September 7, 2004
MND VS. MSM:
“Boos” Scandal Widens: AP Stonewalls; Knight-Ridder Also Distributed Hoax (Nicholas Stix, 9/07/04, MND NEWSWIRE)
At press time (3 a.m. Tuesday), the Associated Press still had failed to respond to inquiries by Men’s News Daily regarding the false story that it published on Friday afternoon.As reported here yesterday, Friday’s, Associated Press (AP) story by Tom Hays, Ron Fournier, Frank Eltman, David Hammer and Marc Humbert reported that a crowd of thousands at a Bush rally that day in Wisconsin booed Pres. Bush’s news that Pres. Clinton had been hospitalized with chest pains and faced bypass surgery, and Bush’s prayers and best wishes for Clinton’s speedy recovery.
The AP, a wire service founded in 1848, describes itself as “the largest and oldest news organization in the world.”
A variation on the AP’s false story was also spread by Knight-Ridder reporter Seth Borenstein.
According to Knight-Ridder’s corporate Web site, it is “The second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, it owns 31 dailies and operates the Real Cities network of more than 100 local news Web sites in 88 markets.”
Between AP and Knight-Ridder, the false story likely reached tens of millions of potential voters. Wisconsin, the site of the non-story, is a battleground state that is still in play, with ten electoral votes up for grabs.
Much as folks would like to think that the Internet has the press on the run, the difference in reach between a biased story and the gadflys who correct it is terribly uneven. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2004 10:42 AM
Mr. Judd;
The bigger effect won't be discrediting any particular story, but Old Media in general. This will have happened when a candidate can simply say "AP just made that up" and be believed by the general populace.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at September 7, 2004 12:44 PM"[T]the difference in reach between a biased story and
the gadflys who correct it is terribly uneven."
It's not the state; it's the trend.
Posted by: Tom at September 7, 2004 12:52 PMAs blogs become better knowm and more widely read, mightn't the pushback from angry reporters (who have been caught) be quite severe? And quite amusing?
Who wouldn't like to scroll through the inbox of the AP reporter (T. Hays) who wrote the initial story about the boos in WI?
Posted by: jim hamlen at September 7, 2004 5:10 PMOrrin:
Despair is a sin. Dare to struggle, dare to win!
Posted by: Peter B at September 7, 2004 6:45 PMOrrin's right.
The damage to the US by the false story planted about using nukes on North Vietnam has never been erased.
the planter was Orrin's hero, Buckley.
Now, Orrin's going to post that Buckley's deliberate lie was actually to the US benefit, but that would be true only if we had used them.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at September 8, 2004 7:27 PMWe should have. The failure to use nukes regularly has been disastrous.
Posted by: oj at September 8, 2004 7:32 PM