Newsbusters still playing dumb about right-wing smear of NBC producer

Seven days is an awfully long time for an update, don't you think?

It's the case where the right-wing group Americans for Limited Government sent our press releases that an NBC producer had emailed a staffer there with the anti-semitic note, “Bite me Jew boy!” NBC adamantly denied the claim and said it could prove, via IT analysis, that the producer's email never contained that message. (It read simply, “Take me off this list!”)

As I noted earlier this week, Politico's Michael Calderone reported that ALG is now refusing to produce any evidence that would authenticate is smear campaign against the NBC producer. Specifically, ALG is refusing to release the email “headers” which could help prove definitively whether the anti-semitic blast was legit.

In fact, over the weekend, Newsbusters, hyping the anti-NBC story, urged ALG to release the headers. Wrote Newsbusters' Matthew Sheffield:

ALG can help prove their case further if they release the email in its entirety including the “header” information which tells from what exact computers the message was sent. I've put in an email to ALG asking for the headers and will keep everyone posted.

And in another post Sheffield wrote [emphasis added]:

NewsBusters has contacted ALG media representatives and asked for the message header. ALG director of outreach Sergio Gor said that the raw message was stored on an office computer unavailable for use over the weekend. "I will have those emailed to you on Monday," he told us via email.

That post was Saturday. It's now seven days later and as Politico has reported, ALG categorically refuses to release the “headers” or any other information to back up their smear campaign. Yet for some reason Newsbusters has been mum about the story. Newsbusters urged the right-wing group to confirm its claim of anti-semitism at NBC. But when ALG refused, Newsbusters suddenly lost interest in the smear campaign.

And these people critique the media for a living?