Earlier today we had a headline that read, “Montgomery County, MD reportedly investigating new allegations against Kavanaugh.” But a few hours later, The Montgomery County police department announced that they had not received any sort of complaint and were not investigating.
So, how did we — and many others — make this mistake?
Easy. The article’s writer, Brian Karem, changed it after publication when he realized people were confused with his clickbait BS.
Here’s the original version of Karem’s opener, captured in the quoted tweet. See how it reads, “Montgomery County investigators confirmed Monday…”?
Now, here’s what the article says now:
Flipping where investigators is in the sentence changes the entire meaning of the article! Keep in mind, lots of people were tricked by Karem’s original wording, like formal federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti who we assume knows a thing or two about investigations:
Montgomery County police are reportedly investigating allegations made by another woman regarding sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh while he was in high school. https://t.co/znauejBFTW
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) September 24, 2018
When we called Karem out on it, he admitted that he updated the story:
We updated the story so people would not think that MoCo police were our source.
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) September 24, 2018
But as of the writing of this post, Karem does not note on his article that he changed it.
And Karem is trying to defend his article by saying “never did we once say who it was,” insinuating that it’s we who misunderstood and it wasn’t his fault:
Never did we once say who it was.
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) September 24, 2018
NO. We never said the local police were our source. We quoted the police chief saying they would only investigate if they got a complaint – which they have not.
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) September 24, 2018
And they wonder why we question the media?
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