Manufacturing Scandal

Interesting article at WC3PO about the "whisper campaign' by Cincinnati mayoral supporters. While it seemed to be more about a scandal about Roxanne Qualls, it also seemed to be a shot at online commenters & bloggers. A subsequent radio appearance by the author on WLW Clown Radio had the Cunning Ham blathering about journalistic integrity. It was mildly bizarre coming from an integrity challenged controversialist.
The Fishwarp and City Bleat pretty much dispelled the contention that mayoral candidate Roxanne Qualls had done anything unethical. Regardless, mayoral candidate, John Cranley, still took the opportunity to fan the flames of FUD while Qualls dismissed the claims made against Cranley for buying black support, showing a definite difference in character between the two.
The Cincinnati Bizniz Courier did a well rounded article on the whole matter in a non sensationalistic manner.
I kinda wonder if the WCPO author was trying to discredit social media more than any political party. He might be sore over the turn of his career as a journalist more than anything. His last "scandal" involved a blogger, Randy Simes. Both articles appeared to be leaked by Republican shock troops, CO    and both came up invalid. The original WC3PO article noted FaceBook, blogposts & Twitter comments by Jim Kiefer, Mary Kuhl, Derek Bauman, Craig hochsheid and Brian Griffin. Indeed, an online post can take on dimensions a spoken word will not. People's understanding of comments like Joe Shmoe "sold property" may not be interpreted as "Joe was the agent for…", so an online smear campaign can be pretty effective. But what can you say about media outlets and politicians that seek to profit from such rumour mongering?
not much...