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In its report about a man arrested with a rifle today at the Capitol, CNN had this to say:
Threats against Obama have led to arrests in previous cases.
In one, federal prosecutors concluded that three people arrested with drugs and weapons in a suburban Denver, Colorado, motel posed a "true threat" to Obama during the Democratic National Convention.
Uhm, not quite. Maybe this was just a typo and should have read "no true threat", but here is what the Rocky Mountain News had to say at that the time the three were arrested:
The U.S. attorney for Colorado said authorities are "absolutely confident" three men arrested on weapons and drug charges posed no threat to presidential candidate Barack Obama.
I found this problem just before 7:30 pm Eastern on February 10. If they correct the story, I will note it in comments. This is a very sloppy error by CNN, since there was considerable controversy over the US attorney’s decision that the men did not post a threat to Obama. Any journalist who has paid even the least bit of attention over the past six months would not make this mistake.
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The story was just updated with additional information at 8:30, but the error on the Colorado arrests was not corrected.
yep. i remember being very angry when i saw the reports about them being “no threat”. good catch.
Still no correction just before 9 am Feb. 11. I did submit the information to CNN last night through their feedback mechanism to let them know about their error. No response to that yet beyond the automated email generated when the information is submitted.
Good work, Jim. I’ll be interested to see how this develops. No small goof.
Thanks, Kitt. I really expected this to be just a small editing error and that within a few minutes the story would be changed to reflect what happened in Colorado. Since they’ve certainly had time now for someone to see my email to them makes it seem even more fishy now.
Considering the never-ending rewrite that has become SOP, sending this small story down the memory hole should come as no surprise.
Right now, they’re getting ready to blame the looming economic catastophe on Obama’s inability to reign-in the ultra-partisan democrats on the hill.
The link to this story now (approximately noon Feb 11) has cycled off the CNN.com home page without the story being corrected. It still is available through searching and the link I have provided above.