"The Right and their big business allies have done an effective job intimidating the mainstream media," said Edwards, "getting them to print or broadcast stories that lack substance or importance. It's time someone in the media, besides Rachel Maddow, stood up to these bullies. NPR is drawing a line in the stand. We are here to tell the truth. And we know that the truth and James O'Keefe rarely inhabit the same space."
A spokesman for President Obama said, "Isn't O'Keefe the guy who plotted to humiliate CNN journalist Abby Boudreau by seducing her on a boat, probably violated Maryland's Wiretap laws, and has been convicted of entering federal property under false pretenses when he attempted to embarrass Senator Mary Landrieu? Why is his group a source of information for anything?"
Senate President Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said, "Even if what the right is claiming is true, this one error is small potatoes and will have no effect on the Democrats continued support of Public Radio."
Keller acknowledged that the New York Times had been suckered too many times by Breitbart and O'Keefe, and pledged to treat them as ideological activists, not credible news sources.
Last year, Keller confessed that the Times' mishandled the ACORN story. After an internal review, he discovered that at least 14 different Times' reporters had covered some part of the ACORN story -- its work stopping predatory lending, thwarting foreclosures, building affordable housing, supporting living wage laws in cities around the country -- and its efforts at voter registration in inner city neighborhoods, as well as Republicans' attacks on the group. Keller admitted that the paper should have assigned one reporter to be responsible for following ACORN.
Keller said, "It turns out that ACORN was a multi-faceted organization. None of the reporters really understood it, and that's why we got the story wrong. I now realize that ACORN was a canary in the coalmine. The conservative activists figured how to manufacture stories and we bought them. Now I intend to stop the intimidation by the Right, starting now. We will not report this story unless we're convinced that it is real news. I have requested one of our bloggers to check it out."
"At a time when 15 million Americans are out of work, our states and cities are broke, and the Middle East is in upheaval, we can't waste valuable media space on phony stories. We're about "all the news that's fit to print. That's not what Breitbart and O'Keefe are about."
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