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Monday, June 06, 2011

Washington Post Headline Guy part MMMCCLCCVI

This is an interesting article which contains positive proof that neither The New York Post nor Politico is a serious journalistic enterprise (knock me over with a wrecking ball).

However, the headline makes a definite assertion on a controversial matter of fact. The claim is also almost certainly false. WWW.Washingtonpost.com is in a weak position to lecture others about journalistic standards.

The headline is

"Recipient of lewd tweet criticizes New York Post story via Twitter".

Along with the first two words in the article "Gennette Cordova" this asserts that Gennette Cordova received the lewd tweet in question. Gennette Cordova has very defninitely asserted that she never saw the photo in question. The person who claims to have detected the tweet says it was deleted after 1 to 5 seconds.

Even assuming that Cordova has negative credibility so her claims are likely to be lies, one must also assume that she checks her twitter feed constantly in order to assert that she received the tweet.

Update DailyKos too


Update DailyKos too

Georgia Logothetis wrote

Representative Weiner is on the defensive for once following a porn star and a young girl who received the lewd tweet


Unless I am confused the "young girl" is Gennette Cordova who is 21 and, therefore, a young woman. Also she says she never saw the photo. I interpret this as equivalent to saying she never received the tweet.

My comment on the Washington Post article follows.

This is a very good article. However, it has a very bad headline. Farhi quotes Cordova extensively and reports no evidence that she has been other than perfectly honest. Notably the responses from the New York Post and Politico make it clear that neither is a legitimate journalistic operation.

However, the headline definitely asserts, as a 100% proven fact, that Cordova is a liar. She claims she never received the tweet. The person who claims to have discovered the tweet patriot76USA says it was deleted after 1 to 5 seconds on the twitter stream. The only evidence that Weiner ever sent any such tweet is a jpg file which is alleged to be a screen capture. The only evidence that the photograph was ever hosted in Weiners Yfrog account is another *.jpg file also alleged to be a screen capture.

The claim that Cordova received the tweet is contested. The assertion that she did, made without any qualification or a shred of evidence, is not serious journalism.

The Washington Post should run a correction.

1 comment:

dilbert dogbert said...

Over at Calculated Risk a commenter with the handle MP posted a link (sorry don't have it) to a blog that seemed to present a very good story about how the photo got on the congressman's tweet. Seems there is a serious hole in the twitter software that allows anyone to email a photo into anyone's twitter account. Seems that a password is not required to do this.
I know nothing about Twitter so take it for what it is worth.