StrictConstruct

It’s not a new experience for supporters of Ron Paul, but the media has once again greatly botched a story and caused quite a bit of confusion through misinformation. As reported earlier, ABC News made a blog entry stating Ron Paul was set to drop out on the 6th in a video. When this video showed the opposite, ABC News slowly, and partially retracted its story over a course of several hours. But the damage was done, and sites such as salon.com, antiwar.com, and hotair.com quicky put up articles stating he had withdrawn.

And as noted above, ABC didn’t actually fully retract its story, it just modified it to say that he was “moving on” from the race, which was equally inaccurate. And no less damaging in regards to other press outlets picking up on it, this time with Yahoo News and CNN who both reported that he was “hinting at” dropping out.

So what is the reality? In his video message, he stated that the campaign was winding down - necessitated largely by the fact there are few primaries remaining - but that supporters must work as hard as they can to get as many delegates as possible out of these states to go to the convention. This is not something someone who is hinting at dropping out would do, it is something someone would do if they intend to go all the way to the convention, win or lose. He does, however, note that this movement goes beyond any one person or any one election, but these things do not somehow imply that he is considering dropping out, they imply that however this campaign ends, it is not the end of the movement. The New York Times Blog seems to give the story the best coverage out there to this topic, and covers the key points of the video accurately and without inserting their own conjectures.

But the way many in the press have handled this story is both a joke, and outright disappointing. At this point, however, it is not at all surprising.

(Photo credit to caribb.)