A majority of headlines this week have characterized Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald’s claim that he served in the Army’s Special Forces as a “misstatement” and a “false claim.” Very few have referred to his admitted fabrication as a “lie.”
McDonald, who qualified but never served as a Ranger and did not serve in Special Forces, apologized this week for the falsehood.
Headlines from the Huffington Post, the Washington Free Beacon, the Washington Examiner, the Hill and Military Times have used variations of “falsely claimed” in headlines regarding McDonald’s fabrication.
Other news groups, including Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, ABC News, NBC News, the Christian Science Monitor and Yahoo News, published headlines characterizing the VA secretary’s special forces falsehood with the word “misstatement.”
Elsewhere, with news organizations that include Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal, CBS News, USA Today and Politico, headlines were a bit more ambiguous. Some have not made it clear that McDonald had fabricated a story about his military service.
The New York Times went a different route and used the word “embellished” in a headline on the McDonald fabrication.
McDonald’s moment of embellishment occurred as he spoke in January with a homeless veteran in Los Angeles who claimed he was in the Special Forces.
“Special Forces? What years?” an excited McDonald said in an exchange captured by CBS News’ cameras. “I was in Special Forces!”
However, McDonald later admitted Monday in an interview with the Huffington Post that he had not served in U.S. special operations forces, saying: “I have no excuse. I was not in Special Forces.”
The bulk of McDonald’s military service was spent serving in the 82nd Airborne Division in the 1970s.
The VA director told the Huffington Post he “wanted to clear up the confusion I probably created — I did create” when he said in Los Angeles that he’s former Special Forces. “I reacted spontaneously and I reacted wrongly, [with] no intent in any way to describe my record any different than it is.”
“I was not in special forces. What I said was wrong,” he said. “I have great respect for special forces … as I thought about this later I knew this [claim] was wrong.”
Only a handful of media groups, including Fox News, the Washington Times and the New York Post, used the word “lie” in their headlines.
