A New Comedy Act is Born….

Larry, Curly and Moe are being replaced.

Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages, allow me to present the Three New Stooges.

Bill Hillard

Bill Kovich

John Seigenthaler

Here is the deal. Jack Kelley, a reporter for USA Today, the newspaper that no one buys because they give it away free at motels, fabricated numerous stories during the years he worked at the paper.

He lied in so many of them and he cheated on his expense account so many times, that he makes Jayson Blair of the recent New York Times scandal look like a two-bit player in the world of faking-it-journalism.

USA Today, like the New York Times, would now have us believe that no one at the newspaper ever suspected that a reporter could be making up fake stories and fake petty cash slips.

So, they have appointed these three stooges, Hillard, Kovich, and Seigenthaler, to investigate and report to the world just what Kelley did.

The plot is diabolical. USA Today gets caught and now it is going to make a buck on this thing by setting up a panel of three and then publish a running report of what they are finding out. A smart way to try and sell newspapers.

The only person at USA Today who did not know that Jack Kelley was lying over and over again was the lady who cleans the bathroom on the sixth floor.

Her cousin who cleans the bathroom on the fourth floor of the New York Times, was the only person at that newspaper who didn’t know that Blair was faking it.

Both of these publications looked the other way and didn’t want to even take a second look at questionable reporting.

Kelley wrote an article. It was handed in to the copy desk. From there it went on to a senior editor. After that it worked its way to the composing people and then finally to the press people.

And, just as his fake articles would work their way through the editorial system, his expense accounts passed through numerous hands in the accounting department.

In 22 years, no one suspected anything?

When you read his lying articles, it is so unbelievably obvious that he was making up the facts.

USA Today and the New York Times have conned the public into thinking that they can be trusted. Having been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar, they now pretend to be investigating the matter and taking steps to see that it doesn’t happen again.

Bill, Bill and John, the three new stooges, will come forward with some explanation of how Kelley was an aberration and the matter will be closed. The New York Times already did that with Blair.

But, USA Today will soon go back to its tricks and another obvious lying reporter will be accepted without question.

We know that because it has already happened at the New York Times. A recent article in their real estate section which lauded a New York City landlord was obviously written by Son of Jayson Blair.

When the New York Times was notified that the landlord in question was probably the number one slumlord in the Big Apple with more than 197 violations on just one of his buildings, the newspaper replied that there was no need to investigate the reporter who did the article. That is the reporter who never ever went to any of the landlord’s buildings.

If you have a bird cage, buy USA Today or the New York Times, but if you want honest reporting without cheating, without lying, without hidden agendas, then buy something decent.

Like the National Enquirer.