I love how this totally chickenshit MSNBC account of the Tom Cruise-vs.-South Park censorship story doesn’t even mention the title of the satirical episode that Cruise prevented from being re-run last Wednesday night — “Trapped in the Closet.” I’m also enjoying the determination of old-media reporters to overlook the first-anywhere reporting about this episode by journalist Mark Ebner, a longtime Scientology critic who provided research for the controversial Matt Stone and Trey Parker-authored episode and was the first to post the story. (I ran what I believe was the first link to it, at 1:11 am on Thursday). At first the Associated Press referred only to the news having broken on “internet sites”, but then Ebner got AP’s Erin Carlson to credit Hollywood Interrupted. Variety columnist Michael Fleming declined to credit Ebner in his own story. Reuters, who didn’t credit Ebner either, explained that he had backed the story up with two sources of his won. It’s standard procedure, of course, for old-media reporters to try and downplay or ignore new-media reportings, particularly when it comes to breaking stories.
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