In today's Marketwatch, our favorite slow-to-catch-on media columnist Jon Friedman puts his (cough) credibility on the line to vouch for Howard Kurtz, who's taken a beating in the press (and on unimportant media blogs) over that plagiarism kerfuffle and subsequent cover-up attempt. To prove his point—by making a flimsy unrelated one—Friedman commends Gawker's recent addition Maggie Shnayerson on her top notch, behind-the-scenes reporting.

Writes Friedman:

The biggest flap occurred when Gawker's Maggie Shnayerson did some terrific fact-checking and revealed that Kurtz's work contained a passage that had originally appeared in David Blum's 2004 book on "60 Minutes."

We're sure the fact that the enterprising Maggie used to WORK FOR BLUM at The Village Voice (a possibly-related factoid she readily discloses in her coup!) had absolutely nothing to do w/ that "terrific fact-checking."*

Unfortunately, however, Jon Friedman's still talking:

"Still, if Shnayerson could find the mistake, you have to wonder how Kurtz, his Free Press editor and the fact-checkers missed it."

Yes, you really do have to wonder…

Anyways, thanks for the cutting edge analysis of Shnayerson's secretly obtained scoop, Jon! Too bad your own fact-checking isn't nearly as "terrific."

*Not to mention the fact that the NYO's follow-up even made a point of mentioning that they received their own fax from Blum just before the Gawker item ran.