The statement was, as the old editor's saying goes, "a good story, if true."

From our files, here is what really happened: On Sept. 15, a federal court ordered the election postponed. (The order was later reversed.) The next day at 1:35 p.m., I sent the following e-mail to the reporters working on the story:

"Yesterday, when we discussed your stories, I was concerned about the brief time frame we have for getting them reported and into the paper. The subsequent decision to postpone the election shouldn't be seen as a reason to slow down.

"The information you're seeking, if verified, ought to be known by the voters before election day, not after. It's quite possible that the election will be held as originally scheduled, so please press ahead at full speed."

That was 16 days before the story was published. Does it sound as if we were sitting on it?

This critic's accusation was among several lulus cranked out by local journalists.

It was also written, for example, that Davis was the puppeteer behind the Times stories. Fact: None of the information in the Times stories came from the Davis camp, as we said in the articles when we published them.

It was written that high Democratic officials were kept apprised of the newspaper's probe, step by step. Fact: No Democratic officials were apprised. Because the paper was interviewing many sources, the existence of the investigation was widely known, but the details were not. The Davis people may have learned that the investigation was underway from Web sites, which mentioned rumors about it repeatedly.

It was written that the paper failed to follow up on reports that Davis had mistreated women in his office. Fact: Virginia Ellis, a recent Pulitzer Prize finalist, and other Times reporters investigated this twice. Their finding both times: The discernible facts didn't support a story.

It was written....

Well, you get the idea.

In days past, such misleading stories tended to make a brief splash and then sink into richly deserved oblivion, but we're living in changing times.

Today, if a story has potential to stir resentment among large numbers of people, it is seized like gold by the talk shows. Whether true or false, it is cynically packaged as the inside story "they" don't want you to know.

Early in its electronic life cycle, such a story bounces around the talk shows and the Internet, often presented breathlessly as a revelation. Later, intoned on TV by people in dark suits, it acquires the solemnity of established truth.