Who Will Fact Check The Fact Checkers Lack Of Fact Checking?

Yeah, check this out - John Hinderaker of Powerline is in a scuffle with Gary Gilson (who had a letter [Powerline link] published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune) about a soundbite echoing in Mr. Gilson's memory from ten years ago:

I Am Libeled. I Respond.

...

...the last sentences of Gilson’s letter took an irrelevant swipe at me:

Johnson’s partner in the Power Line blog, John Hinderaker, was once asked by a radio interviewer if Power Line checked the facts on stories it distributed. “No,” he immediately replied. If there are any errors in what Power Line sends out, he said, people out in cyberspace will quickly correct it.

So much for respect for facts.

I have given a great many radio interviews, but the statement attributed to me by Gilson is not one that I have made, or would make, since it is untrue. I was also struck by the imprecision of his smear: what exactly did I say, and where and when did I supposedly say it? So, just a few hours after his letter appeared in print, I sent Mr. Gilson this message on Facebook, LinkedIn and his web site...

And a bit of back-and-forth establishes that Mr. Gilson really does not remember the specifics but that the incident occurred just after Powerline came to Rather-fueled fame in late 2004 or early 2005.

Continuing with Mr. Hinderaker:

I’ll bet. I have no idea what I said in some unknown, unidentified interview more than ten years ago. I don’t know what I was asked or how I answered. But I certainly never said anything remotely like what Gilson implied: that we are indifferent to truth; that we make stuff up and peddle fake documents, like Mary Mapes and Dan Rather; that we publish random assertions and count on others to correct us.

And in his concluding email to Mr. Gilson:

Mr. Gilson: You obviously are unable to substantiate your false statement about me that appeared in yesterday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune. I trust you understand that you have libeled me. I hereby formally demand a public retraction and apology for your false statement about me.

I can help. And to establish my credentials in the area of hazy memory, let me note that I have a crystal clear image of watching the final episode of M*A*S*H in my college dorm, and I could even conjure the names of five or ten of my co-viewers if pressed. However, that final episode did not air until I was out of school and on the mean streets of Manhattan, so I try to stay humble about the veracity of my older memories. That said, I also have a clear memory of right-wing commentators defending Scooter Libby's hazy and more contemporaneous non-memories, so let's say there is documented sympathy for the notion that people make memory mistakes, particularly in the details.

As to Mr. Gilson's recollections, here is an early 2005 story that, although in print rather than on the radio, started in a Minneapolis newspaper and then bounced around the blogosphere. Away we go:

Via Atrios and Kevin Drum, a story in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

"As a graduate student in public affairs at the University of Minnesota, I recently heard an in-class presentation by John Hinderaker, who, with partner Scott Johnson, runs the Powerline blog. Powerline played a role in breaking the Rathergate affair and was recently named "Blog of the Year" by Time magazine.

...[Two paragraph skip about alleged voter fraud in Racine and]

At class I asked Hinderaker if posts to Powerline were fact-checked. He was dismissive of the question, so I asked if he was aware that the Racine voter fraud story [link] was inaccurate. He stated that he was not, slapped his hands together and stated that the blogosphere was all about speed and therefore did not allow for fact-checking. Mr. Hinderaker went on to say, "Our readers let us know when we get it wrong."

And therein lies the cautionary Catch-22: Bloggers may serve as media watchdogs, but who will watch the blogs? Do you have time to fact-check what you read online?"

Hindrocket disputes [fixed link] this:

"The piece accuses us of a failure to fact-check. The author refers to a news story we linked to last October which related to voter fraud in Wisconsin, and says that she "made a few phone calls" and determined that "[t]here was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations." No hint as to whom she called, or what information she learned that demonstrated that the allegations in the news story were false.

We are, of course, preparing a response. It will focus, I think, on the fact-checking that the Strib did before they printed Ms. Gage's attack on us. I talked to Commentary Editor Eric Ringham today, and he acknowledged that the Strib didn't do any fact-checking at all before they accused us of not fact-checking. That's right: None. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. And Ms. Gage, if that's really her name, has no knowledge about the voter fraud scandal which has now resulted in a federal criminal investigation."

Since he has not posted the promised response yet, I don't know whether he will also dispute Gage's account of what he said.

