Posted 11:39 AM by Scoobie Davis

R. Emmett Tyrrell: Defender of Journalistic Ethics
I so glad that Mr. Tyrell is weighing in on matters of journalistics ethics (thanks for the link, Bill's Content). I agree with Bill's Content that Tyrell's column is a fairly reasoned account of the Bob Greene scandal--at least the parts concerning Greene. However, the idea that a moral pariah like Tyrell should be speaking on journalistic ethics--much less ethics in general--is an abomination. This is the same person whose rag was subsidized by Scaife to "report" the tall tales of troopers--who were also paid by Scaife. In addition, there is the matter of David Brock's hatchet job against Anita Hill. When Frank Rich reported that Brock had blackmailed a woman who had information about Clarence Thomas' sexual activities(which Brock now acknowledges he did). Here is what Brock said when I asked him about it when he appeared on Michael Medved's radio show:

Scoobie: Good afternoon, David. I love your book. I think it just shows a lot of integrity. I wanted to ask—I’m curious about the journalistic standards of the American Spectator editors. Back in 1994, I was heartened when I read Frank Rich’s New York Times column in which he reported the allegations that you blackmailed Kaye Savage in order to recant her witnessing of [Clarence] Thomas’s pornography habit. Now when he wrote that article, did the editors confront you with this and try to determine the veracity of this or not?


Brock: That’s a great question. No. Absolutely not. No one raised it at all, actually. Yeah, I mean the fact that Frank Rich called it exactly correctly. He reported what I did and no one at the Spectator was troubled by it at all as far as I know.