J'Accuse!

I called on my keen investigative instincts over the weekend to try to run down this statement from Molly Priesmeyer's Babelogue hatchet piece on the Center of the American Experiment's skin tone and cooking:

Michele Bachmann offered praise for blogger Mitch Berg: "You're my hero!" she exclaimed, while hugging him from behind.

Nobody can recall Senator Bachmann "hugging" me "from behind".

Nobody I've interviewed in the past several days can recall this actually happening.

The ramifications of this piece of the story are bigger than Ms. Priesmeyer no doubt believes. Senator Bachmann is a candidate for federal office. I am a public figure - a larger figure in local broadcasting than, say, Nick Coleman. Just because a reporter's subjects are in the public eye doesn't exempt them from the demands of accuracy. Ms. Priesmeyer may be accustomed to reporting on the canoodlings of local musicians while hanging out at garbage can parties in the Wedge, but she's in the big little league, now. We must demand better of our freebie handout media.

So I demand that Ms. Priesmeyer either produce evidence of this "hug" from "behind", or apologize. I also demand a retraction in "Babelogue".

Where is the justice?

I'll let slide the implication that I now or at any time in the past two decades have practiced golf. Chalk it up to experience.

UPDATE AND BUMP: It's been five days. Still no apology or retraction.

What kind of world is this, where journalists can get away with this kind of hatchetry?

what, indeed?

Posted by Mitch at March 16, 2005 05:53 AM | TrackBack