I would say that the timing and content match the Gilson recollection quite accurately, and the story certainly got some attention. Now, if the Star Tribune ultimately retracted Ms. Gage's account of the classroom exchange that might shift the burden on Mr. Gilson back to the Star Tribune. Put another way, if Mr. Gilson more or less accurately recalled and reported an old story eventually found to be libelous, who is liable for the libel? I am still looking around for that follow up at Powerline, and the Star Tribune archives for that time period seem to be off-line.

I should add that Mr. Hinderaker's alleged comment about the self-correcting nature of the blogosphere was controversial but hardly unique to him. Here, for example, is a comment from Hugh Hewitt in a Jan 24 2005 interview on CNN:

O'BRIEN: It's manageable, but is it accurate? Because, at the end of the day, it's someone's personal diary. And who knows who the person is necessarily who's actually blogging, right?

HEWITT: Well, I've been a broadcast journalists for 15 years. I've worked in print and television and radio. And the blogosphere is by far the most accurate and the most objective in terms of accountability. Because the moment you make a mistake, you get jumped on by your colleagues and your adversaries in the blogosphere. Dan Rather got brought down by bloggers.

The truth may be out there. The meme was definitely out there. But if there is a resolution in the PowerLine or Star Tribune archives of this 2005 dispute I can't find it.

STILL POKING: We can find this contemporaneous defense of PowerLine: apparently Camille J. Gage, author of the 2005 attack article, failed to grasp that Mr. Hinderaker was linking to a published news story:

Here's the original Power Line post [fixed]. Now this may be a little hard for Camilla Gauge (misspelling intentional) to understand, but I'm sure my readers will know why the words, "sent two individuals from other states to Racine" appear in a different color than the rest of the text. That's right, it's a permalink! So when you click on it, you come to a story that appeared at Agape Press, a Christian news service.

In other words Power Line (try to spell their blog name correctly, Cammille!) did not "post the story based on the word of a single individual...." etc. They posted the story based on the fact that the story had already appeared at Agape Press.

And horrifically for the Star Tribune, it appears that Camilia did not do a very good job of fact-checking herself with her "few phone calls to check it out". There was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations? Tell it to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, which had this article just a week ago:

In Racine, two Milwaukee men are awaiting trial on election fraud cases tied to voter registration drives, in which authorities say fraudulent cards were submitted to election officials there last fall.

Here's a brief article from a Racine paper:

Two Milwaukee men, including one who ran for the State Assembly, await trial on charges of election fraud in Racine County.

Damien Donnelle Jones, 24, and Robert Marquis Blakely, 24, are accused of registering voters they never talked to. The two men were working for Project Vote, and were assigned to Racine to register people to vote in the Nov. 2 election. They are accused of multiple counts of election fraud and misconduct in office; Blakely is also charged with forgery.

Power Line says that in a phone call with the Star Tribune's commentary editor, it was indicated that the paper did no fact checking on Ms. Cage's piece accusing Power Line of not fact checking... I got a hunch that the Power Line guys will be getting a pretty profuse apology from the paper pretty soon.

(Note: The misspellings are intentional; it's a blogger trick to misspell a name, because that way if somebody types "Camilla Gage" instead of "Camille Gage", Google will send them to your blog.)

But to come full circle, let's go back to the Obsidian Wings/hilzoy piece that included the extensive excerpts of the underlying 2005 Star Tribune story:

It's also worth noting that I haven't found any evidence that the allegations he discussed in the post Gage refers to have "resulted in a federal criminal investigation." (There was a federal investigation into other allegations of voter fraud in Racine, which has resulted in criminal charges.) As far as I can tell, this was the response to the allegations Gage was talking about:

"Also Thursday, the Racine County district attorney's office said it has had difficulty proving allegations by a Michigan organization that Racine members of Voces de la Frontera, a group that aids migrant workers, committed any violations in registering voters.

The Federation for Immigration Reform alleged that two of its members posed as people who are not eligible to vote who then worked through Voces de la Frontera to register voters in Racine and Milwaukee.

The district attorney's office said in a statement that an audiotape from FAIR purporting to document the violations is difficult to hear and contains "no clear evidence that a crime was committed.""

Grist for the mill. But it certainly suggests that PowerLine was correct in reporting that allegations were being made and examined.

