As noted this morning (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), Jezebel's Natasha Vargas-Cooper wrote a Friday morning hit piece directed at Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican Governor, calling him a "conservative werewolf" for including a provision in the Badger State's latest proposed budget to eliminate the requirement that universities report campus sexual assault statistics to the state.
Vargas-Cooper took this to mean that all such sexual assault reporting would end. Hardly. Hours later, an unbylined Associated Press story carried at USA Today (but still not carried at its national site) made it clear that a) the University of Wisconsin system had requested the provision, and b) such statistics would continue to be reported to the federal government. Jezebel's "correction" and Vargas-Cooper's spiteful tweeted reaction follow the jump.
First, the actual "correction" (links are in original; bolds are mine throughout this post; numbered tags are mine):
Scott Walker Wants Colleges to Stop Reporting Sexual Assaults [UPDATE 2] [1]
[Editor's Note: After Jezebel ran this item yesterday, a spokesman for the University of Wisconsin came forward—over two weeks after the budget was released [2] —to clarify: the University requested that Gov. Walker delete the requirements because efforts were redundant with their compliance of the Clery Act. Scott Walker's camp assures that he's committed to protecting victims. We reported this piece without full context [3], and while this piece conveys factual information, omission of that context for that information presents an unfair and misleading picture. We regret the error and apologize.] [4]
Notes:
[1] — The headline is a lie. Jezebel hasn't corrected the lie. Anyone coming across the item in an Internet search will see the headline and in most instances believe what the headline says. The hit job lives on.
[2] — The lazy desk jockeys at Jezebel seem to believe that the UW system should have issued a press release telling the world that they wanted the reporting provision to be eliminated. Instead, "for over two weeks" they didn't. Or maybe Vargas-Cooper, because she appears not interested in doing anything resembing research, expected a hand-delivered, personalized noted about this matter from the UW system.
[3] — Uh, no. Jezebel reported the matter without any context.
[4] — Sorry, guys. As long as the headline remains in its original form, you're not regretful or sorry about a flippin' thing. It seems quite likely that you actually remain quite proud of yourselves.
Readers who believe that the sentiment just expressed is overkill clearly haven't seen Vargas-Cooper's related obnoxious tweet:
Whatever credibility Jezebel ever had — my understanding is that it was never much — is gone if Vargas-Cooper, who apparently just began writing for the site, continues to appear there.
Meanwhile, the Daily Beast, which swallowed Jezebel's original lie, has issued a lengthy retraction (HT Twitchy). But as of 7:15 p.m. ET Saturday evening, even though it now forwards to the retraction, the false language in its original tweet — "Scott Walker’s proposal to delete the requirement that universities report sexual assault is causing him big trouble" — remains.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
