Monday, August 17, 2009

Kansas City's "pre-eminent source for news" traffics in Palin divorce smear

The Kansas City Star -- described by its publisher as the area's preeminent source for news -- is passing along a discredited smear that Sarah Palin's marriage is on the rocks.

O.K., the rumors have been swirling big-time this month about the state of Sarah Palin's marriage to her high school sweetheart, Todd.

Some of them stemmed from an event Palin attended where she was spotted without her wedding ring. Palin's camp was quick to denounce rumors of marital problems as lies, saying that the former governor of Alaska often doesn't wear her ring and Todd doesn't wear one at all.

Now the latest issue of Star celebrity magazine, with the help of 17-year-old Mercede Johnston, throws even more fuel onto the fire with a cover story splash.

"If they ended their marriage within the next year, I wouldn't be surprised at all," says Mercede, sister of Levi Johnston, father of Bristol Palin's baby.

Reporter Lisa Gutierrez, who authored this piece, writes for "Star Gazing" which is some kind of celebrity gossip section in the Star. But Gutierrez is a journalist (award-winning?!) and has a professional obligation to not to print smears like this. A couple of minutes of Internet research would have showed Gutierrez that Anchorage resident and part-time Kindergarten teacher, Jesse Griffin, started the smear at his blog, Immoral Majority. Dan Riehl has researched the smear -- and smear artist Jesse Griffin -- at Riehl World View. The smear is simply not true.

A KC Star reader weighs in:

"I expect this crap from the National Enquirer. I don't expect this drivel from the Star... Just another nail in the coffin of good honest journalism."

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

the truth is that the truth is a slippery critter. the palins are having some problems. todd loves alaska and the things he can do here. sarah wants to check out the bright lights of the city. the two worlds aren't very compatible. does that spell D-I-V-O-R-C-E? who knows. it does spell problems. but hey, look at the problems the clintons had, and they're still together despite that "vast right wing conspiracy" to drive them apart. and now there's a "vast left wing conspiracy" to get the palins. or maybe there's just a vast fascination with the rich, powerful and trendy.

John Altevogt said...

The Star has never been troubled by abstract concepts such as truth or integrity when it comes to smearing conservatives, or reform candidates. This is what actually is a minor smear in the normal flow of The Star's daily assault on our community.

Anonymous said...

Damn I missed it. Puppy in training.

Anonymous said...

Who was it that complained because the media waited to actually check out John Edwards' rumored (at that time) infidelity? Guess when a liberal is the target of a rumor, we need to hop right on it before checking it out. But when a right-winger is the target of a rumor, we need to ignore it.

Anonymous said...

2:24... and you know this because?

Anonymous said...

When its John Edwards, running a story about the paternity and grand jury rumor requires a metaphysical standard of confirmation and proof ( In the case of the N&O, approval from Edwards too) but in the case of Palin all this journalistic judgement goes out the window. We can slime her in gossip column and not worry about hard news judgement.