DO LET ME ADD: Radio, newspaper who can tell? Mr. Gilson said in his email correspondence that he normally listened to WCCO 830 on his AM dial, which is the local news radio station. Do they have a pattern of reading newspaper stories verbatim? Or, if he simply misremembered the source, how material is his error? Mr. Gilson claimed he heard Mr. Hinderaker say it directly; if my theory as to the sourcing is correct, he read an account from another observer who claimed to have heard Mr. Hinderaker say it directly.

If the newspaper story was not libelous then I doubt that the slight misrepresentation ten years later would be. Or, if the newspaper story was found to be libelous, then I would be surprised if Mr. Gilson would lose if he simply claimed he made a good-faith mistake in recounting someone else's libel.

Comments

[jimmyk]

It seems to me Hinderaker set up a straw man here:

But I certainly never said anything remotely like what Gilson implied: that we are indifferent to truth; that we make stuff up and peddle fake documents, like Mary Mapes and Dan Rather; that we publish random assertions and count on others to correct us.

Gilson didn't say anything like that. There's a big difference between posting information that you believe to be true but have been unable to verify completely, versus making stuff up. Gilson's quote clearly suggests the former, not the latter. Hinderaker doesn't help his case here.

[jimmyk]

And let the record show that I was first.

[buccaneer morgan]

well it is curious, as with the earlier link, mirengoff doesn't seem to accept certain proof re Carson, although lets go back down the wayback machine, the nutroots link relates to the time, when the left generally was in denial over the Bush victory, voting machines in Ahia, were the proximate cause, and they even attempted to prevent certification, on the libby front, before we know Armitage was a conspirator, they had already put him in the noose,

[buccaneer morgan]

a decade earlier, or their abouts, you had the spectacle of Gary Webb's CIA conspiracy theory, resurrected by 'Hawkeye' Renner, in killing the messenger, that suggested events that had no firm base for having occurred, and they were in turn reinforced by the progenitor of said stories, future Secretary Lurch, who in turn was carrying
the Sandinista's water,

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

The mob in the Plame case really wanted Rove, whom I'd have been glad to toss them except for the fact he was completely innocent, or Cheney and had to direct their ire at the innocent of the purported crime Libby.

Not to sound like a shameless suck up but TM is very good on the facts *and* willingly fielding critical feedback.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Two thoughts;

1. Gilson's memory is possibly faulty on the detail of whether he heard or read this so obviously he is, like Ben Carson, an inveterate liar who should retire from public life in shame.

2.Jimmyk is correct in that Hinderaker's defense is weak and misleading. Glad he aint my lawyer.

[buccaneer morgan]

I bring up another example, the 'curveball' matter,
that proves 'bush lied' well it does nothing of the kind, the accounts re Alwan, obscured the role of the BND in running. vetting and limiting access to him, the interlocutors were the likes of the late Herr Drumheller, who had his own reasons to dissemble as he did to of the LA Times,

[Rick Ballard]

One can only imagine Hinderaker's distress over Mirengoff's unfounded defamation of Carson.

Nice rim shot, TM.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Dr. Sowell on Dr. Carson.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

Cross posted from the last thread because I'm interested if anyone knows the answer;

Interesting you bring up SS, OL.
The disability part of it expanded yugely from 09-some later point and I personally know of people who got it who by any objective standard shouldn't have.
However, now I personally know of two people who literally are incapacitated by long term degenerative back disease who have been denied over and over. They are far more disabled and have far more documentary and clinical medical evidence to support their claims. I have also heard they are even denying those with Stage 4 cancer which used to be automatically approved.

I'm just wondering if this admittedly anecdotal evidence indicates SS has severely shut and locked the barn door after they let a few millions barely lame horses out of the barn.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

If Claire MaCaskill thinks men should shut up about what women do with their bodies, including killing babies without the consent of the men who fathered them, then presumably she would keep her big fat mouth shut if her husband or anyone's husband for that matter commits adultery.
It's his body after all so if he comes home after a little alley catting and is still on the prowl, she should shut up, lie back and think of Todd Akin. Right?

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

That's assuming she ever got remarried.

[anonamom]

repost of FTL's original from previous post--
Modern Educayshun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM&feature=youtu.be

[FTL]

Repost of comment knuckleheadedly added to the previous post (sorry).

