With just minutes to spare, reporters predicted Wednesday afternoon that Vice President Joe Biden would not run for president, making it one of the few moments in the 2016 election when the press as a whole got something right about his supposed candidacy.
News broke at around noon that Biden would give a surprise address from the Rose Garden. Following months of speculation over whether he’d finally throw his hat into the ring, the press scrambled to divine the meaning of his unscripted appearance.
Reporters soon learned that President Obama would also accompany the vice president for the announcement.
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For the press, the location, timing and optics of the event signaled that Biden had decided finally against a 2016 bid, and reporters sounded off accordingly on social media.
“Speculation that Biden will announce that he is NOT going to run for the presidency as the [White House] would be an odd place to make an announcement,” BBC bureau chief Paul Danahar noted.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Salena Zito added, “My guess is Biden is a no based on the fact/optics/inappropriateness of doing it at the White House.”
“Then again it’s a weird year,” she said, adding later, “Optics are all wrong for an announcement. All wrong. Biden.”
“It would seem legally impossible to launch a campaign from the Rose Garden. If this Biden announcement is about 2016, he’s probably out,” Yahoo! News Hunter Walker speculated.
The vice president approached the lectern and spoke.
“As the family and I have worked through the — the grieving process, I’ve said all along what I’ve said time and again to others: that it may very well be that that process, by the time we get through it, closes the window on mounting a realistic campaign for president. That it might close,” he began, referring to the recent death of his son Beau Biden.
“I’ve concluded it has closed. I know from previous experience that there’s no timetable for this process. The process doesn’t respect or much care about things like filing deadlines or debates and primaries and caucuses,” he added.
But before Biden had even opened his mouth, reporters had concluded already that he would toss aside his rumored plans to run in 2016.
Daily Dot deputy editor Derrick Clifton said, “I think he’s not running. I’d find Obama accompanying Biden for an ‘I’m running’ announcement odd. Same for that being in Rose Garden.”
“Biden making announcement in Rose Garden WITH president. Because of that, seems [he] won’t run,” the Clarion-Ledger’s Sam R. Hall added, noting, “But if he does run, huge that Obama is there.”
After nearly three months of rumors and speculative headlines, the press’ guess that Biden would not run is the closest it has come to accurately predicting his supposed 2016 plans. From August 1 through October 21, newsrooms were flooded with “tips” from supposedly knowledgeable sources claiming to have inside information. Obviously, few — if any — proved to be correct.
“Source: Team Biden leaning towards 2016 bid,” read one CNN headline from August.
NBC News reported in September, “Sources: Joe Biden Has Wife’s Support for WH Bid.”
“FOX sources: Biden to announce presidential run,” Fox News reported in October.
MSNBC added within days of Fox, “Sources: Biden could announce decision within 48 hours.”
In fact, right up until Biden announced that he would not run Wednesday, some journalists were still reporting that sources were saying he’d definitely launch a campaign.
“JUST NOW:: Union head Harold Schaitberger, who has SPOKEN TO BIDEN, tells us he would be surprised if Biden does NOT run. @ThisHour NOW NOW,” CNN’s John Berman said in a tweet.
After Biden’s Wednesday address, some in media were left defending their earlier reporting on the vice president’s supposed 2016 campaign.
New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman, for example, had to revisit an article he wrote last week, titled “We Are Already Months Into the Biden Campaign,” wherein he declared, “Joe Biden is running for president — a fact that has been obvious, and true, for weeks.”
His article, which relied on an anonymous source, obviously proved to be false. Sherman claimed later on Twitter that his “Bidenworld” source was just as surprised as everybody else by the announcement.
Not everyone in media jumped on the bandwagon of predicting Biden would run, however, as a fortunate few had predicted just the opposite.
“Biden is not going to run,” the Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy explained Oct. 13, later citing “intuition.”
