« TAXIN’ TARRYL KICKS OFF IN FOURTH DISTRICT | Home | REPUBLICANS RESPOND TO CLARK ANNOUNCEMENT »
UPDATED: RITCHIE’S PAYBACK
By Luke Hellier | January 28, 2010
Politico.Com is reporting that hyper-partisan Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was the guest of Senator Al Franken at last night’s State of the Union:
Franni Franken, wife of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), confirms to POLITICO that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is her husband’s guest tonight.
Update: Politico has changed the story with no explanation. Politico now reports:
Franni Franken, wife of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), confirms to POLITICO that she was her husband’s guest tonight.
Here is a screen shot about the earlier post…
I have an email into Mark Ritchie’s office to confirm or deny.
Update: Irresponsible bloggers at MNPublius claim this post was made up by MDE. However, if you look at the screen shot from Politico above it says: “Franken hosts Ritchie.” Once this story broke on MDE, Politico changed the post.
Update: I received the following response from Ritchie Communications Director John Aiken. Needless to say, Politico dropped the ball on the original reporting.
Luke:Thank you for your e-mail.The Secretary was not at the State of Union Address last night as was erroneously reported by Politico. I believe Politico has corrected their error.John Aiken
Director of Communications
Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State
180 State Office Bldg.
Saint Paul, MN 55155
(651) 297-XXXX
Update: David Brauer from MinnPost uncovers how Politico first reported the story:
As it turns out, the source — D.C.-based POLITICO — had the story wrong. Its original report stated:
Franni Franken, wife of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), confirms to POLITICO that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is her husband’s guest tonight.
Later, this was changed to:
Franni Franken, wife of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), confirms to POLITICO that she was her husband’s guest tonight.
No mention that the original item was wrong, and a graphic at the bottom of the story still made the Ritchie-Franken connection. However, after I contacted POLITICO to ask what was up, it changed to this:
Franni Franken, wife of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), confirms to POLITICO that she was her husband’s guest tonight. Update: It appears that Franni Franken gave her up highly-coveted aisle seat to a very grateful wounded veteran.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was the senator’s SOTU guest.
A small victory in the war for accountability.
Ritchie, by the way, confirms he was not at the State of the Union speech. So how did POLITICO get it so wrong? Here’s staffer Katherine Lehr’s explanation:
We received an anonymous tip re: Ritchie and due to a communication breakdown, this was incorrectly reported. I thought the error had been removed from all story references on the site. We are issuing a correction in the story the item appears. Apologies for the confusion. Please let me know if you have any other questions/concerns.
Yikes — from an anonymous tip right to the page; and then a stealth correction on top of it. Not cool POLITICO.
Tags: Uncategorized
Topics: Uncategorized | 11 Comments »
January 28th, 2010 at 1:16 PM
The link provided to Politico does not have any mention of Mark Ritchie. Franni says she was the guest.
So did Politico modify their story, or is MDE making something up?
January 28th, 2010 at 2:59 PM
Everybody cool your jets. Politico screwed up. Brauer at Minnpost has the explanation.
http://www.minnpost.com/braublog/2010/01/28/15416/republicans_politico_stub_toe_on_franken-ritchie_link
January 28th, 2010 at 4:05 PM
It’s probably not a good idea to rely on right wing websites like Politico without additional verification.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:39 PM
It’s probably not a good idea to rely on issue-ridden people like Franni Franken* without additional verification.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:57 PM
I would agree.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:58 PM
And I wouldn’t rely on a left wing website either, without some verification.
January 29th, 2010 at 1:23 AM
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by MDETweets: Updated: Ritchie’s Payback – http://bit.ly/bsv1OW...
January 29th, 2010 at 9:16 AM
Interesting. I went over the MNPublius and I don’t see a single mention or inference that MDE made up this story as claimed above. The MNPublius story suggests that maybe someone at the MNGOP planted the story, but not MDE.
Reading this update above makes it sound like you are admitting that MDE and MNGOP are one and the same. About time.
January 29th, 2010 at 10:44 AM
AC:
What post are you reading? The MNpublius post by name accussed Luke of lying.
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
January 29th, 2010 at 11:10 AM
When I read that headline at MNPublius that says “GOP Blogger Luke Hellier’s Lie of the Day” I took that as talking about the post here on MDE being the lie, not planting the lie over at Politico. But I see how that headline could be interpretted that the lie was the plant over at Politico
What I am talking about is in the copy: “smells like the MN GOP fished a lie of a story to Politico”
That is where I was coming from.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:53 AM
AC/Bob/InTheLoop’s lie of the day: “I went over the MNPublius and I don’t see a single mention or inference that MDE made up this story as claimed above.”