A former Bush administration aide has resigned from his new role as a blogger for the Washington Post after evidence emerged that much of his previous journalistic work had been the result of plagiarism.
Ben Domenech (24) had been hired by the newspaper to write what he described as ”a blog for the majority of Americans” — enraging some liberals who took it to mean the Post had accepted rightwing claims that its coverage is biased to the left and, therefore, in need of balancing.
But after only three days, six postings and a close examination by leftwing bloggers of Domenech’s previous output, the Red America blog was suspended.
Jim Brady, executive editor of the Post‘s website, said he had earlier carried out ”a fair amount of checking” into the recruit’s background, but added: ”We could have and should have done a better job.”
Critics of Domenech first objected because of a posting he had made on another blog, RedState.com, calling the late Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King’s wife, a Communist. Then they uncovered long passages apparently lifted from the work of others — first in his student newspaper, and then in other publications. One movie review contained a passage identical to one in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, while another article lifted sentences wholesale from PJ O’Rourke’s book, Modern Manners.
At first bullish, Domenech wrote of his enemies: ”I take enormous solace in the fact that you spent this week bashing me instead of America.” But in a subsequent, more apologetic statement, he admitted there was ”no excuse” for his actions. He was still awaiting a final decision on his continued employment by Regnery, the right-wing publisher responsible for some of the most lurid accounts of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
Duncan Black, an influential blogger who uses the pseudonym Atrios, typified the reactions of those who said the affair showed the pitfalls of accepting the conservative argument that the establishment media are inherently biased.
He wrote: ”The outrage was over the fact that once again conservatives had succeeded in mau-mauing a mainstream media outlet into balancing reporters with conservatives.” – Guardian Unlimited Â