I'm just wondering if this admittedly anecdotal evidence indicates SS has severely shut and locked the barn door after they let a few millions barely lame horses out of the barn.

I think the actual medical disabilities are victims of the mental health mafia's dominance.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardfinger/2013/01/14/fraud-and-disability-equal-a-multibillion-dollar-balck-hole-for-taxpayers/

I came into indirect contact with the mental health mafia a couple of different ways around the turn of the century.

First was the office park that housed the main offices of a tech company I did work for. Over half of the tenants were mental health counselors, and most were living high on the hog.

Second was the applicant tracking employment system I put in for the county government that needed special logic to handle the 1099 piecework boondoggle for non-physician providers of mental health services who get paid (in county taxpayer dollars) nearly as much as physicians without any of the costs of practicing medicine.

I am not the least bit surprised that this mafia captured control of the SSDI pot of gold.

[jimmyk]

Sowell is a national treasure.

[Old Lurker]

Iggy, SS is just another check writer.

EVERYWHERE you look at the Federal Government (not to exclude S&L), you find a wholesale attempt to just plain shovel cash out the door to any and all willing to wink and take it.

It used to be Congress and its budget process was a check on this but clearly they are in on it too. It used to be the "Bond Market" was a check on it, but since the Fed prints up whatever they want, that too does not work. It used to be that the people would take to the streets if their tax dollars were wasted, but since most taxes are paid by so few, and the many are so stupid anyway, that that too does not work.

So whether it is SS sending money to the wrong people and not to the right people, or HHS spending $1B to get just one form posted on line, ... or any one of the thousands of other examples, well the mess is practically irreversible at this point and but for us, it is hard to find a large number of people who a)understand, and b)care.

[Buckeye]

Iggy

Are either one of your friends that got denied disability coverage a "person of color"?

How about their case worker?

Can't imagine why I would guess this process may not be color blind.

[Old Lurker]

This was my post from the previous thread to which Iggy was responding above:

Iggy, speaking of expanding the dole, it looks like Obama is just barely going to miss his Hat Trick.

The National Debt has doubled so he gets a check mark there.

But I think he is still shy of 50 million on Foodstamps by a few.

And darn it, his total expenditures from Social Security is going to just miss a Trillion $ this year.

Oh so close to a legacy!

[DrJ]

OL,

Your above is right. It also is amazing how few checks there are to prevent fraud.

[lyle]

The sweet, intoxicating aroma of Fascism redolent wafting over the true Mecca of tolerance in the US: academia:

http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/09/meet-the-mizzou-media-professor-whos-trying-to-ban-media-coverage/

According to her bio on the University of Missouri website, Melissa Click specializes in “audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy”:

Her research interests center on popular culture texts and audiences, particularly texts and audiences disdained in mainstream culture. Her work in this area is guided by audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy. Current research projects involve 50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming, and messages about work in children’s television programs.

Bet she's a hoot at the mock execution parties they throw at UM.

[MarkO]

Guess who gets to lunch with the effervescent Caro and the sage Dr. J. tomorrow?

I may wear a suit.

[rse]

OL-take the time to go through that speaker list I posted on the previous thread to the Equity Summit.

Entirely based on redistribution in an unsustainable vision of prosperity as parasitism.

[lyle]

http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/09/mizzou-and-yale-show-why-its-time-to-burn-the-universities-to-the-ground/

It reminds me of the old rule about totalitarian revolutions: first, you go after the counter-revolutionaries, then you go after the insufficiently enthusiastic.

[DrJ]

I may wear a suit.

Please don't!

[FTL]

This campus stuff is blue-on-blue. It's about time. So long as they're shoving each others' heads through Spencer Ackerman's plate-glass windows, I'm content to munch popcorn and root for injuriesfatalities.

[MarkO]

It was mostly a shout-out to TC.

[DrJ]

But there was no mention of a treadmill!

[Dave (in MA)]

I thought it was the sage Caro and the effervescent Dr. J.

[lyle]

Since so many college kids want to be treated like babies, Insty proffers an excellent idea:

Maybe we should raise the age of majority — including the voting age — to 25.

[jimmyk on iPad]

Well, 27 is when they get off mommy and daddy's insurance.

