Two leftist outlets, Jezebel and The Daily Beast, railed against Governor Scott Walker (R-WI) for his budget proposal that removed a requirement from his state's college campuses to report sexual assaults. But they failed to report from within the context that such a requirement was already in place, making any further requirements a redundancy.
By Saturday, the two publications retracted their stories and issued apologies. An Associated Press report published in USA Today is credited with providing the proper context.
From Jezebel:
After Jezebel ran this item yesterday, a spokesman for the University of Wisconsin came forward—over two weeks after the budget was released—to clarify: the University requested that Gov. Walker delete the requirements because efforts were redundant with their compliance of the Clery Act. Scott Walker's camp assures that he's committed to protecting victims. We reported this piece without full context, and while this piece conveys factual information, omission of that context for that information presents an unfair and misleading picture. We regret the error and apologize.
The Daily Beast blamed Jezebel for the mix-up:
A Daily Beast college columnist at the University of Wisconsin based this article off a Jezebel posting which was incorrectly reported.
The Daily Beast is committed to covering the news fairly and accurately, and we should have checked this story more thoroughly. We deeply regret the error and apologize to Gov. Walker and our readers. This story should be considered retracted.
Yet, as Politico reported, the Jezebel columnist that first made the report reacted unfavorably to the retraction via Twitter:
