When a reporter has an agenda

The Jack Kelley story has gotten very little play, probably because what little it's gotten has focused primarily on the "yet another reporter too lazy to write his own stories."

And since it's not the Times, and doesn't appear to be about affirmative action gone bad, then it just doesn't get the self-appointed protectors of the press -- Kaus, Kurtz, et cetera -- in a lather.

I wasn't paying attention, myself, until I heard the specifics of what he had actually done on "On the Media" this past weekend.

The guy didn't simply "borrow" from other reporters work, or just get a little creative with character creation and his expense account. He created vicious stereotypes intended to inflame his audience. Whether it was Isreali settlers randomly targeting Palestinian taxi drivers, or conversely a student at a madrassah holding up a photo of the Sears tower saying, "this one's mind," Kelley was adding more than local color. Remarkably, that last story is still available on USA Today's website. And a PDF is available here.

And he knew what he was doing. Kelley was an evangelical Christian (a fact that, like Blair's exploitation of race at the Times, Kelley was able to use to elude his editors and fellow reporters when they grew suspicious at the, shall we say, his level of detail), who often spoke of his "adventures" in the middle east to audiences at churches around the country. Tim "I wanna believe" Russert mentioned the madrassah story on "Press the Meat."

This reporter for one of the largest circulation papers in the world, nominated for a Pulitzer five times by his easily persuaded editors, had an agenda. Many fundamentalist Christians support the Likud party and oppose an Isreali/Palestinian peace because they devoutly believe that Isreal -- specifically its destruction -- is a key element in bringing on the end times.

And it says a lot about the times we're in that his readers, fellow reporters, bloviaters, and of course his editors, were so ready to believe his crude fictions.