As noted in my post last night, Politico wrote 91 news stories in a one week period regarding “sexual harassment” charges against Herman Cain, without a single story stating what conduct Cain actually engaged in or was alleged to have engaged in.
Howard Kurtz (via Althouse via Instapundit) took Jonathan Martin of Politico, the lead author on the Cain story and one of the founders of Politico, to task for reporting without facts:
Don’t think Politico is alone in digging for dirt on Cain. From The Marietta Daily Journal (h/t @ByronYork):
FORMER MARIETTA Mayor Bill Dunaway reports that he was called by reporters this week from the Associated Press and The Washington Post, both trying to dig up dirt on embattled presidential candidate Herman Cain of Georgia. The reporters had somehow heard that Dunaway is former owner of The 1848 House restaurant in Marietta and had been in the restaurant business while Cain was president of the National Restaurant Association.“They each wanted to know what ‘bad’ things I had heard about him and what ‘bad’ things the NRA members thought of him. I disappointed them in that I neither knew nor heard any bad rumors about him,” Dunaway emailed AT’s Bill Kinney.“The press is really working hard on Herman,” he concluded. No question about that.
Update: I think that bears pointing out considering that in the course of one week Politico ran 91 stories about “sexual harassment” charges against Herman Cain, and now acts as if reporting allegations of “sexual harassment” is the same thing as reporting the facts which would give rise to the legal conclusion that Cain’s conduct constituted “sexual harassment.”
“Sexual harassment” is a legal conclusion, not a fact.
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