..Why should Cruz’s people contact Carson direct...
Because that was such a stunning turn of events that it was shocking. Cruz campaign did the same thing the MSM does, run with something before finding out if it is correct. Carson said tonight that his campaign denied it within one minute. Pathetic.
The Cruz people reported a CNN broadcast story. It is true that there was a followup tweet from the Carson campaign clarifying the initial report. Who received it, I don't know. If you were not monitoring the Carson twitterverse, you would not have seen it. CNN, which aired the incomplete report, did not pick up the correction either.
That might be true, my recollection of what he said in debate was that CNN "corrected" the implication that Cruz was suspending his campaign within a minute of the "Carson not going to NH" exchange. Whether the CNN clarification was in response to Carson's campaign calling CNN, or if CNN did it on their own doesn't matter. The point Carson made was that the Cruz campaign ran with the most unfavorable take.