“Boos” Scandal Widens:
AP Stonewalls; Knight-Ridder Also Distributed Hoax

At press time (3 a.m. Tuesday), the Associated Press still had failed to respond to inquiries by Men’s News Daily regarding the false story that it published on Friday afternoon.

As reported here yesterday, Friday’s, Associated Press (AP) story by Tom Hays, Ron Fournier, Frank Eltman, David Hammer and Marc Humbert reported that a crowd of thousands at a Bush rally that day in Wisconsin booed Pres. Bush’s news that Pres. Clinton had been hospitalized with chest pains and faced bypass surgery, and Bush’s prayers and best wishes for Clinton’s speedy recovery.

The AP, a wire service founded in 1848, describes itself as “the largest and oldest news organization in the world.”

A variation on the AP’s false story was also spread by Knight-Ridder reporter Seth Borenstein.

According to Knight-Ridder’s corporate Web site, it is “The second-largest newspaper publisher in the United States, it owns 31 dailies and operates the Real Cities network of more than 100 local news Web sites in 88 markets.”

Between AP and Knight-Ridder, the false story likely reached tens of millions of potential voters. Wisconsin, the site of the non-story, is a battleground state that is still in play, with ten electoral votes up for grabs.

“Battleground states” are those states whose election results were extremely close in 2000, or that are populous and have many electoral votes, and whose election results were relatively close in 2000, among them Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and even West Virginia, and who are expected to decide the 2004 election. In 2000, the Gore-Lieberman ticket won Wisconsin by less than one-quarter of one percent (0.22%; 5,708 out of 2,598,607 votes cast).

One of the original versions of the AP story follows, as preserved by FReeper “crushelits”:

Audience boos as Bush offers best wishes for Clinton’s recovery By Associated Press, 9/3/2004 13:57

WEST ALLIS, Wis. (AP) President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday wished Bill Clinton (news - web sites) "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery."

"He's is in our thoughts and prayers, Bush said at a campaign rally.

Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them.

Bush offered his wishes while campaigning one day after accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in New York. Clinton was hospitalized in New York after complaining of mild chest pain and shortness of breath.

Bush recently praised Clinton when the former president went to the White House for the unveiling of his official portrait. He lauded Clinton for his knowledge, compassion and “the forward-looking spirit that Americans like in a president.”

In fact, however, the crowd had responded with respectful applause.

The false AP story was immediately caught, and became the focus of several threads by “FReepers” at Jim Robinson’s conservative media Web site, FreeRepublic. “FReepers,” as denizens of Free Republic are known, and other conservative and GOP activists reported the story to conservative talk radio shows and blogs. Less than one hour after the story first went out on the wire, under the byline of AP reporter Tom Hays, it was retracted, corrected, and the original link killed. The new title was “Bush offers best wishes for Clinton's recovery.” No mention of the changes was made; however, the later version without the “boos” run by the New York Times-owned Boston Globe still carried the title “audience boos as bush offers best wishes for clintons recovery” in its URL ( http://www.boston.com/ news/politics/president/bush/articles /2004/09/03/ audience_boos_as_bush_offers_best_wishes_for_clintons_recovery ?mode=PF ).

FReeper “Fidelio” had access to the raw editorial corrections of the story, and posted them at 2:54 p.m. EST at the Web site:

BC-Bush-Clinton, 1st Ld-Writethru,150 Bush offers best wishes for Clinton's recovery

Eds: SUBS lead to include reference to surgery. DELETES 3rd graf previous, Bush's audience, because of uncertainty about crowd reaction.

WEST ALLIS, Wis. (AP) - President Bush on Friday offered former President Bill Clinton, who faces heart bypass surgery, "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery."

"He's is in our thoughts and prayers," Bush said at a campaign rally.

Bush offered his wishes while campaigning one day after accepting the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in New York. Clinton was hospitalized in New York after complaining of mild chest pain and shortness of breath.

Bush recently praised Clinton when the former president went to the White House for the unveiling of his official portrait. He lauded Clinton for his knowledge, compassion and "the forward-looking spirit that Americans like in a president."

Some of the revised versions of the false AP story claimed the crowd had responded with “ooohs,” rather than boos, but this claim was also false.

Some original versions of the AP’s false story carried the reporter’s name, but at least one original version and all later versions were published without a byline. Blogger Jonathan V. Last of Galley Slaves, however, determined though a Lexis-Nexis search, that the AP reporter was Tom Hays.

