There’s been a lot of debate over at Jim Romenesko’s media blog regarding the totally overreported incident in which the Washington Post’s Spencer Hsu reprinted an easily verifiable fact error — not the kind of thing I like to see, but out of the many media missteps documented on this blog and elsewhere every day, hardly the most egregious.

Yesterday, Romeneskyite* Michael David Smith sent the media blogger an e-mail providing “smoking gun” evidence of conservative bias in the Washington Post:

Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler wrote on Sunday of the Post’s decision to print the false accusations of a senior Bush official against Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Getler acknowledged that Post reporter Spencer S. Hsu was wrong to repeat a bogus charge, but he also took a swipe at people “who use such moments to bash the media for alleged bias.”
The thing is, there is nothing “alleged” in Spencer Hsu’s bias. His bias is right there, out in the open, for all to see.
By law, political donations are disclosed in this country, which means that Hsu can’t hide that he’s a Republican partisan: The public information that he gave $1,031 to the Republican Party of Virginia last year makes that perfectly clear to anyone who wants to look.
Maybe Hsu thought no one would bother to look at the public record because he couldn’t be bothered to look at the public record of whether Blanco had declared a state of emergency.

Maybe Michael David Smith couldn’t be bothered to check with the Washington Post before firing off his e-mail. The Post’s response:

The listing on the Opensecrets.org website is inaccurate in suggesting that Washington Post reporter Spencer Hsu made a political donation of $ 1,031 to the Virginia Republican Party on Aug. 4, 2004.
This payment was not a political contribution or donation of any kind. It was reimbursement to the Virginia Republican Party for a hotel room for Mr. Hsu during the Republican National Convention in New York. Mr. Hsu was covering the Virginia delegation to the convention. Standard practice was to house the reporter with the delegation, and to reimburse the delegation later for the cost.
We have a Washington Post expense ledger that shows that Mr. Hsu was reimbursed $ 1,031.08 by The Post for “Lodging” on Aug. 6, 2004.

Before you go a-hunting for conservative bias in the Washington Post, it’s better to come down off the mushrooms.

*If nobody’s used that before, you heard it first here. Browse Romenesko’s site and you’ll see what I mean. Or click here.