Great Moments in Journalism, Walker Derangement Syndrome Dept.

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Last week, the New York Times had to retract the main point of a column it published that blamed Gov. Scott Walker for something that took place before he was elected governor.

Well, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan twice, there they go again. Politico reports:

The Daily Beast has retracted an article from one of its college columnists that claimed that the Wisconsin governor’s budget would cut sexual assault reporting from the state’s universities.

The post, published Friday, cited a report from Jezebel that wrongly interpreted a section of the state budget to mean that all assault reporting requirements were to get cut altogether.

In fact, the University of Wisconsin system requested the deletion of the requirements to get rid of redundancy, as it already provides similar information to the federal government, UW System spokesman Alex Hummel told The Associated Press on Friday.

The Daily Beast retracted thusly:

The Daily Beast is committed to covering the news fairly and accurately, and we should have checked this story more thoroughly. We deeply regret the error and apologize to Gov. Walker and our readers. This story should be considered retracted.

 

Jezebel added:

“We reported this piece without full context, and while this piece conveys factual information, omission of that context for that information presents an unfair and misleading picture. We regret the error and apologize.”

As Rich Galen points out, “Right Facts + Wrong Context = Bad Reporting.”

The Jezebel “reporter” initially was something less than apologetic …

… until, perhaps, an adult talked to her, because this then followed:

 

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