It’s one thing for a newspaper to fail to correct an error. It’s another matter entirely to keep repeating the mistake. So either the Washington Post is in fact playing an April Fool’s Day prank on the blogosphere, or the denizens of the WaPo’s newsroom have their craniums securely corked up their defecating apparatuses.

At least WaPo chief political correspondent Terry Neal had the guts to answer questions regarding the bogus GOP “talking points memo” during an on-line Q&A today, unlike media reporter Howard Kurtz. But Neal apparently doesn’t read what his newspaper’s own wire service distributes:

Arlington, Va.: Both the Post and ABC incorrectly reported that the memo was distributed by Republican leaders, and described it as a GOP memo. When will we see a correction?

Terry Neal: This is what Mike Allen, who wrote the story, told Howie Kurtz about the memo earlier this week:

“The Post’s Allen said “the blog interest has been stoked by secondhand accounts” that the paper’s story referred to Republican talking points. “We simply reported that the sheet of paper was distributed to Republican senators and told our readers explicitly that the document was unsigned, making clear it was unofficial,” he said. “We stuck to what we knew to be true and did not call them talking points or a Republican memo. The document was provided by an official who has a long record of trustworthiness, and this official gave a precise account of the document’s provenance, satisfying us that it was authentic and that it had been used in an attempt to influence Republican senators.” Allen said that under the journalistic ground rules, he could not say whether the source was a Democrat or a Republican.”

So I can’t speak for ABC, but at this point, there’s no reason for a correction, based on what the Post reported.

As you have been reading here at Rathergate.com and elsewhere, the Allen quote is incorrect. Although the version of Allen’s original story in the Post does not conclude the memo is genuine, the Post’s wire service has sent several stories to national newspapers that state that the GOP authored and distributed the memo as a matter of undeniable fact. But there are no facts to back up this claim.

It only gets better. Neal tackles the issue from another reader who was not satisfied with Neal’s explanation:

Springfield, Va: Lets try again. From WashingtonPost.com:
This article, published by the Post with A Reuters byline, clearly states that the memo was distributed by Republican Senators.
I think Arlington was right — the Post needs to publish a correction.

Terry Neal: OK…I’ve got to take this one, then I’m out. The Reuters story did not run in the Washington Post. The Washington Post would not run a wire story on something like this. The story was apparently up on the webstite for a minute, but it was written by Reuters. If there is proof that the Republican leadership did NOT distribute this memo, then yes, Reuters should issue a correction. And yes, washingtonpost.com, I would think, would note in the corrections area that Reuters incorrectly reported that fact. But I still don’t think there’s proof that some in the GOP leadership did not pass the memo around.

The story was not “up on the website for a minute” — I just checked a moment ago, it’s still there, and the story is dated March 20.

It gets better. There’s another article by Reuters on the Post’s website. It’s still there too, and it loudly and proudly shows where the writer got his information on the memo:

A memo distributed to Republican senators by party leaders called the case a “great political issue” and a “tough issue for Democrats,” the Washington Post said in its Sunday edition [blogger’s emphasis].

Now it gets worse. A lot worse. Let’s revisit what Neal said, shall we?

If there is proof that the Republican leadership did NOT distribute this memo, then yes, Reuters should issue a correction. And yes, washingtonpost.com, I would think, would note in the corrections area that Reuters incorrectly reported that fact. But I still don’t think there’s proof that some in the GOP leadership did not pass the memo around.

Didn’t we hear this crap during Memogate? This kind of attitude makes good journalists throw up. So it’s up to the GOP to prove that they DIDN’T write and distribute this memo? So it’s up to anyone wronged by an MSM error to prove themselves innocent? In short, it’s up to the public to do for free what Washington Post journalists are paid to do?

Boy, I’d like to punch my old editors in the teeth right now. All these years, they had me do all this extra work to be able to back up my stories, when checking my facts was in reality the responsibility of the people and government officials I was writing about.

Because I can’t explain why Neal would say something like this, all I can do is apologize for him. Ethical, competent reporters don’t do things like this. We work hard. If we make an accusation in our stories, it is backed up with proof, and the accused have plenty of space to explain themselves. We don’t place the onus of our public trust on others. And when we screw it up, we print a correction immediately and we say sorry.

I close with one more point, in this case regarding the media’s skunk-low ratings for ethics and credibility. Thanks, Mr. Neal. Thanks a lot.

UPDATE: If your deja vu detector is going off, it’s because just last month, CNN kept re-broadcasting a misquote of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena’s account of her brush with death at a U.S. checkpoint in Iraq.

UPDATE 2: Welcome, Malkin readers!

UPDATE 3: Blogger Dinocrat finds an on-line first copy of the story by Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia that says the memo was “distributed to Republican senators by party leaders.” Powerline has some very solid theories as to how this happened.