New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd accused the Biden marketing campaign of pressuring the publication to change the wording in an article transcribing a latest gaffe made by the president.
In her Sunday column, headlined “Joe Biden, in the Goodest Bunker Ever,” Dowd detailed an change between herself and the Biden marketing campaign after she quoted the president in her Saturday column telling ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he would really feel content material staying within the race, even when Trump gained, “As lengthy as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I do know I can do, that’s what that is about.”
The ABC News transcript of Biden’s Friday interview with Stephanopolous also initially transcribed him as saying “goodest.” However, ABC News then up to date the transcript to learn, “I did the good as job as I know I can do,” and added an editor’s word that learn, “This transcript has been updated for clarity.”
President Biden raised eyebrows in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday night time. (Screenshot/ABC)
After utilizing the unique Biden quote in her Saturday column, Dowd stated she was contacted by T.J. Ducklo, a Biden marketing campaign spokesman, who emailed her to “flag” that ABC had up to date its transcript.
He reportedly requested her to “tweak” her column and change the phrase “goodest” to make her reporting “consistent with the corrected transcript.”
Dowd famous that whereas “goodest isn’t a word,” she and her researcher had listened to footage of Biden making the remark with “our ears up against the computer, 10 times, and that’s what it sounded like.”
When Dowd stated she would talk about the correction request with her editor, Ducklo reportedly responded, “Yeah again, it’s not what I think. It’s what ABC News, who conducted the interview, thinks. I think it would be quite unusual if the Times asserted the president said something that the news organization who conducted the interview says he didn’t say …”
Dowd then requested Ducklo whether or not ABC had modified the transcript as a result of the Biden group had urged them to accomplish that. The Biden staffer remained defiant.
“ABC News, like any news organization, makes their own independent editorial decisions,” he informed Dowd, as described in her column. “Surely you are not suggesting otherwise.”Â
In a separate electronic mail, he added, “Had another convo on this. ABC News received the tape and confirmed the error to us. Then made the correction.”
Maureen Dowd attends 92nd Street Y Presents: Christine Amanpour In Conversation With Maureen Dowd at 92nd Street Y on March 13, 2018 in New York City. Â (Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
His final electronic mail left Dowd “more confused than ever,” she wrote.
“What tape? From whom?? Why the runaround??? Given the White House’s egregious coverup about Biden’s sag from aging, the spokesman’s coyness seemed de trop,” she went on.
LIBERAL NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST CALLS OUT BIDEN’S STAFF FOR ‘TRYING TOO HARD TO KEEP HIM IN CHECK’
“Indeed, the White House had asked ABC News to check whether the president said ‘goodest’ or ‘good as,’ after the White House stenographers, who had recorded the president on ABC News, noticed the discrepancy between their recording and the network’s transcript,” Dowd wrote, summarizing a follow-up story from the Times.Â
Her Saturday column was subsequently appended with an editor’s word studying, “Times Opinion revised Mr. Biden’s quote in this column about how he would feel if he loses the election after White House officials and several news organizations contacted ABC on Friday about whether Mr. Biden had said ‘goodest’ or ‘good as.’ ABC’s standards team listened again to the audio and made the change. Mr. Biden’s actual words at that point in the interview were difficult to make out and open to interpretation.”
President Joe Biden walks throughout the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Sunday, July 7, after coming back from a visit to Pennsylvania. (AP/Susan Walsh)
Dowd continued, “Whatever the president meant, his answer to that question went over like a lead balloon. No one cares if he feels good about himself in a losing cause. It might seem like much ado about goodest. But it’s a harbinger of tense times between a White House in bunker mode and a press corps in ferret mode.”
“Maybe the White House should think about closed captioning,” she wrote.
After Biden’s politically devastating debate performance final month, Dowd stated it is clear a “desperate Biden team” is ready to “go to war over every syllable.”
SECOND LOCAL RADIO HOST ADMITS GETTING QUESTIONS FROM BIDEN TEAM AHEAD OF INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT
Dowd stated two radio present hosts admitting over the weekend to having obtained questions from the White House prior to their interviews with the president present how the Biden marketing campaign and administration have turn into much more “smotheringly protective” of the commander in chief.
The strained dynamic might put journalists at odds with the White House, Dowd warned.
Spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office Ian Sams (R), with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (2nd R), speaks throughout the every day briefing within the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 9, 2024. ( (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP by way of Getty Images))
“A panicky White House is going to be persnickety, acting as though journalists are unfairly picking on the president about every gaffe, berating them when they don’t properly interpret the president’s elisions and jumbles,” she argued.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Journalists are going to be appropriately resistant to making corrections based on what the White House asserts Biden said, or its version of what Biden intended to say,” Dowd went on, including, “It’s not our job to play Mad Libs with the president.”
Ducklo didn’t instantly reply to Fox News Digital’s request for remark.
