Axios this week published what is likely the biggest media muck-up of the entire 2020 Democratic primary — and you probably did not even notice.
On Wednesday, as members of the press continued to fight over whether it is racist to call the COVID-19 virus the “Chinese virus,” Axios reported incorrectly that Sen. Bernie Sanders had ended his 2020 presidential campaign.
The only problem with the story is that it is not true.
Sanders has not suspended his campaign. Axios simply got the story horribly, terribly wrong. And it did not get the story wrong just a little bit, like publishing a false breaking news alert or a misleading headline. Axios published an entire detailed report on the senator’s supposed decision to shutter his campaign.
“Bernie Sanders to suspend presidential campaign,” read the headline to the since-deleted news report.
Moments after the bogus story published, Bloomberg News’s Laura Litvan tweeted what she believed was an accurate breaking news alert announcing the death of the Sanders campaign. Her tweet was shared and copied by dozens of journalists, and the false report soon spread all over social media.
The Axios report from where Litvan pulled her breaking news tweet even claimed in its opening paragraphs:
“The big picture: It’s an end to the campaign of the leading progressive in the race – and the candidate who seemed to be the clear front-runner for the Democratic nomination less than a month ago. It also makes Biden the presumptive Democratic nominee four months before the party’s convention in Milwaukee.”
Sanders campaign staffers disputed the report immediately, leading to confusion among reporters over whether there was even an actual report claiming the senator had suspended his campaign or whether they had all been taken in by a single erroneous tweet.
Later that afternoon, Axios editor-in-chief Nicholas Johnston cleared up the confusion by stating clearly that they screwed up badly. Sanders’s campaign is still alive. Axios simply got the story wrong.
“Our incorrect report on the Sanders campaign was a big error and we apologize,” he said in a statement. “We know the trust of our readers is our most important asset. This is not an excuse but the reality: our process for full approval in a fully remote newsroom broke down.”
He adds, “That has been fixed and we are prominently correcting, and taking responsibility, for the error.”
Axios has since replaced its false report with a new one titled, “Bernie Sanders deactivates 2020 campaign Facebook ads.” The report begins with an editor’s note that reads, “An earlier story inaccurately reported that Sanders was suspending his campaign. The correct story is below. Axios deeply regrets the error.”
As far as media errors go, this is one for the books. If Sanders weren’t going to drop out eventually, it would have a real “Dewey Defeats Truman” flavor to it. As far as media errors for the 2020 Democratic primary go, Axios reporting early on the demise of the Sanders campaign probably takes top spot. This is likely the worst mistake of any news media group for this entire presidential cycle, and you probably did not even notice it.
After all, there is a pandemic going on.
