CNN Discusses Obama And His "Drug Rumors"
December 17, 2007 -- 6:11 PM EST // //
It really seems like some of the folks at the big news orgs who were writing headlines about Barack Obama today did so while heavily indulging in some of those same illegal substances the Illinois Senator partook of back in his youth. CNN, for instance, has this:
The headline accompanies an opinion piece that's supposed to be favorable to Obama, but also includes this odd line:
Last week, Billy Shaheen, Clinton's co-chairman in New Hampshire, resigned from the campaign after floating the rumor that Obama, in his youth, may have been not just a drug user but a drug dealer.Wait -- Shaheen "floated a rumor" that Obama was a drug-dealer? That's not what happened, though. Shaheen mentioned the possibility that Republicans might try to ask whether he'd ever dealt drugs in order to smear him. But Shaheen didn't float any "rumor" that Obama might have been a drug dealer. There is no such rumor, CNN.
Meanwhile, today's Boston Globe takes an Associated Press story that originally described the Muslim rumors as "false" in its headline, and runs the story with a new headline that doesn't contain the word false:
Okay. Maybe it's time for an industry-wide seminar on the meaning of the word "rumor." A rumor is not something that someone might say in the future about someone, as per CNN. Nor is it something that folks will automatically presume to be false, and hence doesn't need to be identified as such, as per The Globe.
Rather, a rumor is an assertion that someone made that might either be true or be false. It is an assertion that hasn't yet been verified. The point is, no one knows whether it's true or not -- that's what makes it a rumor in the first place.
Really, now. Let's get this one right. You guys are making fools of yourselves at this point.
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