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It looked like a garden-variety promotional tweet, designed to attract attention to the AP’s big investigation into allegations of conflict of interest on the part of the Democratic presidential candidate. But by trying too hard to drum up interest in the piece, the wire service made itself the target instead.
The post made a significant, and startling, claim. Namely, that “more than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation.” Surely this was compelling evidence of a conflict.
As sharp-eyed reporters for competing news outlets noted within minutes of the tweet and article being posted, however, this statistic was only true if you ignored the thousands of government officials, dignitaries, and so on that Clinton met in her capacity as Secretary of State....
The perils of social media, politics and AP's surprising lapse in fact checking and journalism ethics.