An Arizona news anchor has reversed her story about the White House press secretary receiving questions in advance, but some of the conservative outlets that hyped her original claim have yet to correct the record.
Breitbart’s John Nolte wrote a credulous piece on Thursday about denials from the White House press corps.
According to Nolte, Catherine Anaya, an anchor at Phoenix television station KPHO, “revealed that President Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, receives questions from the White House Press Corps in advance of his daily briefings.”
Anaya made the claim on Wednesday night while reporting on a one-on-one interview she had with President Obama. During the report, she described an “off-the-record” conversation she had with Carney about the how the White House press office operates.
Nolte has yet to update his piece with any of Anaya’s subsequent statements wherein she retracted her original claim. The right-wing website WND hasn’t corrected its story either.
In Anaya’s first retraction, which was posted online Thursday afternoon by KPHO, she said that she “was indeed asked to provide” her question before her interview with President Obama, but she apologized for the suggestion that White House reporters do the same.
However, that statement was soon pulled by KPHO and replaced with a new one on Thursday night. This time, Anaya changed her story again, saying the White House never asked for her question in advance but that she chose to provide it voluntarily.
Nolte linked out to an article on The Weekly Standard’s website that does include both of Anaya’s statements, although they’re buried at the bottom of the piece and the headline still features her original, erroneous claim.
Over at Townhall, Guy Benson updated his original post to include both statements, but the headline on the website’s front page Friday morning still indicated that Anaya was asked to provide her question to Carney.
Conservative aggregator Matt Drudge, to his credit, has noted on his front page that Anaya retracted her story, after he ran a breathless headline.
Drudge on Thursday:
Drudge on Friday:
Photo of Catherine Anaya and President Obama from the anchor’s Twitter account.
