US - "Unwitting Role in the Rove 'Scoop'"

That's what Joe Lauria claims in his Washington Post article. Before I go any further, let me say that I don't recall seeing Lauria reporting on Jason Leopold's "Rove scoop" which turned out to be false. And while Lauria may have been unwittingly caught up in the scandal, that doesn't absolve him completely as he tries to make out. Here's what Lauria has to say about Leopold:

In his nine-year reporting career, Leopold has managed, despite his drug abuse and a run-in with the law, to work with such big-time news organizations as the Los Angeles Times, Dow Jones Newswire and Salon. He broke some bona fide stories on the Enron scandal and the CIA leak investigation. But in every job, something always went wrong, and he got the sack. Finally, he landed at Truthout, a left-leaning Web site. [Despite all this left wing media kept hiring him. That should tell you a lot about the left wing media]

Notice how Lauria even now tries to give some credibility to Leopold over the Enron scandal? But look what Lauria has to say about Leopold's tactics in the Enron scandal on page two.

Except that he has done things like that. His memoir is full of examples. He did break big stories, but he lied to get many of them. He admits lying to the lawyers for Enron executives Jeffrey Skilling and Andrew Fastow, making up stories to get them to spill more beans. "I was hoping to get both sides so paranoid that one was going to implicate the other," he wrote.

Lauria continues:

I met Leopold once, three days before his Rove story ran, to discuss his recently published memoir, "News Junkie." It seems to be an honest record of neglect and abuse by his parents, felony conviction, cocaine addiction -- and deception in the practice of journalism.

Leopold says he gets the same rush from breaking a news story that he did from snorting cocaine. To get coke, he lied, cheated and stole. To get his scoops, he has done much the same. As long as it isn't illegal, he told me, he'll do whatever it takes to get a story, especially to nail a corrupt politician or businessman. "A scoop is a scoop," he trumpets in his memoir. "Other journalists all whine about ethics, but that's a load of crap."

So, Lauria admits he knew before Leopold's "Rove scoop" that Leopold was a convicted drug felon who had lost every reporting job due to journalistic deceptions. What did Laruia do when the disgraced Leopold broke his "Rove scoop"?

I disagree, but I felt some sympathy for the affable, seemingly vulnerable 36-year-old. Before we parted, I told him a bit about myself -- that I freelance for numerous newspapers, including the Sunday Times of London. His publicist had earlier given him my cellphone number.

Three days later, Leopold's Rove story appeared. I wrote him a congratulatory e-mail, wondering how long it would be before the establishment media caught up.

Lauria, knowing full well Leopold's track record sent him a congratulatory email and wondered how long it would take MSM to catch up. They never did and it would seem Lauria isn't so much unwitting as he was lucky.

Lauria continues the story detailing how, AFTER MSM failed to pick up the story, he tried to verify Leopold's "Rove scoop". This gives you an insight into how the left wing media think. Despite Leopold's proven track record of deception, Lauria wanted so bad for the story that Rove had been indicted to be true, that he sent Leopold a congratulatory email as soon as his "scoop" broke - without checking any of it.

Lauria ends with this and in so doing misses his own irony:

"These days it is about the reporter, not the story; the actor, not the play; the athlete, not the game."

Sadly, Mr. Lauria proved his own point.
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