PERIODICALLY, SOME OLD-MEDIA TYPE assaults the blogosphere for being full of unedited stuff that could damage people’s reputations unfairly. Paul Musgrave, writing in the Hoosier Review, thinks he’s found such an example.

The only problem is that Musgrave commits all the sins he purports to denounce. He doesn’t interview any of the people he criticizes, he tells only one side of the story, and — though I have nothing to do with the story at all — he drags me in at the end. (Maybe I’m one of the “rabid Zionists” he’s denouncing?)

That’s most likely a troll. So I’m not including a link. But it hardly adds to Musgrave’s credibility, or the Hoosier Review’s.

UPDATE: Okay, I’ve corresponded with Paul Musgrave. He says it wasn’t a troll, and that the email I got from someone else at the Hoosier Review steering me to the piece was unrelated. And he’s agreed that tying me to the story was unfair, so he’s taken the reference out. He also says that he did, in fact, try to contact the people he criticized but received no response. Here’s the link. For what it’s worth, several people pointed me toward the story he writes about, but I didn’t post on it because it just didn’t seem like as big a deal as people were trying to make out of it. That’s one reason why I was so offended to be dragged into it anyway.

LAST UPDATE: Here’s IsraPundit’s response, via email:

In terms of the article on Hoosier Review concerning a post I made:

1) I am not sure how you got pulled into this. I did not do it. . . .

2) Sabry’s phone numbers were displayed on his page so I did not think that it was such a big deal to put them up. I took them down the next day or so though at the suggestion of atlantic blog. I guess the item had already been picked up.

What do you think the proper thing to do was?

3) I do not believe I flamed Sabry. I am not 100% sure what the term means but I did not insult him. I did not refer to him as being anti-Semitic, only tasteless and much of my email was factual.

4) For all the author of the article complains about my methods or those of the blogosphere in contrast to the great ethics of ‘real’ journalism, you think he would have sent Israpundit or the Zionblogster an email. Both addresses are on the israpundit page.

5) The fact that Sabry removed the page after reviewing school policy would seem to indicate that I was correct in substance (perhaps not method).

6) I was also corresponding with a member of the board of trustees who after consulting a lawyer said that this was protected by free speech. I was going to send a reply but now I think the issue is dead. I do not think the university had

to allow him to have this up on their system, but you are the law professor.

Zion Blogster

Israpundit

So there you are. As for the old media versus blogs in terms of harming people’s reputations, as my counterexample I’ll just offer Garrison Keillor’s unfounded accusations about Norm Coleman as a counterexample. It’s true that some publications won’t pick them up. But plenty of others did.