In a reminder that members of Congress -- oh, and bloggers, too -- need fact-checkers as much as journalists do, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) felt the need to put out a press release Friday apologizing to three prominent health care reporters. Here's what happened: On July 23, Daily Kos linkurl:reported;http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/23/7140/03171 that ABC's Nancy Snyderman, NBC's Robert Bazell, and PBS' Susan Dentzer were members of the Speakers Network at America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a lobbying group. The blogger, ''nyceve,'' used the item to make a point about the big bad mainstream media -- forever abbreviated MSM. ''No need to wonder any longer why the MSM spews corporate talking points,'' nyceve wrote. Between when the Daily Kos blog was posted and the time that linkurl:another blog;http://mediamatters.org/items/200707260002 picked up the item on July 26, the three reporters had been removed from the AHIP list. Then, at some point, Stark or his office...
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