Liberals were all aflutter, after all this piece came just as North Carolina voters passed the same-sex marriage ban to be added to their constitution on Tuesday, Joe Biden had stated his support for same-sex marriages and Barack Obama was due to give an interview which sources told liberal blogs he was going to come out in support of gay marriage. Which he did, in a complete reversal from his previously stated positions.
Back to the Washington Post story. They evidently published their so-called news before having their facts straight because they were forced to make corrections after another media outlet, ABC News, dug deeper and found contradictions to what Washington Post had reported. (They made changes but did not make note of those changes anywhere in the original story)
Timed to drop the day after President Obama’s announced embrace of same-sex marriage, the story set the political world atwitter. But earlier today, Breitbart News reported that the Post had inflated witness testimony. The original Washington Post piece stated the following:
“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and has long been bothered by the Lauber incident. [emphasis added]
Yet in an interview with ABC News today, White disowned that characterization:
While the Post reports White as having “long been bothered” by the haircutting incident,” he told ABC News he was not present for the prank, in which Romney is said to have forcefully cut a student’s long hair and was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.
White didn’t know about the incident until this year, but the Post reported that he had “long been bothered” by it. We demanded a correction.
So the Washington Post did what no reputable newspaper should ever do when caught falsifying testimony: it made a stealth correction to its own article. The article now reads:
“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and said he has been “disturbed” by the Lauber incident since hearing about it several weeks ago, before being contacted by The Washington Post. “But I was not the brunt of any of his pranks.” [emphasis added]
The Post did not note that it had made any correction to the article.
It was irresponsible of the Post to run the hit piece in the first place, especially given its obvious bias; to retract a critical phrase and replace it without noting the retraction is just as bad.
ABC News did more digging and quotes the sister of the supposed victim, who is deceased now, saying the "portrayal of John is factually incorrect and we are aggrieved that he would be used to further a political agenda."
ABC News also reports that Washington Post's "source" wasn't even present during the alleged bullying incident they "reported" on.
This type of sloppy, factually incorrect stories could be one of reasons why the Washington Post is suffering steep losses in circulation, advertising and revenues.
This is just the start of the Obama media's campaign to get him reelected.