Brass balls: Not as effective as actually calling people

Almost two months ago we ran the headline “Graydon Carter: Sometimes being right isn’t as important as being first” about how Vanity Fair ran the Deep Throat story without fact-checking it against the only two people who ostensibly knew Deep Throat’s identity, Woodward and Bernstein. Carter got credit for having “<a href="brass balls” for going with the story anyway. But after a British court ruled in favor of Roman Polanski over Vanity Fair and parent Cond&#233 Nast, it seems that Graydon’s balls may be losing their lustre.

Variety reports that Carter is now on the defensive* for running the offending anecdote (about Polanski hitting on a hot Swedish model days after Sharon Tate’s brutal murder) solely on the 33-year old recollection of Lewis Lapham — without attempting to verify the story by calling the hot model, Beatte Telle (or verifying whether she was, in fact, Swedish, which she is, in fact,...

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