Topic: NewsBusters
To: Matthew Sheffield, NewsBusters executive editor
Dear Mr. Sheffield:
In an Aug. 25 NewsBusters post, Dan Riehl asserted that asserted that S.R. Sidarth, the worker for the James Webb campaign whom Sen. George Allen called a "macaca," was "making fun of an Hispanic William & Mary student's death." In fact, not only did the person alleged to be Sidarth not "make fun" of the dead student, Riehl offered no evidence that the student was, in fact, Hispanic. By repeatedly bringing up the dead student's alleged ethnicity, Riehl implied that Sidarth was acting in a racist manner -- something else for which Riehl offered no evidence.
Later on Aug. 25, Riehl issued another NewsBusters post in which he implied that Sidarth may be lying when he told Riehl that he never posted to the discussion board Riehl accuses him of posting on.
Meanwhile, on his own blog, Riehl was making more serious accusations against Sidarth regarding discussion board posts -- which he was forced to retract because he had no proof that Sidarth, in fact, made those posts.
Given that Riehl made some of these false accusations and implications against Sidarth at NewsBusters, will you be asking Riehl to correct and/or retract his posts and issue an formal, public apology to Sidarth at NewsBusters?
Sincerely,
Terry KrepelEditor, ConWebWatch
