No one who’s ever read the Post-Standard will be surprised to hear that the paper’s favorable coverage of Congressman Jim Walsh is drawing fire from journalism experts:

The Post-Standard’s decision to run the virtually unedited Iraq journal of Rep. Jim Walsh, was “inappropriate” and “an abdication of journalistic responsibility,” according to Joel Kaplan, associate professor at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. “It’s nice that they got the journal, but I don’t understand the rationale for running it the way they did.”

The whole thing is kind of comical. The paper made to attempt to verify the veracity of what was in the journal:

When asked about the accuracy of assertions in the journal, Stan Linhorst (managing editor of the Post-Standard) replied that it was not for the Post to check the facts before running the journal. “We’ll be following up,” he noted. “In this case, what he said he observed was his to observe, and we weren’t in the position to fact-check it all.”

Even Walsh didn’t expect this kind of hackery:

Walsh himself said that he was surprised to see the journal run as it did. “I gave it to them, but I didn’t expect them to publish the whole journal.”

And the whole journal is filled with Walsh’s trademark political distortions:

Kaplan characterized the Walsh journal as “political and self-serving.” As an example, he mentioned Walsh’s reference, in the second paragraph to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) agreeing to lead the delegation and then “backing out.” Kaplan thought this was a cheap shot at Kerry that added nothing to the story.

 

A call to Kerry’s office to check on this fact elicited this comment from communications director Vincent Morris: “Congressman Walsh is mistaken. Sen. Kerry never committed to the trip. It is not correct to say that he backed out. They talked about several different opportunities. He was looking at possible dates, and spoke to DOD {Department of Defense}. We heard there was interest from the House side and encouraged them to bring members of the House.”

 

Why the swipe at Kerry, a Vietnam vet whose Purple Hearts were ridiculed by Republican operatives in his 2004 presidential campaign? In the interview, Walsh admitted that he had never been in touch with Kerry’s office, but had heard from the DOD that Kerry was interested in a delegation and wanted to invite House members along. In his journal, Walsh said that once Kerry “backed out” Walsh became the senior member, and his staff took over the planning. Kerry’s office disputed this, noting that congressional staffs don’t do much planning on these trips, as they are “run by the Pentagon.” Walsh called back to emphasize that he had “never meant to embarrass Kerry.”

 

(snip)

In another curious twist, The Post-Standard left untouched Walsh’s refusal on Sept. 10 to name the other members of the delegation. On Sept. 11 the paper ran a photo, provided by Walsh, of the delegation in front of a military plane. The caption identifies four members of the delegation, all Republicans.

The Syracuse Post-Standard stopped being a real newspaper long ago. But this is pathetic, even for them.