Tucker Carlson's plot to embarrass the New Yorker

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.salon.com/news/tucker_carlson/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/01/07/jane_mayer_tucker_carlson

This week, we learned that Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller was working on a piece alleging that The New Yorker's Jane Mayer was guilty of plagiarism. The Caller's Jonathan Strong spent a week working on the story, after an unknown source sent him the "evidence" of the claim. Mayer wasn't guilty of plagiarism, and the Caller spiked the story. But was the whole thing just designed to scare the New Yorker into not promoting its story on the powerful Koch brothers?

What we don't know: Who sent Strong the story? Why did the Caller spend a week trying to confirm it when a cursory reading of the stories in question would've disproved the plagiarism accusation, and the authors who were reportedly borrowed from both agreed that their work wasn't improperly used? Who then sent the story to the New York Post's Keith Kelly, and did his reporting lead Tucker Carlson to spike the piece, which was apparently ready to go up?

The primary story the Caller piece was going to attack was Mayer's piece on the Koch brothers, billionaire industrialists who've spent years funding conservative-libertarian organizations and think tanks, and whose organizations helped birth, organize, and train the Tea Party movement. According to a knowledgeable source, Tucker Carlson was heard saying that the reason the story needed to go up this week, specifically on Monday or Tuesday, was because the National Magazine Awards submission deadline was on Thursday. Apparently, Carlson wanted to throw the New Yorker into enough of a panic that they wouldn't submit the Koch story for an Ellie.

If this is true, the Caller story looks a lot more like a political smear campaign than "traditional" reporting. (Someone has, after all, reportedly hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on Mayer.) That's why it wouldn't necessarily matter that the "victims" of the alleged plagiarism didn't think there'd been any wrongdoing -- the point would've been simply to introduce the accusation, spread uncertainty, and catch the "opponent" off-guard.

More at the link --

[marmar]

1. Someone needs to flush, because Tucker Carlson is plugging up the comode.

nt

[spanone]

2. money can move mountains

[CTyankee]

3. Yes, and by the time the truth came out, it would be another ACORN scandal

loudly trumpeted on Fox and even Morning Joe ("what oh what has happened to the New Yorker" sez Mika, cluthing her pearls while Joe snickers).

Then, a week later crickets when the truth is known.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Tucker is such a pathetic chickenhawk republicon preppy propaganda pimp

"More taxes for fatcat republicons like me. Whine."

- Tucker Carlson (R - BowtiePreppyWeenie)

[Canuckistanian]

5. Proving plagiarism is fairly easy, isn't it?

All you have to do is point to the "original" work.

So far, they haven't been able to reference ONE WORK that is the supposed "source" of this alleged plagiarism.

And even if there WAS plagiarism, it wouldn't make one difference to the article itself. Facts are facts, just as long as they're ultimately properly sourced.

[tularetom]

6. You'd think even the wingnuts would have learned by now

If you want something fucked up, send it to tucker carlson.

Wonder how much of daddy's money went into this Daily Caller thing?

[kevinbgoode]

7. Does Tucker Carlson even know what plagiarism is?

I mean, really. . .this man is the poorest excuse for a professional journalist I've run across in a long time. . .and his online publication hardly qualifies as anything more credible than a supermarket tabloid with photos of space aliens on the cover.

He has a limited audience - meaning the same audience that likes with Wingnut Daily, freeperville, and the other plethora of looney tunes "news" sources that will eventually implode from being too dependent on the same group of people to sustain them.

[DCKit]

8. I have it on good authority (observation) that Tucker is an EXPERT on plagiarism.

He's never had an original thought.