The Unanswered Question

There are tricks journalists use to avoid uncomfortable, unanswerable or unpalatable points. One is to simply leave out an important piece of the story, but write the rest of the story oblivious to that lack. Fast-reading, skimming or uncritical readers will skip right over the pothole, unawares. You either have to know the whole story when you start reading, or read critically every time to catch the maneuver.

For example? Take this story from Editor & Publisher. It looks at an apology that lefty journalist Bill Moyers is making to Reagan-era Interior Secretary James Watt. In a speech Moyers gave at Harvard recently, he falsely attributed to Watt a quote and a circumstance that never happened, defaming Watt then using that to defame Christians in general.

The story was picked up by newspapers around the country. It was also caught by bloggers, who commented on the anti-Christianism, and how it was used to attack skeptics of the environmental movement. Moyers claimed that Christians who believed in an imminent Rapture simply didn't care about the environment because they believed it was all going to be over soon, and that they were driving the anti-environment Bush administration agenda. It was a pretty scurrilous and was roundly condemned.

Editor & Publisher tells you about the speech, the falsehood, that Moyers will be apologising, that Watt is being allowed to respond in some of the papers that printed Moyers' speech as a guest editorial. They talk with several newspapers about how they will handle the correction.

But nowhere is the fulcrum of the story visible. The closest they come is with the two following statements:

The text of the speech has since appeared in several newspapers and on numerous Web sites....

Moyers said he chose to apologize after learning of Watt's dismay yesterday. "I called Watt and spoke with him and said I had seen this on the Web," Moyers said.

Moyers' anti-Christianity and the outrage it sparked amongst many in the Christian community have been disappeared, as though it's not the point.

Also unmentioned is how Moyers learned of Watt's feelings and the error. It's slightly alluded to in the second quote, but otherwise skipped over.

The missing link is here: Powerline blog. John Hinderaker, aka HindRocket, posted the following:

I read Moyers' piece after several readers pointed out to us how over-the-top it was. I knew that Moyers' claims about Watt couldn't possibly be true, for two reasons. First, the concept of stewardship is so fundamental to Christian theology that the claim is laughable on its face. Second, I remember the Reagan administration. James Watt was a controversial figure; but one thing he was not controversial for was advocating environmental pillaging, on the theory that Jesus would be back any day now. That would have been quite a news story in the early 1980s, had it been true.

I did some quick Google searches without finding anything noteworthy; in particular, I couldn't find Mr. Watt's Congressional testimony online. I put the matter aside, not having time to pursue it further.

Friday morning, I was sitting in my office when my telephone rang. On the phone was a soft-spoken man who said, "I'm calling for Mr. John Hinderaker."

"Speaking," I responded, in the brusque tone I use when fielding cold calls.

The man said, "My name is James Watt."

Watt himself sent a letter to Moyers demanding an apology and taking him to task for his defamation.

It was this story that was linked across the Internet, and which likely is what caught Moyers' attention. Unless Moyers read the Watt letter and "misremembered."

Read the whole Powerline post, and its follow-up. They provide the context and explanation that E&P couldn't be bothered with. Many in the news business are still hostile to blogs, but to excise them from a story is inexplicable.