[Old Lurker]

I know, RSE, I think the whole mess is one giant scheme to redistribute assets and cash flow from Producers/Owners to the leeches riding in the wagon and that includes all the public servants drawing pay checks and pensions.

It is a feeding frenzy devouring the golden goose.

[lyle]

Okay, jimmyk comes through with a 27. Who's the next highest bidder? Anyone got a 28? How about a 29?

[jimmyk on iPad]

Twitter evidently thinks its users need safe spaces. I clicked to open the pic at this tweet

https://twitter.com/jodiswelch/status/664090687789334529

@JodisWelch: Senator McCaskill apparently dropped an item of her's at the taping of the Colbert segment. @TPM #GamerGate https://t.co/SnoSIc8yLj

and I got a warning about "sensitive material," and had to click to give permission. The picture? A pacifier.

[Old Lurker]

How about you can vote at the later of a)27, or b)when you show five consecutive years of tax returns showing positive tax payments from full time employment.

Do I win?

[jimmyk on iPad]

Lyle, this isn't age-related, but McCaskill is an argument for repealing the 19th Anendment.

[lyle]

You win, OL.

McCaskill is an argument for the re-institution of that time-honored tradition of witch burning, jimmyk.

[henry]

Twitter censors must use those in the other end jimmyk.

[Buckeye]

How about your voted gets weighted for what you pay in taxes?

Exactly who is paying for all the "Free Shit" anyway?

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Per Tammy Bruce, the Senate voted 91-3 to prohibit transferring Gitmo prisoners to the U.S.

[Jane]

I don't know which of you I'm more jealous of Mark.

[lyle]

Exactly who is paying for all the "Free Shit" anyway?

I trust this inquiry is mere rhetorical...

[daddy]

Montel Williams on the Warpath in support of the VA on FOX Business. Nice to see his righteous anger on the correct side of an issue that Hillary and the Left are giving lip service. Welcome aboard, Sir.

[rse]

OL-declaring everyone has a right to be taken care of, despite poor choices and lousy behaviors is a prescription for disaster. even if I was not busy reading the blueprints.

The only people with a clue as to how the world works are the very people targeted and then everyone wonders what happened to prosperity as the mind conflagration rolls along.

[Old Lurker]

"Exactly who is paying for all the "Free Shit" anyway?"

Well Buckeye, a small sliver is paid for in real time by the suckers who actually pay taxes.

But truthfully, based on that GAO guy's remarks I posted yesterday, at least $65 Trillion has been kicked down the road to future generations, assuming there is a future generation willing and able to pay up.

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Montel's batting record is pretty high on the important issues, no?

[lyle]

Click but don't say I didn't warn you...

http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/big-sister-is-watching-you-t17169.html

[Rocco]

It appears that the Mizzou Agitator is a UMass graduate with a PHD in Communication. Her Dissertation: "It's a good thing: The commodification of femininity, affluence and whiteness in the Martha Stewart phenomenom."
https://communication.missouri.edu/sites/default/files/cv/click_cv_september_2013_for_web.pdf

Don't need no stinking men...unless I need some muscle!

[Buckeye]

lyle

Yes rhetorical.

And of course I really am not advocating weighted voting.

Hmmm....on second thought.

[Old Lurker]

"PHD in Communication"

Weren't we just last week talking about doctorates not being what they used to be? To think that this Mizzou is right up there with Dr. J.

:-) DrJ.

[lyle]

Whatever one's opinion of Allahpundit, he makes a good point at Tepid Air:

When that scumbag professor calls for “muscle” to remove a reporter from the public square, she can get it. They’re accountable to no one, partly because of tenure and partly because they can and will mau-mau any state official as racist/sexist etc who comes down on them. What you’re seeing here, per Chait’s apt analogy, is progressivism unchecked. How do you like it? How will you like it when they have the numbers to pass a “hate speech” law and they’ve got five miserable lockstep left-wing hacks on the Supreme Court to uphold it?

[Ann]

rot gut

Meet Melissa Click, fascist. https://communication.missouri.edu/faculty/click

[lyle]

Behold the smiling fascist!

Jonah Goldberg's cri de coeur gets more prescient every day.

[lyle]

For a better idea of the little prof's fascist mien, click on HotAir right now. I'd pay really good money to have Tammy Bruce slap that sneering gash right off her face.

