The ongoing failure of the press

DailyKos has a nice piece on the latest trend in political reportage-- feed journalists a story on the condition that they agree not to talk to anyone on the other side. The sad thing is that it seems to be working.

As I wrote earlier this morning, Roll Call's Lauren Whittington wrote a story about the GOP's negative ad campaign against Sen. Byrd.

What's particularly egregious about the Roll Call piece is that her Republican source demanded Whittington not talk to any other sources and she agreed, a gross violation of standard journalistic practices. Furthermore, Whittington failed to disclose that arrangement in the story, which ended up being a one-sided affair at the insistence of the Republicans. Whittington essentially wrote a GOP press release for them in a journalistic publication.