Conned Big Time

“The bottom line is that someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme. I’ve spent the last two hours going through the database of Capitol Hill Blue stories and removing any that were based on information from Wilkinson (or whoever he is). I’ve also removed his name, quotes and claims from Tuesday’s story about the White House and the uranium claims.|Erasing the stories doesn’t erase the fact that we ran articles containing information that, given the source, was probably inaccurate. And it doesn’t erase the sad fact that my own arrogance allowed me to be conned.|It will be a long time (and perhaps never) before I trust someone else who comes forward and offers inside information….Any news publication exists on the trust of its readers. Because I depended on a source that was not credible, I violated the trust that the readers of Capitol Hill Blue placed in me.”Doug Thompson
—Conned Big Time (Capitol Hill Blue)

I feel for Thompson and applaud him for admitting his mistake. But erasing the stories? I think that posting a disclaimer or a correction on every affected story is probably more ethical than simply throwing the mistakes down the memory hole. Certain stories might have been spiked if it had not been for the imaginary information supplied by “Wilkinson.”