[James D]

This campus stuff is blue-on-blue. It's about time. So long as they're shoving each others' heads through Spencer Ackerman's plate-glass windows, I'm content to munch popcorn and root for injuriesfatalities.

The problem is, while we see it as blue on blue, what the LIV's see is that the insane rabble won, and nobody stood up to them or said a word against them.

And even if this does help an R win the governor's sea in MO next year, money will not dry up for the university, and the emboldened lunatic progs who infest it will not be cracked down upon.

We keep counting on the silent masses out there seeing how insane the left is, and the disasters they have caused, but without our side calling it out loudly and directly, I don't think they will ever see it.

[Buckeye]

re: Melissa Click

"Her research interests center on popular culture texts and audiences, particularly texts and audiences disdained in mainstream culture."

audiences disdained in mainstream culture???

Like Jews and Christians?

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Tenured professor versus MFM liar? Is there a hero?

[Old Lurker]

White Males, Buckeye?

[Rick Ballard]

"I don't think they will ever see it."

I sure don't know what the LIVs will be looking at when they pull their heads out of the feed bags next August but I doubt the BlacknWhite Snowflake Division will draw more than a cursory glance. The MFM typists are really struggling to fill time and air at the moment, the focus on a tempest in a cup of lukewarm chocolate is pretty good evidence of that.

[daddy]

Hamilton, we hardly knew ye!

Born in Detroit, and an Alum of Dartmouth and the University of Michigan.

[DrJ]

Weren't we just last week talking about doctorates not being what they used to be?

Depends on the area, I suppose. I've been very impressed with the technical faculty at even second- and third-tier schools. Student quality varies, but overall the vast majority of scholarship that I have seen is outstanding.

There is some nonsense about adding trendy majors, but so far the impact has not been that large.

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

So am I the only person disgusted with this cycle of debates controlled by the MFM and sanctioned by the RNCe that eliminates candidates before anybody gets the chance to vote for them? How many of you are pleased that you don't have a chance to vote for Scott Walker, for example?

Lots of consultants are getting paid, though.

[DrJ]

I should add that there has been some unwelcome PC merde, but most people I know just roll their eyes and carry on. There also is a recurring problem where a male faculty member is crazy to meet alone with female students, or without the door being open.

[Buckeye]

OL

Of course White Males, how could I overlook them. Add to the list.

[Jim Eagle]

Happy 240th Birthday, United States Marine Corps.

Marine Corp Birthday Message for 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg5GPScSQHo

There is a reason those buses arrive in the dead of night.

[Neo]

"... tells cameraman he can't be there & asks for 'muscle' to remove him ..."

The irony, given that this is the University of Missouri, is that Missouri's unofficial nickname is the "Show Me State", which appears on its license plates.

[maryrose]

I still many of the repub candidates can be involved in the next Republican WH administration
We have a deep bench of qualified people unlike the retread dems

[maryrose]

Happy 14th birthday hit and run junior
You have a great dad!

[daddy]

Surprisingly I do have a memory of reading something many years back about how "if we get it wrong, the blogosphere will notify us of our errors swiftly."

It may have been Hugh Hewitt since I read his book Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World when it came out, and there's a good probability that the book mentioned the advantage of having a thousand readers able to identify errors and point them out to Blog writers. (Lilek's was a big promoter of the book at the time and I followed him a lot since Insty linked him a lot. We never get Hugh Hewitt up here on radio and haven't since I've lived here, so it wouldn't have been on radio unless he was someone's guest. Hewitt's book came out in 2005, (the approximate date of this latest brouhaha), so I would certainly imagine that if the point about thousands of fact checkers was made in the book, it would have been covered by the Powerline buys.

My knee-jerk reaction is that Hindrocket is less on solid ground here than Dr Ben Carson is on his stories which the Powerline guys were so quick to jump on as fabrications, and I think Gilson has adequate ammo to effectively counterattack the Powerline boys, who have IMHO, stunk up the Blogosphere in the last few days.

Thanks for the link Narciso, to Meringoff's last gutless apology which ain't an apology.

[maryrose]

Power line needs to admit they were wrong and apologize pronto

[henry]

There also is a recurring problem where a male faculty member is crazy to meet alone with female students, or without the door being open.

