Newsweek (finally) starts to understand

If anyone believes that the mainstream national media always is “on top of the story,” then the latest Newsweek story on the Duke non-rape mess is instructive. The information in this story — other than DA Michael Nifong’s email that nothing has convinced him to drop the prosecution (Gee, really?) — is quite old, at least if one has been reading the blogs.

Other writers, along with me, were pointing out a month ago or more what Newsweek is just starting to report. Moreover, Nifong lied to the Newsweek reporters in April when he said that the lacrosse players had given Crystal Gail Mangum the ubiquitous “date rape” drug when, in fact, no toxicology tests had been taken, something Nifong already knew. (He claimed that toxicology tests would demonstrate the presence of the drug, so he really told these guys a whopper.)

Well, it only took Newsweek a couple months to deal with this outright lie. Do you think that Newsweek would have waited so long had the defense lied like that? Of course, Nifong is crusading against young men who are not in a “protected” class of people, so the PC folk at Newsweek are not quite as quick on the draw.

Don’t get me wrong. I am glad to see someone from the MSM actually trying to take a story seriously, as opposed to viewing all of life through the PC lens. But the only reason that Newsweek has moved at all has been the enormous amount of stuff that has been on the blogs. (Nifong has complained about the blogs, so we know they are having an effect.)

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5:59 am on June 19, 2006