Ben Carson’s presidential campaign accused ABC News on Thursday of incorrectly reporting that he will temporarily “suspend” his campaign to go on tour to promote his new book, A More Perfect Union.
“Where did the news come from that Dr. Carson has suspended his campaign?” the candidate’s business manager Armstrong Williams asked Thursday on CNN. “That is not true.”
But while Carson’s team blamed ABC, the network never reported this. The news giant never even used the word “suspend,” although other newsrooms made that claim.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2574118/
“Ben Carson ‘Suspends’ Campaign For A Book Tour,” read a headline from the Huffington Post.
The New York Daily News added, “Surging 2016 candidate Ben Carson to ‘suspend’ campaign to go on book tour.”
CBS News said, “Ben Carson ‘suspends’ campaign for 2 weeks.”
ABC, on the other hand, reported accurately that the retired neurosurgeon “has put his public campaign events on hold for two more weeks to go on book tour for his new tome … and catch up on fundraising events.”
But despite the accuracy of this report that said Carson’s public events would be put on hold, the narrative that Carson would “suspend” his campaign took off, leaving the news giant to bear the brunt of criticism.
Williams first accused ABC of misquoting Carson’s communications director Doug Watts. “He hasn’t suspended his campaign. It’s just not true,” he said.
ABC explained the nuanced situation in which Carson is trying to carefully separate campaign events and the book tour, which means Carson won’t be at anything labeled a “campaign event,” although he will do fundraising.
“Carson will be going back and forth between campaign fundraising events and book tour events over the next two weeks. His campaign says he has over 20 campaign fundraising events scheduled over that time period,” ABC reported.
But news that he is supposedly “suspending” his campaign overshadowed the more nuanced details of the report, leaving many in media deeply confused.
“Why on earth would any serious candidate for president decide to stop campaigning at a moment like this for some book-signings and readings?” asked National Review’s Jim Geraghty. “Will he skip any campaign events next year for the paperback version?”
Carson’s deputy communications director, Ying Ma, joined Armstrong on Thursday to dispute reports that the retired doctor will “suspend” his campaign.
“[R]umors about Dr. Ben Carson suspending his campaign are all nonsense. We will be holding multiple fundraisers and public/semi-public events between now and the next GOP debate,” he told National Review.
Carson’s campaign team won’t appear publicly with him until Oct. 28, the day of the third televised GOP debate.
(h/t @redsoutrage)