That isn't restricted to universities. Further I've seen reports that software executives can't be alone at conventions (because SJWs will claim stuff for any time no witnesses are around). Thus a Zuckerberg or Larry Paige will always have a posse with them.

[daddy]

Or to put it in more understandable terms, Hindrocket is playing the role of Hamilton Burger here, and Perry Mason's defense of Gilson in this case would have him walking out of Court completely exonerated.

[FTL]

We keep counting on the silent masses out there seeing how insane the left is, and the disasters they have caused, but without our side calling it out loudly and directly, I don't think they will ever see it.

Whether they see it or not makes no difference to me.

There never was a strong enough link between STEM and non-STEM departments in higher education to keep both sides under one roof. That weak link is headed rapidly to complete dissolution.

STEM flight will do to higher education what white flight did to Detroit, and that will destroy a major chunk of the left's foundation.

Getting immense satisfaction from seeing these bloodsucking parasites of the frivolous institutional left being torn to shreds by their own unnatural creations is just a bonus for me.

[Old Lurker]

DrJ, here's a touchy subject and you are exactly the person who can say.

Even among PhDs in hard sciences, is there not a significant increase in scientific fraud and in the published papers? Or is that a myth?

[Janet]

So am I the only person disgusted with this cycle of debates controlled by the MFM and sanctioned by the RNCe that eliminates candidates before anybody gets the chance to vote for them?

Yes, Captain.
I hate that Jindal is always in the lesser debate too.

[setnaffa]

Perry Mason is a fictional character from the 1920s. His tricks would get him disbarred faster than Bill Clinton's lies in front of a Federal Grand Jury.

Gilson is a sleaze who knows himself. If he's going to stick with accusations oh Hindrocket lying, he'd better have proof. The jury WILL see the transcripts of every show on that radio station he claimed to have listened to...

Payback is at times a female dog.

[James D]

STEM flight will do to higher education what white flight did to Detroit, and that will destroy a major chunk of the left's foundation.

I hope you're right.

My fear is that the first part of your prediction is correct (higher ed turns into Detroit), but that rather than harming the foundations of the left, it ends up strengthening them, with yet another endless bailout of an institution too "important" to fail, run by the same people who caused all the problems in the first place, while the rest of us, as usual, get stuck with the bill.

[Janet]

Am I the only person disgusted...

I meant, no.

[DrJ]

OL,

It is really hard to say if fraud is on the increase, if the experiments are getting more difficult, or if students simply are publishing the one or two sets of data that worked (when all the rest did not). The latter was well-known even when I was in school.

Personally, my ability to reproduce experiments reported in the literature is no better than 50%, and probably it is lower. These days I treat the literature more as a suggestion rather than truth.

I don't know if that helps any.

[Old Lurker]

Thanks DrJ, it does.

[jimmyk on iPhone]

"For a better idea of the little prof's fascist mien, click on HotAir right now. I'd pay really good money to have Tammy Bruce slap that sneering gash right off her face."

Hey I posted all this about Ms Click yesterday, even the gif of wish to see her slapped silly.

[DrJ]

OL,

I'll also add that it is very time consuming to do the proper replicates and controls, explore the predictions, and often the instruments you use for analysis cost a lot each time you use them. There is so little money and time these days that it is hard not to cut some corners.

[lyle]

Then please repost it, jimmyk. Sorry to have stepped on your gig.

[Frau Neu-Anno Schnuff]

Last week I read Harry Stein's "Will Tripp: Pissed Off Attorney at Law" which I considered a wonderful satire. Now, I see it is an accurate portrayal of US academic life. Nothing in Stein's romp is in any way an exaggeration of the latest news from college campuses.
Prof. Click was separated at birth from fictional Chester College's Prof. Francine Grabler. Pres. Wolfe, however, is not going to stick around to help the injured Mizzou students "heal." Good for him.

Laugh or cry?

[jimmyk on iPhone]

As I said a couple weeks ago about that piece on replicability in Economics, which I'm sure applies to the natural sciences as well: it's impossible to verify everything, but anything important will get scrutinized. There is a lot of low quality and/or zero impact research that no one will ever bother confirming. Like that of Ms Click, for example.

