3. HuffPo blogger Geoffrey Dunn charged that Palin lifted several sections of Newt Gingrich's work without attribution, and AP ran with the story even as they allow Palin's lawyer to point out that she cited Gingrich twice in her speech...

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