NY Times Romney Reporter Michael Barbaro Tweets Inaccurate Story Of Freezing Child At Rally
New York Times political reporter Michael Barbaro caused a stir on Sunday when he reported that a staffer for Mitt Romney told a mother of a freezing child at the GOP nominee’s rally in Pennsylvania they should remain at the venue despite the uncomfortably low temperatures. The tale of callousness exploded on the internet. It became a topic of heated speculation about Romney’s inhumanity on reactionary forums like Reddit. The problem with that story? It simply was not true.
Romney’s long-awaited rally in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on Sunday was marked by cold temperatures and stinging winds. The Republican nominee’s plane was delayed in Ohio, ensuring that Romney was an hour late for this appearance. On Twitter, reporters pounced on the cold temperatures and the increasing agitation of the pro-GOP crowd.
Barbaro, who is presumably a straight news and not opinion reporter, described the situation on Twitter as increasingly tense, with Romney supporters “begging” to leave the frozen venue:
He latched onto the tale of a Mitt Romney staffer telling a mother, whose only concern was for her child’s wellbeing, that it simply was “not cold enuf” to leave the venue:
The story was incorrect. The staffer had made a flippant comment to a reporter, not the aggrieved mother. Rather than simply saying that his previous tweet recounting how the staffer “replied” to the woman was inaccurate, he tweeted a clarification.
No doubt, the venue for Romney’s Pennsylvania rally was excruciatingly cold. Barbaro’s account of freezing attendees was corroborated by USA Today reporter Jackie Kucinich who reported that attendees who asked to leave the event encountered resistance from staffers. She later confirmed that attendees were kept in place as a security measure, but the corrections never have the life that the initial, incorrect reports seem to enjoy.
Kucinich did not report, however, that any staffer linked to Romney insisted children succumb to hypothermia in order to give Romney the benefit of a large crowd.
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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
