Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Daily News Screws Anthony Weiner

Yesterday that fine paper known as the New York Daily News published an interview with Anthony Weiner conducted by DN columnist Denis Hamill.

That interview made news itself when it seemed from the transcription that Weiner was evading a question Hamill asked on whether Weiner was currently sexting with any strangers he met over the Internets.

Here is the passage in question as posted yesterday by the Daily News:

Q. There is no one you are sexting now?
A. You can quibble about beginnings, middles and ends but what we're talking about is over a year ago.

That interview set off a 36 hour media frenzy as almost every political reporter in the city followed Weiner around trying to get him to say whether he was sexting with anyone at the current time.

It turns out, however, that the geniuses at the Daily News transcribed that interview Q&A wrong.

According to Politico, here is how the audio Q&A went:

Hamill: "And it was over a year ago? There’s been nothing else?"
Weiner: "I mean, oh yeah, all that stuff is behind me. You can quibble about you know, beginnings, middles and ends, but it was basically a year ago."

Wow - that's a big difference from what the DN first posted yesterday.  From this exchange, it's obvious that Weiner is NOT evading the question and is unequivocally saying he is not sexting with any and hasn't for around a year or so.

The Daily News, being the quality paper it is, went with a front page apology to Weiner, begging his forgiveness for setting off that 36 hour media frenzy and...

Nah, just kidding - the scum at the DN went with a little note at the bottom of the interview:

On Wednesday, the Daily News posted a "clarification" at the bottom of Hamill's interview: "In an interview with Anthony Weiner in Tuesday’s paper, a question posed to the mayoral candidate and his answer were transcribed incorrectly," it read. "A question about sexting should have ended with: 'There’s been nothing else?' Weiner’s answer was: 'I mean, oh yeah, all that stuff is behind me. You can quibble about beginnings, middles and ends, but it was basically a year ago.'”

Classic DN - smear somebody either purposely or through a careless mistake, then basically ignore the whole thing by putting up a "clarification" that nobody will see.

I've been beating up on Weiner for a while now and did so after the DN interview appeared yesterday morning.

Let me take this opportunity to retract this post -given the new realities around the interview, it's wrong.

I want to take responsibility for my words.

Shame the DN doesn't do the same.

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