Matt Drudge's misleading news report

Posted on Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 10:29 AM

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Yesterday the Drudge Report - the website which has been the clearing house for the right wing's fever dreams for over a decade - ran a story that informed millions of its daily readers that PBS had edited a glaring error out of President Obama's job speech on Thursday.

Obama, a headlined article on Drudge's website claimed, had called Abraham Lincoln the founder of the Republican party. But guess what, said the link on drudge's site, that claim wasn't in PBS's official transcript.

'So PBS has purposely altered a transcript containing a major gaffe by the President,' claimed the report.

Naughty PBS, no funding should go to those pinkos, and no rice pudding neither.

But don't reach for the smelling salts just yet. It isn't true. The story that ran on Matt Drudge's report isn't true. At all.

That, of course, hasn't prevented Fox News from running it on their website right now. Because for conservatives, the desire to give PBS a black eye overrides other pesky considerations like professional standards and ethical journalism.

PBS published Obama's prepared remarks (the written ones) as opposed to his actual speech, where he introduced the part about Abraham Lincoln founding the GOP.

PBS is not responsible for Obama, or anyone, going off script. This was not a conspiracy or a coverup, and it's really just a new marker of hoe desperate the right have become to find some scandal - any scandal - with which to bring down Obama's presidency.

Frankly, in their enthusiasm for a victory - any victory - it was surprising to see them throw Lincoln under the bus too. But I don't know why I should be surprised by that, at this point.

By yesterday evening Drudge quietly pulled the report without issuing an apology, a correction or even an explanation.

I suppose we shouldn't expect clarity or an explanation if it's already tacitly understood what a website stands for.

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hollabackgurl | Sep 11, 2011, 11:02 AM EDT

The story stayed on Drudge's site all day, long after it had been established it was misleading. He printed no retraction or apology. That's how we know.

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hollabackgurl | Sep 11, 2011, 11:01 AM EDT

This article is about Drudge, why don'y you comment on Drudge? He drives more traffic than Facebook so he has a responsibility to ensure what he's printing is factual.

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rgray222 | Sep 11, 2011, 10:53 AM EDT

Why don't you report how misleading Obama has been to the American people. Close Gitmo, stop wars, no lobbyist on his staff, cut unnecessary spending (lol), use pay go- his idea (lol again), cut deficit in half (lol once again), work with both parties, transparency,tackle immigration reform his first year. This man thinks you can spend your way back to prosperity.......this is a fallacy. He wants another $450 B to spend! When will the madness stop. In his three years in office he proved the Harvard taught Keynesian spending model does not work........when will Americans get it! Americans are waking.....it may take another 14 months but they will get there!

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wjb1tex | Sep 11, 2011, 10:48 AM EDT

"By cynically leaving that story on his page long after he knew it was untruthful, he demonstrated what his real objective was/is." Exactly how do you know when he knew the story was untruthful?

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hollabackgurl | Sep 11, 2011, 10:15 AM EDT

Drudge has millions more readers than all those other sites combined. Drudge doesn't generally write any articles, but he puts them on his website, and that way he sets the agenda. By cynically leaving that story on his page long after he knew it was untruthful, he demonstrated what his real objective was/is.

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wjb1tex | Sep 11, 2011, 09:56 AM EDT

So why don't you criticize the authors of the report. You, as many others, blame Drudge when all he is doing is posting articles from other media. I guess it's easier to imply that Drudge wrote the offending article.

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