WaPo outs woman who it says faked Roy Moore story

Interesting story on its own, but would you have handled it the same way?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approached-the-post-with-dramatic--and-false--tale-about-roy-moore-sje-appears-to-be-part-of-undercover-sting-operation/2017/11/27/0c2e335a-cfb6-11e7-9d3a-bcbe2af58c3a_story.html?

Do you think they had enough info to name her?

I think they are spot-on in their description of who she is, but I would have felt better if they had caught her taping the conversations.

Then again, people impersonating Washington Post reporters are being used to discredit the media, so sitting on this for too long may also be harmful.

 

I think all newspapers should feel it is their duty to name sources who feed them bogus info for their own purposes.

 

This is being discussed on the Politics thread, but I think the story deserves its own thread.

I read it with a definite "Well, fuck her" vibe, but I will admit I'm biased in every way against her. I think the GoFundMe page is a pretty good tell, but she also didn't reach her goal, which makes me wonder whether she was able to take the job they accused her of taking.

She absolutely misrepresented herself and got caught lying about who she was and her intentions. But I can see someone reading that story through a more critical lens than mine and wondering about the ethics of it. This is one of those stories you could spend an entire semester teaching.

 

You can say O'Keefe's work is in line with other hidden camera work on stories in the food industry (it didn't end well for ABC either) - but it also seems that a prosecutor could go after her (if not the entire operation) for wire fraud, considering the use of the Internet, and that the intent was to damage the reputation of the Washington Post.

 

The anonymous sources in Washington who lie every day should also be burned without exception.

 

I read it buy don't remember -- did they name her or just say she wasn't who she claimed to be?

Either way, she got what she deserved.

 

They definitely named her.

Good.

And this, it’s like watching a squirrel try to play chess with Bobby Fischer:

Phillips had said she lived in Alabama only for a summer while a teenager; but the cellphone number Phillips provided had an Alabama area code.

If you’re going to do this, at least put a little goddamn effort in. Sheesh.

 

Absolutely fine with naming her. She was working for a fraud, human garbage James O'Keefe trying to discredit SEXUAL ASSAULT victims.

Both of them can go straight to hell, along with Roy Moore.

Excellent, excellent journalism by the Washington Post. Top-notch.

 

She repeatedly asked the reporter what she thought this would do to the moore campaign. It shows how, if the reporter answered those questions, they can do a little editing and give it a whole different look so it appears that it is the reporters mission to destroy moore.
They already have the video of okeef being approached on the street by another reporter asking about the story. Wapo has the video and you can see what okeef has done to it to change the slant. Haha, also accuses the reporter of using his technique---walking up to someone on the street and asking them questions.
I hope the 2 posters from the catfish thread pop in here, they are very concerned about the state of reporting and the media and this is a great thread for that discussion.

 

O'Keefe is having a nice Twitter meltdown right now.

He's even showing a video claiming WaPo bias, when in reality, it's one of their journalists explaining the difference between covering a news story and an editorial.

Yep. Big scoop.

 

I'd love to read the story but all it does is show up with a huge banner asking me to subscribe to the Washington Pissed. No thanks.

 

Here are some highlights.


In a series of interviews over two weeks, the woman shared a dramatic story about an alleged sexual relationship with Moore in 1992 that led to an abortion when she was 15. During the interviews, she repeatedly pressed Post reporters to give their opinions on the effects that her claims could have on Moore’s candidacy if she went public.
But on Monday morning, Post reporters saw her walking into the New York offices of Project Veritas, an organization that targets the mainstream news media and left-leaning groups.
In a follow-up interview, O’Keefe declined to answer repeated questions about whether the woman was employed at Project Veritas. He also did not respond when asked if he was working with Moore, former White House adviser and Moore supporter Stephen K. Bannon, or Republican strategists
“We always honor ‘off-the-record’ agreements when they’re entered into in good faith,” said Martin Baron, The Post’s executive editor. “But this so-called off-the-record conversation was the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us. The intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap. Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren’t fooled, and we can’t honor an ‘off-the-record’ agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith.”
That same day, Gateway Pundit, a conservative site, spread a false story from a Twitter account, @umpire43, that said, “A family friend in Alabama just told my wife that a WAPO reporter named Beth offer her 1000$ to accuse Roy Moore.” The Twitter account, which has a history of spreading misinformation, has since been deleted.
On Nov. 14, a pastor in Alabama said he received a voice mail from a man falsely claiming to be a Post reporter and seeking women “willing to make damaging remarks” about Moore for money. No one associated with The Post made any such call.
Later that day, Phillips told Reinhard that she felt “anxiety & negative energy after our meeting,” text messages show. “You just didn’t convince me that I should come forward,” she wrote. Reinhard replied, “I’m so sorry but I want to be straight with you about the fact-checking process and the fact that we can’t guarantee what will happen as a result of another story.”
Phillips said she didn’t want to get into the details of what she had said happened between her and Moore.

She said she wanted McCrummen to assure her that the article would result in Moore’s defeat, according to a recording. McCrummen instead asked her about her story regarding Moore.

Phillips complained that President Trump had endorsed Moore.

“So my whole thing is, like, I want him to be completely taken out of the race,” she said. “And I really expected that was going to happen, and now it’s not. So, I don’t know what you think about that.”