UPDATE, 4:30 p.m.: An e-mailer relays a response from the Wooster Daily Record's Mr. Kovac -- "For the record, my quote was accurate, with the exception of leaving out the word 'Congressman.' I stand by my quote. AP had it wrong. I went back and watched that section of the debate to make sure." Your move, AP.
(original post follows)
This morning's question is for Marc Kovac of the Wooster (OH) Daily Record and Julie Carr Smyth of the Associated Press.
The question is: "Which one of you misquoted what incumbent Ohio Democratic Government Ted Strickland said about jobs lost during the Bush administration at Thursday night's debate with GOP challenger John Kasich?"
Here is the statement involved, as relayed by Kovac (bolds are mine throughout this post):
"If my opponent and his friends had had their way, there likely would have been no surviving auto industry in America," he said, adding later, "I don't know what you think the president and our Democratic friends should have done. The fact [is] that 8.5 million jobs were lost, and most of those jobs were lost during the Bush Administration. ... All you and you friends want to do is criticize and say 'No, no, no.'"
But look at how it appeared in Smyth's report:
"I don't know what you would have had the president and our Democratic friends do, but the fact is that 8.5 million jobs were lost, Congressman, during the Bush administration," he said. "We have taken firm action to stabilize this economy, the free fall has been stopped, and all you and your friends want to do is just criticize and say no, no, no."
Note that each bolded segment is carried as a direct quote without ellipses.
For the record, as seen here, Strickland would be definitely wrong if he really said what Smyth relayed, and, after considering Inauguration Day, barely wrong with Kovac's quote.
From December 2007 to December 2009, after seasonal adjustments, the economy lost 8.403 million jobs. 4.402 million of them were gone by the end of January 2009, but if you pro-rate January 2009's 736,000-job loss back to January 20, Inauguration Day, the number drops to about 4.14 million, which is less than half of the total loss, but barely so. Strickland could have said that "about half" of the jobs were lost while Bush remained in charge during the debate, but that would not have had the impact he wanted. So he stretched.
Yesterday's preliminary estimate announced by the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics that 366,000 fewer people were working in March 2010 than originally thought, and that monthly figures for April 2009 through March 2010 would need to be adjusted to reflect this finding, will render Strickland wrong by an even larger margin when they are finalized in March 2011.
Now let's look at the potential impact if, as seems likely, Strickland really said what Kovac relayed ("8.5 million jobs were lost, and most of those jobs were lost during the Bush Administration"):
- A Google News search on [Strickland Kasich "8.5 million"] (typed exactly as indicated between brackets) returns the two reports cited as the only ones who carried this quote.
- A Google News search on the title of Kovac's item ("Candidates square off in final debate," typed in quotes) indicates that his report has appeared only at his home paper. Strickland's assertion as carried is wrong, as shown above, but not seriously so.
- If Smyth misquoted Strickland, as seems likely, it's a serious error, and her failure to properly quote the Governor requires a correction. Since a Google News search on the title of Smyth's item ("Ohio governor candidates clash on taxes, spending," again typed in quotes, sorted by date with duplicates included) shows that her report has appeared in 71 places, make that at least 71 corrections.
Or, again if Strickland said what Kovac quoted, are Julie Carr Smyth and her employer both okay with misleading readers into believing that over four million more jobs were lost during the final year or so of the Bush administration than actually were?
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
