TPM: ABC News Badly Mischaracterizes Obama's Alleged "Testy Exchange" With Reporter

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2008/01/abc_news_badly.php

Okay, this is really a bad one. Late yesterday, ABC News posted a story called: "Is Bill Clinton getting in Obama's head?"

The piece reported that Obama had had a "testy exchange" with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny on a South Carolina ropeline, after Obama had been asked whether Bill Clinton was getting "in his head." The whole tone of the story implied that Obama had had a very confrontational moment with Zeleny. Here's the key ABC reporting, with the language implying confrontation in bold:

<snip>

Did it happen this way? Nope.

If the ABC piece initially linked to any video of the moment, I didn't see it -- I'm pretty certain it didn't. Subsequently ABC and Fox News posted video. If you watch it, you can't escape the conclusion that ABC badly mischaracterized what actually happened:

<snip>

More broadly, it's clear that the tone of the exchange wasn't anywhere near as acrimonious as ABC claimed it was. When Obama said, "don't try cheap stunts like that," he was smiling -- he certainly didn't "fire back angrily."

<more>

Yes!
:thumbsdown:

"Facts" can be so troublesome!

Actually, Greg Sargent of TPM takes responsibility for believing the corporate media's report of the incident and passing it along to readers.

By the way, I'm hardly blameless here. Yesterday I did a post over at Election Central on this ABC story that carried the headline, "Obama Gets In Verbal Tussle With Reporter." The post characterized the exchange as a "row." We featured the story on TPM's front page before we'd seen the video. But our descriptions -- which were based on ABC's reporting of the episode -- also mischaracterized what happened.

Anyway, this is a really bad one.

Why are Clinton supporters so desperate?