Hill correction raises more questions than it answers

Written by Jeremy Schulman

Published

As Media Matters for America documented, a November 1 article in the print edition of The Hill newspaper falsely claimed that “Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) skipped an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Wednesday [October 31] that she called for earlier this year” and that Clinton “was nowhere to be seen at Wednesday's hearing.” The same day, The Hill posted a correction on its website, acknowledging that Clinton had, in fact, “attended and asked questions” at the hearing.

The article, by reporter Alexander Bolton, quoted what it said was a “strong rebuke” of Clinton's absence by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK). However, as Media Matters noted, the Inhofe quote was identical to a quote attributed to Inhofe by the Las Vegas Review-Journal on July 26.

A November 1 post on Inhofe's blog about the “inaccuracies” in the Hill article noted that Clinton attended the hearing and that “the comments made by Senator Inhofe included in the article actually came from a July 24, 2007 press release from Senator Inhofe's EPW Committee office titled, Senator Clinton Fails To Ask 'Hard Questions' About Yucca Mountain."

Nowhere in the Hill article did Bolton indicate whether he actually attended the hearing about which he was writing; that he had apparently relied solely on information in a press release; or that he had apparently not received confirmation of Clinton's purported absence from Inhofe, the committee staff, or anyone else. The article did state that “Clinton's Senate spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.”

The correction stated that The Hill had relied on “an out-of-date release.” The correction, which appears under the article's original headline, “Clinton skips Senate hearing she called for,” reads as follows:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) attended and asked questions Wednesday at an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project. Using an out-of-date release, The Hill incorrectly reported that Clinton missed the hearing. Comments attributed to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), from the same release, were similarly dated and incorrect. We regret the errors.

The correction left unanswered the following questions:

  • Why did Bolton assert that Clinton “was nowhere to be seen at Wednesday's hearing,” as though he attended the hearing, when, had he done so, he would presumably have known that Clinton was there?
  • Why did Bolton not indicate in the article whether he attended the hearing?
  • Why did Bolton assert as fact that Clinton “skipped” the hearing apparently based solely on a charge he apparently thought had been leveled in a press release issued by a member of the opposition party? Why didn't Bolton indicate in his article that his statement of fact was apparently based on a Republican press release?
  • Why did the article contain no indication as to whether Bolton had made any effort to confirm Clinton's purported absence from the hearing beyond his reported attempt to contact Clinton's Senate spokesman?
  • The Hill's correction is vague about the press release in question, obscuring the fact that it was a release from Inhofe and avoiding the question of who is to blame for The Hill's reliance on an “out of date release”: Did Inhofe's staff attempt to pass off an old release as new, or did Bolton err in reporting its contents as new?