A variety of media outlets are seeking to create an artificial controversy out of Tuesday night’s Democratic convention speech by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who ceremonially seconded the nomination of former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders — a standard part of political conventions to symbolically recognize a contender who had passed the delegates threshold in the primaries.
As was also widely expected, Ocasio-Cortez used the opportunity to advocate for her political values, just as many convention speakers do so, along with the symbolic endorsement of Sanders. And she did congratulate Biden on the nomination when sharing her speech on her Instagram page.
But media outlets are instead attempting to turn this into a non-existent protest of Biden himself.
Among mainstream media outlets, CBS News and The New York Times both tweeted that Ocasio-Cortez didn’t mention Biden, seeming to stir up controversy where there was none. But above all, the worst such example came from NBC News, which tweeted that the member of Congress “did not endorse Joe Biden” in her speech. The outlet soon issued a correction — but not a particularly satisfactory one, as it earned a continued rebuke from Ocasio-Cortez herself.
Ocasio-Cortez also noted that the nature of her speech was shared with media outlets “WELL in advance” and that NBC News “knew what was going to happen & that it was routine.”