Topic: NewsBusters
We've previously noted a July 7 NewsBusters post in which Warner Todd Huston called a claim in a Los Angeles Times article that Fred Thompson worked as a lobbyist for a family-planning group in the early 1990s "hearsay" and "an unproven (and maybe unprovable) claim" (though the article cited "the minutes of a 1991 board meeting of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Assn." as evidence and names five people as corroborating the claim). Huston further derided the article as having "no real proof by anyone here" and "just a she-said/he-said claim." He concluded that the story was "nothing but claims made with no evidence to back them up so far," adding: "All in all, this is a very badly reported, partisan story that slams Fred Thompson instead of a fully investigated story, fairly presented, so that readers can make a more informed decision on whether to believe the claims made therein."
Since then, more evidence to back up the aricle's claim about Thompson has surfaced: The New York Times reported on July 19 that billing records support the claim that Thompson did some lobbying work for an abortion-rights group.
Huston has yet to acknowledge the New York Times article (though he did take the time to assert on July 9 that parts of the LA Times article were "disappearing" from the website, though it turned out that the story had been replaced by the version that ran in the print due to an uncorroborated minor claim). Even though Huston's attack on the LA Times has proven to be discredited, there's no recognition of that fact by Huston or anyone else on NewsBusters.
Shouldn't Huston note this fact and acknowledge his error of his earlier rhetoric? We think he should.
