The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has issued a non-apology apology to blogger Charles Johnson for an article in which a reporter inaccurately and unfairly attributed remarks in a blog comment thread to Johnson himself. Writing at Little Green Footballs, Johnson quotes an e-mail from a Post-Dispatch editor. The editor was informing Johnson of a correction to run in the paper, but closed with a non-apology apology (emphasis Johnson's):

That is also the reason that he did not feel compelled to get a response from you for this particular story. At issue here were the comments in question, not your blog posting. No one in the article was criticizing or questioning you or your blog or holding you responsible for those comments.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,
Adam Goodman
Assistant Managing Editor/Metro
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

That's all well and good, perhaps, except that the Post-Dispatch was practically asking "how high" when CAIR yelled "jump," Johnson argued:

“No one was criticizing you or your blog?” I suppose you could say that, if you overlooked the fact that the entire story was published at the behest of a radical Islamic front group, seeking to damage LGF and silence critics. And if you overlook the fact that CAIR was, once again, referred to as a “civil rights group” with no acknowledgement of their well-documented connections to radical groups, or their status as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas funding case.

For more on this, read NB Executive Editor Matt Sheffield's February 20 post.

—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters