When is a gaffe not a gaffe? When the Associated Press covers it up.
On Thursday, the AP, otherwise known as the “Administration Press,” admitted inserting text in an Obama quote in which the president claimed Atlantic ports were in the Gulf of Mexico, Twitchy reported.
“In an Aug. 7 story on President Barack Obama’s comments on the need to deepen U.S. harbors, The Associated Press wrongly inserted an interpretive phrase in parentheses into a quote by Obama,” the AP said.
Here’s what Obama told Jay Leno:
“If we don’t deepen our ports all along the Gulf – places like Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., or Jacksonville, Fla. – if we don’t do that, these ships are going to go someplace else and we’ll lose jobs.”
But the AP inserted what it called “an interpretive phrase” in an apparent attempt to cover for the president. This is how the quote appeared at the Charlotte Observer and Savannah’s WSAV:
“If we don’t deepen our ports all along the Gulf – (and in) places like Charleston, S.C., or Savannah, Ga., or Jacksonville, Fla. – if we don’t do that, these ships are going to go someplace else and we’ll lose jobs.”
The AP reminded readers that “Charleston, Savannah and Jacksonville are not Gulf ports.” Really? Who knew?
“It wasn’t known if the president was suggesting they were,” the AP said in its (cough, cough) correction. “The AP should not have added the phrase in an effort to clarify his statement.”
In reality, the AP should not have added anything, as Obama’s gaffe needed no clarification.
In reporting the initial AP insertion, Newsbusters‘ Tom Blumer said there was no other way to interpret what the president said.
“The only conceivable way to interpret what Obama actually said is that the ports of Charleston, Savannah, and Jacksonville are ‘along the Gulf’ of Mexico,” Blumer reported.
“The @ap @russbynum parenthetical Obama Gulf gaffe rescue would be akin to putting an ‘(s)’ after ‘potatoe’ to cover for Dan Quayle,” conservative columnist Michelle Malkin explained on Twitter.
According to The Blaze, Malkin reminded readers that the AP was quick to jump on geography gaffes made by Sarah Palin.
Twitchy noted that while the AP admitted to inserting text, it offered no apology for doing so.
Incidents like this are the reason the so-called “mainstream media” is held in such low regard by a vast majority of voters.
It is also one of the many reasons a “Rage against the Media” protest is set to take place in Los Angeles on August 17.
Related:
- Group set to protest liberal media bias in Los Angeles
- Democratic strategist warns: Mainstream media ‘enemy of the American people’
- Slate accuses ABC News of deceptively editing interview with Juror B29
- Petition demands probe of NBC and MSNBC for deceptive editing
- Distrust of mainstream media at all time high, poll says
- Yes, Virginia, there is a Democrat-media complex
- Majority of voters view media as biased and unethical
- Media coverage of RNC convention compared to Soviet-era Pravda, Hugo Chavez
—————————————————————-
If you like this article, you can follow Joe on Twitter @jnewby1956, or visit and join his Facebook page.
