Is www.thesmokinggun.com a legitimate news source?

Or just the next generation tabloid?

Eh, depends on how you define “news”. Photos of Jose Padilla’s fingerprints from his earlier arrests and odd bits and pieces of transcripts from his circuit court hearings don’t count as “news” in my book.

Neither do mug shots of various criminal “getting their 15 minutes of fame” semi-celebrity types, like R. Kelly.

The website reminds me of those folks who go through celebrity garbage, happily glomming onto things like “Madonna’s empty aspirin bottles!”

Pathetic, in other words.

Not news, in other words.

Not even a tabloid, because there are no stories. There’s no real writing, just miscellaneous bits and pieces of “evidence”.

When I think of “tabloid” style journalism, I think of made-up stories and sensational slants.

Their mode of operation seems to be to just post some documents they got or otherwise legally acquired.

For example, the blurb accompanying this article seems to lay the blame for the sending of this invitation squarely at Dick Cheney’s feet, when the likely culprit lies in using the Republican Contributor Address Database. Send a donation to the GOP in the name of your dog and maybe he’ll get invited to kibble with the prez too.

Nevertheless, I don’t think anything on there is excessively biased towards any political or sensationalist angle. Do you have a link or two with comments?

GQ is for questions with factual answers. Since this is a matter of opinion, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.

I guess a more specific question would be:

When people see a reference to thesmokinggun.com as a cite for “evidence”, do they laugh it off or consider it seriously?

They never make up documents, in my experience, so they are a credible cite. I wouldn’t laugh off a reference, but I would go and read the document myself. Mainly because different people will read different things into the same document. For instance, a police report is a legitimate document, but it does not prove guilt in any way, and using it in an argument as such is not valid.

If it weren’t for them, Rick Rockwell would probably still be married to Darva Conger. So I’d say yes.

Jeez, but you gotta love that description of Peter Buck from REM getting wacky on British Airways. It’s entertainment with a factual documentary bent.

explain?

If memory serves me right, a couple years ago, the Fox network had a kooky special entitled Who Wants To Marry A Multi-Millionaire?, the winner of which was a woman by the name of Darva Conger. All was well and good, until The Smoking Gun™ (a division of CourtTV) let loose the dogs of war. Turns out in 1991, Rick Rockwell, the multi-millionaire in question, threatened to kill his ex-wife. Judge issued a restraining order. After the Gun brought out the bad stuff, Darva filed for divorce. She is now happily un-married.