Video: AP Executive Editor Refuses to Delete Deceptive Tweet About Clinton Foundation
The Associated Press has been coming for some justifiable criticism over their distorted reporting on the Clinton Foundation, and one of the most egregious examples was this tweet:
BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 23, 2016
This headline is simply wrong, because it’s describing people who met with Clinton specifically to talk about the Clinton Foundation, not about all of the people who had meetings with Clinton. It’s wrong, period. And Donald Trump used it to viciously, dishonestly attack Hillary Clinton, of course.
So why is it still posted on Twitter?
Here’s AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll saying the tweet was “clumsy” and “sloppy,” but refusing to delete it.
BRIAN STELTER (HOST): Now the story was scrutinized, but this tweet was especially scrutinized. Really widely criticized. It said: “Breaking, AP analysis: More than half of those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.” There’s no link to a story there. And the tweet, I would say, is inaccurate. The Clinton campaign and several other media outlets have scrutinized the tweet, they’ve said it was wrong, and then there’s wider questions about why the AP published the story at all. They conducted a long investigation, did they just want to show they had done the work? Did they just want to show that they had found something, even if it didn’t amount to much?
[..]
STELTER: Really one of the things that was scrutinized the most was that tweet, let’s put it back on screen if we can. It suggested that half of the people Clinton met, overall during her State Department time were donors to the Clinton Foundation. Would you agree that tweet was inaccurate?
KATHLEEN CARROLL, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ASSOCIATED PRESS: I would say that we’re a lot better at breaking stories and covering news and gathering video and taking photographs than we are on tweets on some day and this one could have used some more precision.
STELTER: Does that mean regret?
CARROLL: No. If we felt it was wrong we would have taken it down right away.
STELTER: But it was wrong. It says that half of the people she met with were donors.
CARROLL: Yeah. I think it was sloppy.
STELTER: Sloppy?
CARROLL: Yeah.
STELTER: Why not delete it? Why not take it down and correct it?
CARROLL: Well, you know maybe going forward we would need to work more on our precision on the tweets.
This is just part of a wider pattern of incredibly bad media coverage of this election, in which the “both sides do it” nonsense has become a non-stop media mantra — even with a Republican candidate who is a blatant racist and conspiracy theorist.