[Thomas Collins]

From Ann's 1:52 PM link:

"Dr. Melissa A. Click earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests center on popular culture texts and audiences, particularly texts and audiences disdained in mainstream culture. Her work in this area is guided by audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy. Current research projects involve 50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming, and messages about work in children's television programs. Melissa is Vice-Chair of ICA’s Popular Communication Division and is Chair of the committee hosting the Console-ing Passions conference at the University of Missouri in April 2014."

I apologize to Cornel West for making fun of his rap CD scholarship. When set against the above research, Cornel is a veritable Regius Professor of Greek type!

By the way, Professor Clark supposedly has a scholarly interest in audiences disdained by mainstream culture. Are 50 Shades of Grey readers, Lady Gaga fans, and followers of reality cooking shows marginalized?

[Thomas Collins]

From Ann's 1:52 PM link:

"Dr. Melissa A. Click earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests center on popular culture texts and audiences, particularly texts and audiences disdained in mainstream culture. Her work in this area is guided by audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy. Current research projects involve 50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming, and messages about work in children's television programs. Melissa is Vice-Chair of ICA’s Popular Communication Division and is Chair of the committee hosting the Console-ing Passions conference at the University of Missouri in April 2014."

I apologize to Cornel West for making fun of his rap CD scholarship. When set against the above research, Cornel is a veritable Regius Professor of Greek type!

By the way, Professor Clark supposedly has a scholarly interest in audiences disdained by mainstream culture. Are 50 Shades of Grey readers, Lady Gaga fans, and followers of reality cooking shows marginalized?

[lyle]

PJM:

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) infamously said during the Obamacare debate that Republicans wanted sick people to “die quickly,” and recently said Planned Parenthood defunding proponents will shepherd in a new wave of deaths.

Irony so pure it could be snorted or shot intravenously.

[Marlene]

Howie Carr played the audio of Hillary's cackle when a man in the audience at her Derry,NH event said he wanted to strangle Carly Fiorina. A caller just asked,isn't that a war on women,isn't Hillary's campaign all about the war on women?

[GUS]

Frau the asshole will have another Univeristy Tax paid job, and there is no injury to heal.
It's the MOB demanding tribute. Oh the MACROAGGESSIONS this MOB is handing out!!!

[lyle]

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/11/09/white-house-carson-not-coming-under-more-scrutiny-than-candidate-obama/

Da, Komrades! Pravda would be so proud!

[GUS]

Frau the asshole will have another Univeristy Tax paid job, and there is no injury to heal.
It's the MOB demanding tribute. Oh the MACROAGGESSIONS this MOB is handing out!!!

[narciso]

women, not unpersons, get that straight, also african americans can fall in that category.

[Jane]

Hit Jr is 14? How did that happen. He was a little tyke when we first met him.

Teenagers. Yikes! Can I introduce him to Megan one of these day?

[jimmyk]

Lyle, I meant to include a smiley so no apology necessary, but this was the gif (as was pointed out, note Clarice with her pistola):

[narciso]

yes, he's a regular WEB Dubois, by comparison, so Spectre reminded me of the Clinton foundation, the former deal in counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and sex trafficking, whereas Red Queen's outfit has branched out into nuclear trade, and other off label commodities,

[James D]

lyle @ 3:34

I despite Josh Earnest. I wish nothing but pain and misery upon him and everyone in his life. He is an evil, disgusting little man, and decent people should turn their backs on him when he enters a room.

I think that's about the kindest thing I can say about him.

[Frau Nix Kultur]

Prof. Click: Frequently Taught Courses:
Comm 4618/7618 – Television Program Analysis and Criticism
Comm 4638 – New Technologies and Communication
Comm 4975 – Visual Literacy
Comm 8110 – Intro to Graduate Studies
Comm 8150 – Seminar in Television Criticism
Comm 9530 – Topics in Mass Communication: Cultural Studies, Audiences, & Fans

Research Interests:
Media audiences and fans; Gender, race, class and sexuality in popular culture; Television analysis and criticism; Media literacy

[lyle]

Oh, I remember that one now, jimmyk. Airplane gags never get old.

[narciso]

he's a small weasel, alas Robert Gibbs, aka Peter Griffin, really was the eminence gris is this administration, everyone else is another class of varmint,

[lyle]

I think that's about the kindest thing I can say about him.

Kinder than anything I can say about him, James.