A piece of the old media gang's methods takes a hit

The Post's Howard Kurtz notices that the Kerry campaign is hopping mad after NYT reporter Adam Nagourney wrote the following in Monday's paper:
Mr. Kerry's press secretary, Stephanie Cutter, sent an e-mail message to news organizations listing remarks Dr. Dean had made over the past six months that she said demonstrated that his opposition to the war was 'politically driven.' Cutter put a note on the top of the statement demanding that it be reported as 'background' and attributed only to a Democratic campaign.
Kurtz says Kerry's team is 'deeply unhappy' about the outing. 'We've never had a problem with ground rules before,' said Cutter. That's probably true, which is exactly the problem. Journalists' lemminglike and seemingly self-serving tendency to incorporate such no-name attacks in their stories is de rigueur and frequently serves to obscure things and misinform readers. Good for Nagourney for not playing along.

It's high time the masses learned more about exactly how "news" reaches us...