In one of the latest developments regarding the Associated Press article that claims more than half of the people who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money to the Clinton Foundation, the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign has called on the AP to change the tweet promoting the article.
The initial posting reads: “BREAKING: AP analysis: More than half those who met Clinton as Cabinet secretary gave money to Clinton Foundation,” and Brian Fallon, press secretary for the Clinton campaign, stated: “We have formally requested that AP remove or amend this tweet.”
“They apparently considered it, but officially decided to let it stand,” Fallon indicated. “That seems pretty egregious to knowingly allow a falsehood to remain posted under AP’s banner.”
Meanwhile, Erik Wemple -- media critic for the Washington Post -- explained why the campaign is so anxious to alter the missive since it “has more than 10,000 retweets and likes combined.”
“Holy Moly!” Wemple stated in his blog. “Grab the can of damage-control spray!”
“Or maybe not,” he continued before noting that the AP tweet was too brief to cover all the elements in the report, which was written by Stephen Braun and Eileen Sullivan.
The media critic continued:
Click through to the actual article, and a key qualifier rears its head. The count doesn’t include anyone in the U.S. federal government or representatives of foreign governments. In other words, most of the people with whom Clinton met as secretary of state.
The analysis drilled in on “154 people from private interests” who chatted by phone or met with Clinton in person. Eighty-five of them “donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs,” for a total of “as much as $156 million.”
Also on Wednesday, AP Vice President and Director of Media Relations Paul Colford posted a defense of the original article and tweet, which began: “The Associated Press’ reporting relied on publicly available data provided by the State Department about Hillary Clinton’s meetings, phone calls and emails, cross-referenced against donor information provided by the Clinton Foundation and its related charities on its websites.”
The investigation, Colford asserted, “focused on Mrs. Clinton’s meetings and calls involving people outside government who were not federal employees or foreign diplomats because meeting with U.S. or foreign government officials would inherently have been part of her job as secretary of state.”
Among those granted time with Clinton included an internationally known economist who asked for her help as the Bangladesh government pressured him to resign from a nonprofit bank he ran; a Wall Street executive who sought Clinton's help with a visa problem; and Estee Lauder executives who were listed as meeting with Clinton while her department worked with the firm's corporate charity to counter gender-based violence in South Africa.
In addition, Colford noted: “AP first requested Mrs. Clinton’s calendars and schedules in 2010 and again in 2013 but was unsuccessful. AP then sued the State Department in federal court to obtain the schedules it has received so far. AP expects to receive the remaining files before Election Day and will continue to examine them and report on their contents."
“Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors,” he continued. “AP has been transparent in how it has reported this story.”
“Such intricacies, unfortunately, were too verbose for the AP tweet,” Wemple stated.
“Credit the AP for fighting for this data and presenting it to the public,” the media critic added.
“What this blog could do without,” he continued, “is this line in the resulting story: 'But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton.'”
“Instead of throwing around such language, the AP should be in the business of using its data to inform readers whether those 'perceptions' are substantive or baseless,” Wemple noted. “Plus, what really 'fuels perceptions' is a ham-handed tweet from a major media outlet.”
He also described the AP tweet as “tendentious and misleading.”
On Wednesday evening, Clinton said the AP had only "looked at a small portion of my time" as secretary of state and had drawn the conclusion that her meetings with Nobel laureates -- such as Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel -- were connected to the foundation rather than their work as global leaders.
"That is absurd," she told the Cable News Network before describing the story as "all smoke, no fire."
It's not hard to tell when a campaign is having trouble: The people start complaining about tweets instead of discussing the issues.
