In a Jan. 31 Media Research Center item, Scott Whitlock complains that a CBS analyst said that accusations of prostitution against Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez have “all the earmarks of an orchestrated smear campaign,” given its anonymous, uncorroborated sourcing and its promotion by the conservative blog The Daily Caller. Whitlock further complains that CNS played a clip of Harry Reid defending Menendez: “I always consider the source, and all anyone here has to look at is the source where this comes from.”
But Whitlock never explains why Reid is correct to make such a statement. Whitlock states that “The allegations were broke by the Daily Caller,” but he does not point out that the Daily Caller is a conservative-leaning outfit with a questionable record of accuracy. Whitlock did make sure, however, to let us know that the ethics group CREW “is a liberal organization.”
Whitlock goes on to complain: “As a comparison, when lewd details came out about Republican Congressman Mark Foley in 2006, the networks filed an amazing 152 stories in just the first 12 days.: But the Foley story was much better sourced than the Menendez story is.