We wondered that as we read Kimberly R. Jones' "Ellen points the way for African-American celebrities" (The Progressive):
In the mid-1990s, Ellen DeGeneres came out on her nationally syndicated television show "Ellen." The controversy threatened to ruin her television and film career, but she held her ground and maintained her dignity. Since then, she has hosted the Academy Awards and the Emmys, as well as becoming the face of Cover Girl, in addition to other accomplishments.
Uh, Ellen came out when?
The April 14, 1997 issue was where she proclaimed on the cover of Time "Yep, I'm gay." "Her nationally syndicated television show 'Ellen'"? Nationally syndicated?
We know ABC gets bad ratings from time to time but syndicated?
Ellen was a half-hour sitcom that aired on ABC from 1994 to 1998. It wasn't a syndicated program. Nor was the sitcom in rerun syndication when she came out.
Does anybody fact-check?
Maybe they're afraid of being attacked by the White House for fact-checking?
Last Sunday, White House pit bull Anita Dunn told Howard Kurtz on CNN that Barack Obama, celebrity in chief, was avoiding Fox News because Fox News wasn't fair. It was pushing a Republican agenda. She offered 'proof' of this.
As Bob Somerby (The Daily Howler) explained last week, "Good God. Wallace was bumped from Obama's recent interview blitz because he once fact-checked an administration guest? [. . .]
Can we talk? Sunday morning news programs ought to fact-check their guests! The fact that they so rarely bother is one of their many shortcomings. Dunn was complaining about disparate treatment, saying Wallace never fact-checks anyone else. But could this really be the specific complaint the White House wants to lodge against Fox? We thought Wallace’s focus was obsessive in his Duckworth-related sessions. But if a guest has made misstatements, should these programs really ignore it?"
No, of course, they shouldn't ignore it.
So Fox News is boycotted by Barack due to Wallace fact-checking a guest?
And it's Fox News that was boycotted. Let's get that straight because Amy Goodman either can't grasp details or just doesn't care. September 21st, she was declaring, "But we want to talk about healthcare first. President Obama was on five networks on Sunday: on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Univision. He skipped Fox, because they skipped his healthcare joint address to Congress." Barack skipped Fox News. Fox News did not 'skip' Barry's "healthcare joint address to Congress." It broadcast it in full.
Fox entertainment is not Fox News. Fox entertainment went with their scheduled programming. Fox News aired the 'address.'
Last week, Rush Limbaugh's dreams of being a part-owner of an NFL football team went up in smoke. We didn't lose any sleep over it.
But we did find it interesting to watch as the usual hairy-backed loons (hello, David Zirin!) worked themselves into a tizzy. You know, the same low-lifes who were screaming "Not fair!" when the right-wing media focused on Van Jones. That was wrong, they insisted then. But using the same techniques on Limbaugh? Okay with them.
Well not the same techniques. Van Jones' own words and actions were used to ease him out of the administration. A job, it should be remembered, that the tax payers fork over the salary for. But with Rush Limbaugh? Turns out the hairy-backed crowd invented a few quotations. In other words, they flat out lied.
Confronted with his using a false quote, Zirin insists it's not his fault: "For all the dittoheads out there, here is how we came up with the quote: it was in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Detroit Free Press, the Washington Post, and in the book 101 People Who Are Really Screwing America by Jack Huberman. It has been out in the ether for years. "
First, Hairy Back Boi, when you're using a false quote probably not a good idea to write "here is how we came up with" it. English, like personal grooming, has yet to be mastered by Hairy Back Boi.
If the quote has really "been out in the ether for years," one wonders, why are all of Zirin's links to October 2009 pieces?
We're having trouble finding the quote in the Detroit Free Press article (Zirin links to USA Today republication) but maybe that's explained at the top of the article with this: "Editor's note: A quote that has been widely attributed to Rush Limbaugh has been removed from the original version of this column after Limbaugh denied saying it. USA TODAY could not verify the accuracy of the quote."
When insisting you're in the right, probably not a good idea to use as a source a publication that has pulled the quote and stated they "could not verify the accuracy of the quote."
At The Washington Post link, Mike Freeman does not reveal where the quote came from. He either attempts to mislead or doesn't know how to link because he does provide a link but it goes to an AP report that does not contain the quote. What of St. Louis Post-Dispatch?
A quote in Bryan Burwell's column Oct. 7 attributed to Rush Limbaugh about the merits of slavery in the United States cannot be verified, and its use did not meet the Post-Dispatch's standards for sourcing. Limbaugh said he did not make the statement. Burwell's column did not identify the source of the quote, which was Jack Huberman's 2006 book "101 People Who Are Really Screwing America." The book provided no details about the origin of the quote. When contacted by the Post-Dispatch, Huberman said that he had a source for the quote but declined to reveal it on advice of counsel. The book's publisher, Nation Books, did not return calls to the Post-Dispatch.
So that link is no good either. And any high school student learns citation and grasps that citing secondary sources all using the same primary source is frowned upon.
So what we're left with is Dave Zirin providing four 'sources' for the lie he repeated -- which he has not retracted nor apologized for and is still claiming to possibly be accurate -- and it is most likely one source being cited by three people. We know it's one source cited by two. And two of his three cited newspapers have retracted the quote -- stated they cannot stand by it.
But silly Dave Zirin continues to do so.
Whatever happened to facts?