Updated with corrections.

In case you missed reading it in the New York Freakin' Times this morning, the UNC School of Journalism has been spending your tax dollars promoting and defending a hit-piece on John Edwards.

I discovered the story on the blogs yesterday, where the Dome did the best job tracking the events. Here's my take on what happened.

1. A UNC student approached Edwards campaign under what were probably false pretenses to do a hit piece. The campaign cooperated.

2. The student produced a video, which was judged by a Republican faculty member to be fair and balanced. The dean of the UNC J-School also signed off. Apparently neither (they are husband and wife) put much stock in accuracy. The video opens with a factual error about the Southern Village being the most expensive part of Chapel Hill, which is simply not true. (CORRECTION: I do not know the party affiliation of the faculty member involved - and that faculty member is NOT the husband of the dean. See comments below.)

3. When they found about about the video, the Edwards campaign then contacted the student and the faculty adviser. According to those two, the campaign demanded the video be pulled and threatened the student. No names were given and no direct quotes were offered to back the claims of "demands" and "threats."

4. The faculty adviser then went public saying that students need to hold their ground in the face of disgruntled sources, even when that source is a candidate for president. Please see my comments below (which I posted to the faculty adviser's blog.)

Did the Edwards campaign behave badly in this? Probably, but there's only the word of a Republican faculty member and a seemingly Bushbot student to go on, so you'll forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical. But even if they did, is it the proper role of a state-supported blog and a state employee to ignite and fan the flames of controversy?

Note to J-School: You know all those solicitations you send me for contributions? You might want to save yourself some postage in the future.

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For the record, the faculty adviser, Leroy Towns, used to be a senior staffer and campaign manager for Senator Pat Roberts (R) of Kansas. Wrapping up the sad saga this morning, Towns posts to his own taxpayer-supported blog in an attempt to turn the travesty into a "teachable moment." You can read all about it here where I hope my own comment will eventually clear through the site's moderators. Just in case that doesn't happen, this is what I wrote: (CORRECTION, the faculty adviser is not Leroy Towns. The faculty adviser is Charlie Tuggle.)

As a graduate, I have had many occasions to be embarrassed by the School over the years, but this one takes the cake. I followed the story closely as it unfolded in the blogs, and found opportunity for plenty of criticism all around. The Edwards campaign perhaps behaved badly, but faculty and students have nothing to be proud of either.

The first problem is the “story” itself. I use the word in quotes because the actual video is clearly a hit piece that is both factually incorrect and sloppy. In the good old days, such a piece would have received an automatic F - or at least been relegated to the back of a remedial editorial-writing class.

The second problem involves the overblown rhetoric involving “threats” and “demands” supposedly made by the Edwards campaign. Nowhere do we have exact quotes of anything said by anyone involved besides the inept student “reporter” and the writer of this blog.

The third problem is this comment by that very writer, which appeared Under the Dome:

“The Carolina Week staff learned the importance of standing their ground against a disgruntled source, even when that source is a candidate for president.”

As both a technical and practical matter, no candidate for president was a source in this dispute. Nor is there any evidence that a candidate for president was disgruntled. Mr. Towns was either sloppy or purposeful in implicating Edwards personally.

North Carolina’s newspapers are bordering on disgraceful these days, filled with bush-league reporters, factual errors, “gotcha” stories and corporate agendas. Now at least we know one source of that sad state of affairs: the UNC School of Journalism.

Full disclosure: My wife teaches in the School of Journalism. She has no knowledge that I'm writing this and no involvement in my online political activity.