All the fiction that’s fit to print

Armstrong Williams catches out the Post:

Exhibit A: The Washington Post recently printed a false story about me: In its Sunday Style section, the Post claimed that I was ridiculed at the Gridiron Club dinner, an annual dinner/roast where a wild pack of journalists gulp drinks and skewer their colleagues.

The Post claimed I was the target of some roasting, to the tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” The song has this chorus: ‘Sweet Home Alabama, where the skies are so blue / Sweet Home Alabama, Lord I’m coming home to you.’ The Post reported that as part of a skit, performers at the Gridiron club changed the lyrics into:

“Armstrong’s propaganda It sounds so true He’ll tout our agenda When the check goes through”

Funny stuff. Just one thing: the event never took place. The Gridiron had planned to do the skit, but ended up dropping it from the program. This is where things get real interesting. The Post not only reports that the skit took place, but that it was a rousing success: “It was really pretty darned funny, we are told. . . .”

Really? Told by whom? Certainly not by anyone actually in attendance at the event. All of which begs the question, did the Post reporter who concocted the story even attend the event, or did he just use an outdated program to cobble the story together? And where do you get the gall to create a reaction that never happened? I can understand putting a story outline together in advance of an event so as to better enable you to meet tight deadlines. But how do you create an audience reaction? How do you simply make up part of the news you’re supposed to be objectively recording?

But, but, if it’s in the newspaper, it must be true! Remember, these are the same people who very publicly worry about accuracy and bias in the blogosphere. If I were a large black woman, this is the point at which I would say: Mmm-hmmmm….