CRIKEY, WRONG AGAIN.

For a seemingly bright guy Mark Bahnisch is quite the slow learner. A while back he got into strife by linking to a Crikey article erroneously claiming Larvatus Prodeo is Australia's best read political blog. Now he's reproduced, accepting as factual, a Crikey article accusing The Daily Telegraph of orchestrating the rise and fall of the New South Wales Young Australian of the Year Iktamil Hage-Ali. According to Bahnisch, this is an "outrageous tale of irresponsible media power."

The problem is, the Crikey article offers not a shred of evidence to support the allegations. Oh yeah, there's also the little matter of the irate response from the Telegraph's editor, David Penberthy. Here's the gist of it:

Crikey’s account today of The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of Iktimal Hage-Ali is an absurd and baseless conspiracy theory.

Bahnisch has neither notified his readers of Penberthy's statement nor acknowledged that the Crikey article is almost certainly fantasy.

Crikey authors making stuff up? It has been known to happen.