Eat The Press

The Daily News' Totally Unbiased And Almost-Fact-Checked Review Of "Tabloid Wars"

New York Daily News |  Elizabeth Jensen |  Posted Monday July 24, 2006 at 03:47 PM

"Tabloid Wars" airs tonight, and the New York Daily News is on it, 'cause hardscrabble reporting is what they do best. Unfortunately, fact-checking seems a distant second, which wouldn't be a big deal - hey, mistakes happen all the time - except that this is the Daily News reporting on a series about themselves. You'd think they'd have an edge, but apparently not: they I.D. a Deputy Metro Editor Greg Gittrich as a "reporter" (too bad they didn't read the press materials like other papers did; Bravo, at least, gets it right).

The Daily News does, at least, get their easily-Googleable facts straight regarding the stories covered by the intrepid beat reporters: the News correctly reports a bit wherein gossip reporter Hud Morgan chases a story involving Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. Can't say the same for the NYT's slapdash TV critic Alessandra Stanley: she tells of how Morgan reported an incorrect rumor about Ben Affleck and...Jennifer Lopez. Oops! Those Jennifers are so hard to tell apart!