[Please see update at the end of this post.]

It’s fun to check in with Memeorandum now and then to see what the righties are linking to. Yesterday they were swarming like flies to a carcass to a story that appears to be phony.

I say “appears”; maybe it isn’t. It’s hard to tell, for reasons that I hope become apparent as you read this post. The point of this post is not to prove or disprove certain allegations, but to illustrate how, shall we say, uncritical reading and writing can create a lot of smoke without there necessarily being a fire.

So, here we go:

An editorial in the Washington Times alleged that Air America Radio is stealing money from poor children and sick old people.

Did Al Franken’s liberal radio network Air America divert city money for the elderly and inner-city children to itself? That’s the question people should be asking this week after the revelation that the New York Department of Investigation is looking into whether hundreds of thousands of dollars were illegally transferred from a Bronx community center to Air America.

Now, this may be true, but it can’t be verified through the Department of Investigation web site. And as I examined various other stories it seems no one has verified this claim with the D of I directly. So how does the Washington Times know about this outrage? From “sources quoted anonymously by the Bronx News,” it says.

I live about a ten minutes’ drive from the Bronx and wasn’t aware there is a Bronx News. Nor could I find the Bronx News through Google. There is a Bronx Times, and the Bronx Times recently carried a story about the legal difficulties of this same community center, the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club, but there was no mention in that story of Air America.

So for the moment, put aside the Bronx News, which may or may not exist. What about the other sources? “The New York Daily News buried an item at the end of a column of news briefs,” says the Washington Times. I will return to the Daily News in a moment. The Washington Times also says,

We only found out about it through the reporting of Brian Maloney, who pieced a story together on his blog “The Radio Equalizer” which was picked up by syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin.

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. So I googled for Brian Maloney–A talk host since 1993, Time Magazine compared Brian Maloney to Rush Limbaugh–and found Maloney’s version of the story– “Air America’s Dirty Dough.”

What happens when the mainstream media, after years of seething over conservative talk radio’s success, discover its alternative got diverted public funds, earmarked instead for inner-city youth and seniors?

The answer, with one key exception: they pretend it didn’t happen.

Yes, only because of a New York Daily News tidbit do we know that Bronx-based Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club nearly shut down major programs recently, because almost $500,000 in governmental grant money was instead diverted to Air America’s liberal radio network.

I’m sure the Air America gang would be astonished to find out they are “mainstream media’s alternative” to conservative talk radio, but let’s go on … Here’s the “tidbit”:

In its initial announcement, the DOI said it was probing allegations that program officials “approved significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies.”

According to published reports, the allegations involve Charles Rosen, the founder of Gloria Wise who has stepped down as executive director, investing city contract funds in Air America Radio, the liberal talk radio network.

Evan Cohen, Air America’s former chairman, had served as Gloria Wise’s director of development.

I emphasized the “published reports” line because we’re going to investigate what those “published reports” are.

If you were to read this paragraph carelessly, you would think that the Department of Investigation is investigating Air America. But that’s not what it says; it says the D of I is investigating the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club. In addition, published reports (from where?) say that Air America is involved.

On the hunt for the “published reports”– in this paragraph, Maloney provides his chief source of information:

On July 5, for example, a community newspaper called the Gotham Gazette published a story by Michael Horowitz that laid out the evolving scandal in detail. Why wasn’t this on the AP wire straightaway?

Maloney’s link leads to a blank page, but I’m reasonably sure this is the story he’s talking about. In “Youth Funds Diverted to Liberal Radio Station,” Michael Horowitz of the elusive Bronx News explains what he learned from “unidentified informed sources.”

The Bronx News has learned, through informed sources, that the diversion of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club in Co-op City to the liberal Air America Radio is at the center of the city’s probe of corruption at the local club.

Informed sources from where? The NYC Department of Investigation? The Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club? The bar across the street? A ouija board? Michael Horowitz’s butt? Horowitz never says. However, Horowitz continues,

At the center of the investigation, in addition to Charles Rosen, the charismatic leader of the local club for the last 15 years, is Evan Cohen, who resigned, under fire, as chairman of Air America Radio shortly after its start as an alternative to conservative talk radio.

Cohen, at the time the alleged transfers of funds from the Gloria Wise Club to Air America took place, was also the director of Development for the local boys’ and girls’ club, the News has learned.

You can read more about Evan Cohen at Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, Cohen resigned from (or was forced out of) his association with Air America Radio because Air America believed Cohen’s nu