AP Reporter Invents Anti-Clinton “Boos” at Wisconsin Bush Rally

Intellectual Conservative ^ | 6 September 2004 | Nicholas Stix

[mrustow]

On Friday the AP falsely reported that a crowd at a Bush rally booed the news that Bill Clinton had been hospitalized, and President Bush "did nothing to stop them."

On Friday afternoon, an Associated Press (AP) story reported that a crowd at a Bush rally in Wisconsin, responded to President Bush's news that former President Clinton had been hospitalized with chest pains and faced bypass surgery, and Bush's best wishes for Clinton's speedy recovery, with boos. The AP, a wire service founded in 1848, describes itself as "the largest and oldest news organization in the world."

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, Wisconsin, 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 story was immediately caught and reported 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 Less than one hour after the story first went out on the wire, under the byline of AP reporter Tom Hays, it was retracted, corrected, and the original link killed.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." There was no mention of the changes; 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.

Some original versions of the 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, 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."

By press time, AP corporate communications had not responded to telephone and e-mail requests for comment.

New York-based freelancer Nicholas Stix has written for Toogood Reports, Middle American News, the New York Post, Daily News, American Enterprise, Insight, Chronicles, Newsday and many other publications. His recent work is collected at The Critical Critic.

[ride the whirlwind]

Thanks for the e-mail links. Just fired off my thoughts!

[Uncle Vlad]

AP=Alcohol-Prone

[Hank All-American]

If you listen to the audio, no honest person could mistake the soft murmur of the crowd (the "oohs") with a chorus of "boos." And even if you gave him the benefit of the doubt on that, how come the initial story didn't mention the loud cheers and appaluse in response to Bush wishing him a speedy recovery? The comment "Bush did nothing to stop it" was a cheap jab that showed the true intent of the story was to smear Bush, not report news.

When I first read the initial wire story (on Drudge), I was surprised and irritated that Republicans would be so vulgar. It didn't sound like my party at all, but rather the kind of thing you'd expect to see happen at a Democratic rally. When I saw the retraction come across, I was happy to see my gut reaction was well-founded.

[Biblebelter]

The AP seems to feel insulated from accountability because it is a wholesaler and not a retailer. The AP survives because of all the small newspapers which need a source to fill space on regional, national and world events, but those newspaper are dying off as newspaper readership steadily declines. It will not be long before we put those boys and girls in a museum along with broadcast network news and the fossils of Cronkite, Jennings, Brokaw, and Rather. It will be sooner than they think, who would have thought that Fox News could so humiliate the broadcast and cable networks in the ratings battle for the Republican Convention.

[HIDEK6]

'oohs of surprise'?

The only times I have heard 'oohs of surprise' were at fireworks displays and in melodramatic musical theater productions.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[popparollo]

They are in the tank for sKerry!!

Thats why WE are IMPORTANT in the defeat of Johnny.

[JoJo Gunn]

It wasn't just the bloggers.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1206700/posts

[MaineRepublic]

Yeah, remind everyone that we at Free Republic broke this story. :)

By the way, Mens News Daily has picked up this Nicholas Stix story:

http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/news2004/0904/090604-ap-boos.htm

[Company Man]

This is pretty much the same reply I received from the Boston Globe's web editor - the story is no longer linked directly from their site, so in their opinion, it no longer exists! While in fact, the bogus story is STILL being hosted by their web server, and anyone with the URL can bring it up.

Their web master could truly kill the story with a single keystroke (renaming the fraudulent source document), but nooooo.

[popparollo]

Just out of curiosity...Does any one have bona fide pictures of Tom Hays and Tom, the head of AP?

[Wissa]

The AP seems to feel insulated from accountability because it is a wholesaler and not a retailer.

They're going to continue to feel insulated until the retailers stop buying from that wholesaler. It isn't just the paper and ink newspapers that get their stories from AP. It's news outlets like Yahoo that need to hear from us too.

[JoJo Gunn]

Yeah, they're linking to our screencaps and yet it's the "bloggers" getting all the credit. How about that?

[MeekOneGOP]

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."

[demnomo]

I just sent this email to Hays:

Liar, liar, pants on fire, AP took you off their media wire...

You should be fired, cause the public's tired of lefty lies and biased writers...

[bray]

The good news is that the Stone-age Press got caught by the Modern Press. In the past the boos would have been reported across the board.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[MeekOneGOP]

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

The false story was immediately caught and reported 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." There was no mention of the changes; 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.

ha! It sure DOES!:

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2004/09/03/
audience_boos_as_bush_offers_best_wishes_for_clintons_recovery?mode=PF

[jimbo123]

Tom Curley

[Dave S]

I dont know. With all the loose cannons around here finding media bias everywhere whether it exists or not, its not surprising that this reporter should hear what he expected to hear. After all many freepers hear plenty of things that were not said or even implied by various politicians, commentators, or reporters. They did correct the error. Continue to watch the guy but lighten up.

We just had someone start a thread because CNN is actively encouraging signup for news alerts on Kerry. After going ballistic and encouraging others to boycott CNN and their advertisers, it turns out that the article was about Kerry. On a similar article about Bush, they had the same signup for alerts on stories about Bush.

[OldPossum]

Thanks for the e-mail addresses. I wrote to one. It seems to me that Mr. Hays is beyond redemption.

Here's what I wrote:

Dear Mr. Curley:

You know, now that the common people have other means of access to the news (primarily talk radio and the Internet), organizations such as AP will be able to fool some of the people some of the time, but the day is coming, sir, when knowledgeable individuals, upon seeing "AP" on a story in a newspaper, will just turn the page. (Some of them might even write to the newspaper editor to complain about their even using AP material, tainted as it is with Democratic/liberal leanings; I know I will.)

Once you lose your credibility, you lose everything.

Just keep people such as Mr. Tom Hays on your payroll and you'll soon be there.

Regards,