Some people are saying the gross overcoverage of the phony JonBenet suspect is the worst embarrassment for the press in recent memory. Worse than the Katrina incomeptence? Worse than the Valerie Plame non-story? Then, there is this, another strange lapse from one of the formerly great newspapers:
Imagine you are the world's most powerful newspaper and you have invested your credibility in yet another story line that is falling apart, crumbling as inexorably as Jayson Blair's fabrications and the flawed reporting on Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD. What to do?
If you're the New York Times and the story is the alleged gang rape of a black woman by three white Duke lacrosse players—a claim shown by mounting evidence to be almost certainly fraudulent—you tone down your rhetoric while doing your utmost to prop up a case that's been almost wholly driven by prosecutorial and police misconduct.
Nothing much happened in the JonBenet followup except that a lot of time and money were wasted, and a pathetic figure got his 15 minutes of fame. Real lives are being destroyed in the Duke case.
