I would have been more than happy to let this story go away, but the [tag]AP[/tag]’s [tag]John Solomon[/tag] has taken his reporting to such a reckless level, it needs to be condemned far and wide.
Let’s recap for a second. Solomon reported on Monday that Senate Minority Leader [tag]Harry Reid[/tag] received free tickets to a few [tag]boxing [/tag]matches from a state agency with business before the Senate. The article suggested that Reid may have violated Senate [tag]ethics[/tag], and at a minimum, should have [tag]paid [/tag]for the tickets. Solomon was wrong on multiple levels — there was no ethics violation, they were credentials not tickets, and Reid voted against the agency’s wishes. We also learned yesterday that Reid could not have legally paid for the credentials, so a reimbursement was impossible.
On Tuesday, Solomon, instead of retracting his story, made matters worse by running a follow-up that hid key facts. On Wednesday, Solomon published a third story that may be the worst yet.
Reversing course, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid’s office acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets and has decided to avoid taking such gifts in the future.
The Nevada senator still believes it was “entirely permissible” for him to accept ringside seats for three professional boxing matches in 2004 and 2005 from the Nevada Athletic Commission but has nonetheless decided to avoid doing so in the future, his office said.
Given this, the reader is led to believe that Solomon was right all along and that Reid is backing down. Except that’s not what happened.
Paul Kiel, who’s done fantastic work on this story, explained that Solomon intentionally played fast and loose with the facts in order to [tag]deceive [/tag]the reader.
Reid’s argument has been that Senate ethics rules provide an exception for accepting stuff from state agencies as opposed to private entities. In an interview that appeared in Wednesday’s The Las Vegas Review-Journal, Reid said that the exception for state agencies only applied to Senators from the state in question. Therefore, the exception applied to him and not Sen. John [tag]McCain [/tag](R-AZ), who paid for his seat, because he was from out of state.
That’s wrong. It has nothing to do with what state you’re from. The AP caught that and brought it to Reid’s people. They admitted the AP was right on this point and Reid was wrong. And that’s how Solomon can write that Reid “acknowledged Wednesday night he misstated the ethics rules governing his acceptance of free boxing tickets.” […]
But let’s be clear: What Reid was wrong about wasn’t whether he was allowed to take the tickets. He was wrong about whether McCain was allowed to because he was from out of state. On the larger question, whether he was permitted to accept the tickets, Reid didn’t admit to being wrong because he wasn’t. Zinging Reid on his error would certainly be in order.
But for Solomon, what Reid actually goofed on wasn’t good enough. So he takes Reid’s incorrect statement about McCain and twirls it a lead which has Reid saying what Solomon really wants him to say: that Solomon was right all along. Reid was wrong. And he won’t do it again.
This is simply irresponsible [tag]journalism[/tag]. Solomon wanted to get Reid on Monday, but the story was weak. Solomon tried again on Tuesday, but hid key facts that undercut his thesis. Solomon did yet another hit piece on Wednesday, selectively playing with language to mislead his readers.
As Josh Marshall put it, “There’s a pattern of selective use of information and [tag]misleading [/tag]omissions that, candidly, I find surprising, maddening and offensive.”
This is an embarrassment for Solomon and the AP that requires an apology. These guys are so anxious to undermine the “culture of corruption” story — and so desperate to make the broader scandal bi-partisan — that they’re overreaching in irresponsible ways. It needs to stop.