Daily Caller Didn’t Realize Politico Writer Was Being Sarcastic About Hillary

The Daily Caller learned the danger of basing an entire story on one tweet today when media reporter Alex Griswold posted a piece with the headline, “Liberal Politico Reporter: Clinton Campaign ‘Collapsing Completely’” that focused on a tweet from Glenn Thrush that most would read as sarcasm:

Yes, Hillary's collapsing completely, shouldn't even bother to enter the race…

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 9, 2015

Thrush subsequently confirmed as much on Twitter:

This is officially the greatest thing i have ever been associated with. http://t.co/riYn1y1xD7

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 9, 2015

Actually it's f—ing crazy & sorta depressing @ThePlumLineGS Yeesh. Well, @glennthrush, you should be honored that your tweets are news. \

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 9, 2015

But once a link to the Daily Caller piece landed on the top of The Drudge Report…

…Thrush more or less dared them to clarify that he was joking:

Let's see how long the @DailyCaller thing rides Drudge w/o a clarification. My bet is they won't touch the story cos they want the traffic

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 9, 2015

“Thrush didn’t explain exactly which story led him to believe Clinton’s campaign was ‘collapsing,'” Griswold wrote, pointing to various Politico stories by other writers that have been critical of Clinton over the past few days.

While the post remains unchanged, Griswold acknowledged the awkward situation by retweeting these messages from Mother Jones’ David Corn and the Free Beacon’s Sonny Bunch:

.@GlennThrush Was that an attempt at wry humor? If so, call the Daily Caller (and Drudge).

— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 9, 2015

This is a good example of Perfect Trolling: short, sweet, to the point, and generating just the response intended. http://t.co/O1hdXElP4d

— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) April 9, 2015

At that point, Griswold shifted tactics to trolling Thrush directly:

@GlennThrush @DailyCaller My apologies. We've updated the headline. pic.twitter.com/CkkAceMeyA

— Alexander Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) April 9, 2015

@GlennThrush @DailyCaller It's funny how literally everyone knew you were joking, because of how laughably pro-Hillary you are.

— Alexander Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) April 9, 2015

Did they? Does Drudge? What about the Daily Caller’s readers? Because it sure didn’t seem that way at first.

Either way, Thrush appears to be done talking about it:

Cool. Now move on. I don't care about this. @HashtagGriswold It's funny how everyone knew you were joking, cos of how pro-Hillary you are.

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) April 9, 2015

This is what political reporting has come to on a relatively slow-news Thursday in April.

[Photo via State.gov]

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