Media suggested Gov. Rick Scott hid from anti-gun teen activists who showed up at his office. He was at a funeral.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott attended a funeral service this week for Chris Hixon, the slain athletic director of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a shooting spree this month claimed 17 lives. Along with renewing the normal national debate about gun violence, the massacre has also sparked an upheaval in the school’s student body, transforming several survivors into ardent pro-gun control activists.

On Wednesday, as Scott attended Hixon’s funeral, a handful of those activists appeared at the governor’s office to discuss his positions on gun policy.

This is where things get complicated.

Scott’s office had already made arrangements for him to meet with the students, but not until later in the afternoon and not until after the funeral, according to a copy of an itinerary reviewed by the Washington Examiner. The governor’s schedule for Feb. 21, which was distributed to media that morning at 9:22 am ET, includes an entry for the 5:00 to 7:00 pm block: “Meeting with Senator Lauren Book and students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Location: Tallahassee, FL.”

But a group of students, Fox News, and MSNBC showed up at Scott’s office anyway while he was away at Hixon’s early afternoon funeral.

This is the part where lazy and unscrupulous journalists whipped up a false narrative.

At around 2:28 pm ET, MSNBC’s Ali Velshi tweeted, “BREAKING: students are in the waiting area of FL Gov. Rick Scott’s office – after being told he’s too busy to meet with them – chanting ‘shame on you!’”

His colleague Joy Reid repeated his claim on her own Twitter account.

MSNBC’s Katy Tur was not far behind, citing a “blonde woman wearing glasses” who claimed, “the governor is refusing to speak with these students.” Incidentally, the “blonde woman wearing glasses” to whom Tur referred also had a “Guns Off Campus” sticker and was not actually a member of Scott’s staff.

Both MSNBC and Fox broadcast footage of students chanting “Shame on you!” and “Where’s Rick Scott?”

The MSNBC trio backtracked minutes later after the governor’s office confirmed that he was not in his office and that he was, in fact, slated to meet with the students later that afternoon.

“[Scott] is not in the office. He is at the funeral, I believe, for a student,” Tur said in an on-air correction that was only partially correct (the governor was at the coach’s funeral).

Though Velshi tweeted a pseudo-correction Wednesday, his initial tweet, which has been shared by more than 10,000 social media users, is still live. Further, he’s still defending it, tweeting Thursday evening: “There’s nothing bogus about my tweet. His Chief of Staff TOLD students he was too busy to meet with them. That he was at a funeral wasn’t the issue. That his staff said he wouldn’t meet with them – and THEN changed their tune – is. Everything about my tweet was and is accurate.”

Reid, for her part, deleted her tweet outright and followed-up with an update.

Even with these clarifications, however, the bogus narrative may be the thing that sticks. Consider that political cartoonist Andy Marlette was sharing this editorial Thursday afternoon hours after the truth had already been reported:

This blatant dishonesty is some weapons-grade awful.

Everyone involved in spreading this outright lie ought to be ashamed. People in the industry often wonder why the public doesn’t trust us. They wonder why the White House’s anti-media tirades have traction. It’s because of garbage like this.