This is a story about a story that wasn’t published because careful news reporting showed there was no story.
It involves Trump’s defense nominee, Pete Hegseth, and West Point, the army’s military academy. ProPublica was investigating Hegseth’s claim that he was accepted at West Point, which he did not attend. The West Point public affairs office told their reporter Hegseth never applied. Potential story: Hegseth lied about being accepted at West Point.
But ProPublica, instead of publishing its initial findings, continued to work on the story. They contacted Hegseth, were referred to his lawyer, got a call back from his PR person, and were given specifics about the acceptance letter.
ProPublica then went back to West Point, which dug further, then told ProPublica a staffer there made a mistake, and Hegseth indeed was offered admission. End of story;: Hegseth didn’t lie.
ProPublica spiked the story, journalistic jargon for not publishing it. When asked about it, they said “this is how journalism is supposed to work.” An editor explained, “You must give the subject of a potential story a fair chance to respond to all of the salient facts in the story. We care about accuracy. The essential part of this is being intellectually honest enough to change your mind and drop a story.” (Italics mine; read details here.)
Meanwhile Hegseth, by now alerted, leaned over his skis by blasting out a social media rant saying, “We understand that ProPublica (the Left Wing hack group) is planning to publish a knowingly false report that I was not accepted to West Point in 1999.” (See story here.) He should have checked with ProPublica first before publishing his story (about “left wing media hacks”), because the story was spiked.
Should someone so thin-skinned, knee-jerky, and quick to fly off the handle, who doesn’t verify facts before popping off in public, be in charge of America’s defense? That may be a real story worth investigating further and publishing a piece on.