Last came up with a 649-word version of the AP story, entitled “Bill Clinton hospitalized with chest pains, will face bypass surgery,” which included the booing, and which also credited “Associated Press writers Ron Fournier and Frank Eltman in New York, David Hammer in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Marc Humbert in Albany, New York …”

Last commented, “So the AP: (1) Puts out a story with falsified reporting; (2) Pulls the story; (3) Removes the faulty reporting; (4) Makes no note of its mistake; and then (5) Pulls the byline of the reporter who made the error. If you were going to impute bad faith to the folks at AP--and at this point that's not unreasonable to do--you might suspect that they have pulled Tom Hays's byline to protect him.”

At AP headquarters in New York late Sunday night, staffer Mark Kennedy, an entertainment writer, directed this reporter to the wire service’s corporate communications division, adding, “We’re also supposed to note that we, that we changed the [crowd] reaction from, to ‘oohs of surprise,’ apparently rather than ‘boos,’ if that makes any difference.”

At press time (3 a.m. Tuesday), the false AP story was still standing at several media outlets, three-and-a-half days after it had been debunked. A slight variation on the AP version by reporter Seth Borenstein, of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, and Knight Ridder/Tribune wire service remained at yet other outlets.

At the Greensboro, NC-based CBS affiliate, WFMY News 2 (Tel.: 336-379-9369), “Web Producer” Andrea Firestone had left the fraudulent AP story at the station’s Web site, which included a slight variation on Hays’ original wording.

“Many in Bush's audience booed when Clinton's name was mentioned. The president made no comment on that and continued with his rally speech.”

Under the title “Bush sends best wishes to Clinton; many in crowd boo,” the fraudulent AP story was also left standing at the CBS Michigan affiliate, WNEM TV5, which bills itself as “Mid-Michigan’s News Leader,” listing the cities of Bay City, Saginaw, Midland and Flint. (WNEM TV5 email: ian.rubin@wnem.com ; tel.: 1-800-257-8943.)

Meanwhile, the 154-year-old, Salt Lake City, Utah-based Deseret Morning News also ran Borenstein’s false story unchanged. (Tel.: (801) 237-2185; e-mail: letters@desnews.com .)

Philadelphia’s Annenberg Center for Education and Outreach, which is part of the publicly-funded National Constitution Center, also ran Borenstein’s false story unchanged, under the title, “Clinton to Undergo Bypass Surgery After Chest Pains.”

“Both President Bush and his Democratic opponent, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, wished the former president well during campaign appearances. Some in Bush's audience booed when he wished Clinton well, while those in Kerry's cheered.”

The false story ran under the category, “Current Events for the Classroom.” (The left-leaning NCC is publicly financed; the left-leaning Annenberg Center was established by TV Guide-founder, Ambassador Walter Annenberg, and his wife. Contact information: E-mail: ceo@constitutioncenter.org ; tel.: 215-409-6600.)

California’s Mercury News, a San Francisco Bay area newspaper, ran Borenstein’s debunked story again on Saturday, but has since changed it.

According to a report by the conservative news Web site, News Max, the AP did release a correction. “In a report that moved on the AP wire at 9:27 a.m. Saturday, the AP said: ‘This is a correction to an incorrect story posted by AP on Friday stating the crowd booed the President when he sent his good wishes. The crowd, in fact, did NOT boo.’” However, this reporter was able to find the official AP correction only at one news outlet carrying the story, Minneapolis’ CBS affiliate, WCCO 4.

Only one more of the dozens of sites this reporter has visited since the false AP story broke, has acknowledged the fraud. On Saturday morning, The Modesto Bee carried the following mea culpa: “We want to make sure the information in this paper is accurate. Please call mistakes to our attention, so we may correct them.

“People at a campaign appearance Friday didn’t boo when President Bush wished former President Clinton well with his upcoming heart surgery. A story on Page A-1 on Saturday contained incorrect information.”

The other sites have either killed the link altogether, or quietly revised the story, without alerting readers. And there is no record of Knight Ridder having acknowledged that the story was false.

At press time, AP corporate communications had not responded to telephone and e-mail requests for comment from this reporter on Sunday night, reporter Tom Hays had not responded to a Sunday night e-mail seeking comment, and no message was posted regarding the false story at the AP Web site.

Knight-Ridder’s Web site also did not refer to the story.

Tom Curley is AP’s president and CEO. (AP Corporate Communications: E-mail: info@ap.org ; tel.: 212-621-6060.)

P. Anthony “Tony” Ridder is the San Jose-based Knight Ridder's chairman and CEO. (Corporate headquarters tel.: 408-938-7700.)

Hilary A. Schneider is the president and CEO of Knight Ridder Digital, the media giant’s Internet arm. (Knight Ridder Public Relations, Amy Dalton: E-mail: adalton@knightridder.com ; Tel.: 408-938-6151; KR’s corporate switchboard: 408-938-6000.)