At first glance it looked like the New York Times had finally put a reporter on the ACORN story. But that is not the story that Scott Shane did.
WASHINGTON — For months during last year's presidential race, conservatives sought to tar the Obama campaign with accusations of voter fraud and other transgressions by the national community organizing group Acorn, which had done some work for the campaign.
But it took amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and a pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to Acorn offices, to send government officials scrambling in recent days to sever ties with the organization.
Conservative advocates and broadcasters were gleeful about the success of the tactics in exposing Acorn workers, who appeared to blithely encourage prostitution and tax evasion. It was, in effect, the latest scalp claimed by those on the right who have made no secret of their hope to weaken the Obama administration by attacking allies and appointees they view as leftist.
It is a general rule of journalism that a story is about what its first paragraph is about. This story is about conservatives hunting for leftist scalps. I think all the basic facts of the ACORN story are there, but that opening makes ACORN look like the victims.
The New York Times always manages to rise to the occasion.
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