ClooneyGate: The Saga Continues
It's been nine days since George Clooney supposedly entered the blogosphere as a proud liberal, seven days since The Envelope broke the story that Clooney did not actually author the blog post that bore his name (and the subsequent removal of the offending fauxblog), and five days since Arianna Huffington apologized to her readers for ClooneyGate. Still, the scandal that won't die refuses to...die...as The Envelope today once again challenges Huffington on her version of How George Clooney's Unattributed Quotes Became A Blog. Their report is long and complicated enough to resist easy blockquoting, but here's a taste anyway:
A copy of Taback's email fowarded to The Envelope from Kim indicated that after Huffington's sister attended the "Good Night" event, Huffington's interest was sparked in reprinting Clooney's Guardian quote.
Kim's Feb. 18 response gave Taback the go ahead.
Kim explained to The Envelope: "Arianna requested to use an attributed quote from The Guardian. Larry King's interview was never brought up. I gave the okay because everyone does that, uses a quote and links to the original article."
Taback also recalls a phone call prior to the Clooney blog posting, when she asked Huffington about quote attribution. I said, "You are going to source the quotes to the Guardian, right?' And Arianna replied, Naturally.
The Envelope also claims that Huffington has still not apologized to Clooney, which is truly the greatest tragedy of this entire sordid tale of blogging and betrayal. We expect a report on the long-overdue conciliatory fruit basket by the end of the week.