Jonathan Martin’s Crappy, Unsourced, Third Rate, Amateur Hour Hit Piece On Sarah Palin

by John Hawkins | October 21, 2010 11:15 am

Are you surprised that Sarah Palin’s busy? No? Then you’re apparently sharper than Jonathan Martin at the Politico, who wrote an extraordinarily mediocre hit piece[1] on Sarah Palin that would never, in a hundred years, have seen the light of day had it been aimed at say, Barack Obama.

First off, the allegations in it aren’t very damaging in the first place. Here’s the gist of the whole piece: It’s hard to book Sarah Palin to do a campaign event. Martin, being a liberal who’s desperate to hurt Palin, tries to turn this into something SCANDALOUS!!!

The number of named sources in Martin’s piece? Zero. Yet, we’re treated to lines like this in Martin’s smearfest:

After the experience, the campaign, filled with conservatives who thought well of Palin, began referring to her as “Princess Sarah,” said the source close to the situation.

What campaign? We don’t know. Martin doesn’t tell us. Who on the campaign was referring to Palin as ‘Princess Sarah?’ Was it someone who didn’t like Palin in the first place? The janitor? The campaign manager? All of them? Two people? We don’t know. Martin doesn’t tell us. Well, who’s the source giving Smith this information? We don’t know. Smith doesn’t tell us.

This is a problem because if you wanted to verify anything Martin wrote, it would be impossible to do. So, in other words, you have to just take Jonathan Martin’s word for everything in the article. Nothing personal, Jonathan, but you don’t have that kind of credibility.

PS: The reason I even bothered to respond to this is not because it’s damaging. If everything in it was true, it would probably be an indication that Sarah Palin needs to hire a more experienced staffer to handle her scheduling.

The problem is that this story is indicative of the attitude the media has. A story like this about Barack Obama would NEVER get greenlighted in the first place. Yet, the media will churn out story after story after story like this about Republicans they hate. With someone like Barack Obama, you can’t even get basic background info on things people are interested in — like his family life growing up or his college days. It’s like the media is afraid they might actually turn up something damaging; so they have to avert their eyes lest they see it. Yet, they’re willing to throw their standards in the garbage and spend endless time and effort examining the most minute details of the lives of Republicans they want to destroy. All that would be fine if they were at least honest about what they’re doing. But instead, they pretend to be objective journalists. The truth is that they’re every bit as ideological as Right Wing News or the Daily Kos, but they’ve made a decision that they can be more effective by being subtle about it.

Correction: Jonathan Martin wrote this piece. Originally, the post errantly listed Ben Smith, not Jonathan Martin, as the author.

Endnotes:
  1. extraordinarily mediocre hit piece: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43936.html

Source URL: https://rightwingnews.com/media/ben-smiths-crappy-unsourced-third-rate-amateur-hour-hit-piece-on-sarah-palin/