MANCHESTER, New Hampshire — After printing a false attack on former Sen. Scott Brown and then updating the story multiple times without a correction or apology, the Huffington Post has backed down–and is apologizing for its error.
“I apologize that the exchange between Pindell and Brown ended up having to be clarified,” Huffington Post politics editor Sam Stein said in an email to Breitbart News on Friday morning. “I also apologize that we had to update our article with additional information. The fault is mine, not Sabrina’s.”
On Thursday night, as Breitbart News reported, the Huffington Post carried a story about the final debate between Republican Brown and incumbent Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. The Huffington Post headline claimed Brown: “Can’t Get His New Hampshire Geography Straight.”
The piece from Sabrina Siddiqui was based entirely on a point that debate co-moderator WMUR’s James Pindell has since admitted he got wrong. In fact, he actually appeared on statewide television to apologize to Brown and voters for his error. The Huffington Post story was actually, as Breitbart News reported, published after Pindell owned up to the error by sending a tweet admitting he was wrong and Brown was right.
Normally, when a media outlet makes a mistake like the Huffington Post and Siddiqui did, it will issue a correction with updated text and apologize to readers for making the mistake. For hours on Thursday evening–and until Friday morning in this email to Breitbart News from Stein–the Huffington Post did not apologize for its action.
The apology from Stein on behalf of the Huffington Post comes not just after WMUR’s Pindell apologized on television but on MSNBC on Friday morning. National Public Radio’s Cokie Roberts said, “This is why people hate the press.”
“Having that little guy just sort of ask that same little question over and over again like that and he was just trying to be so smart, and I think he [Scott Brown] handled very it well,” Roberts said. “He didn’t go the Christie route and say ‘enough with Sullivan County.’ He said ‘no, with all due respect,’ and he didn’t get flustered by it. That was the point–the point was to fluster him and show him as a carpetbagger. I think that is the biggest strike against him [Brown]. But it ended up being a much bigger strike against the member of my trade.”
Roberts is a regular contributor to ABC’s This Week, which is hosted by Pindell’s co-moderator in last night’s debate, George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos was criticized heavily before the debate for his longtime personal and political ties to both Shaheen and her top campaign operative, Mandy Grunwald.
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