There are going to be a lot of diaries on The Case of Tom Delay's Lying Lawyer with respect to the non-existent moveon.org Delay mugshot t-shirts, but I thought a quick look at the Associated Press's approach to reporting on this was worth a diary.
CNN has the AP's story here, in which the AP reports about the courtroom theatrics revolving around defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin's claim that Judge Bob Perkins should be removed from the case because Perkins gave money to MoveOn.org, which in turn is selling Delay mugshot t-shirts.
Now, let's skip past the substantive question of whether, assuming this is true, such funding should disqualify the judge. Let's go straight to the lie.
As pointed out elsewhere, this is false. Very very false. As in, not true.
So false, no longer worth discussing.
So, what does the AP do to us? Let's look at how they frame it.
One side of the story:
In respectful tones, DeGuerin noted that Perkins had donated money to MoveOn.org, a liberal organization that he said has been "selling T-shirts with Mr. DeLay's mug shot on it."
The other side of the story:
MoveOn.org denied it was selling any such shirts, and issued a statement that said, "DeGuerin has either bad information or lied in court."
Hmmmm.
I guess the question on everyone's lips is...
WHICH ONE OF THESE SIDES IS TRUE??!?!?!?!?!
Do we get an answer?
Of course not!
SERIOUSLY, COULD THE AP OPEN UP INTERNET EXPLORER, TYPE IN MOVEON.ORG AND TAKE A LOOK?!?!?!?!
And so, we have the state of modern journalism. There are two sides to every story, each side is entitled to equal air time, the "truth" is subjective and therefore not pointed out by the press, fact-checking would only serve to bias the story against one side (a.k.a. the liars) and the American people will just have to stumble around, hearing two sides to one truth until the truth dies a nice, quiet death.