The Daily Background

Well, if Matt Drudge has egg on his face, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time.

On Sunday, he published an “exclusive report” which claimed CNN reporter Michael Ware heckled John McCain at his Baghdad press conference yesterday, and suggested Ware was drunk. Wrote Drudge:

During a live press conference in Baghdad, Senators McCain and Graham were heckled by CNN reporter Michael Ware. An official at the press conference called Ware’s conduct “outrageous,” saying, “here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I’ve never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter.”

The “scoop” has since mysteriously disappeared from the front page of his website. What happened? Well, for one, he spelled Baghdad wrong.

But more importantly, his “exclusive scoop” turned out to be totally false. He isn’t running a correction, but Ware has responded, saying the following:

Well, let’s bear in mind that this is a report that was leaked by an unnamed official of some kind to a blog, to somewhere on the Internet. No one has gone and put their name forward. We certainly haven’t heard Sen. McCain say anything about it or any of his staff have come forward to say anything about it. I did not heckle the senator. Indeed, I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even ask a question. In fact, when I raised my hand to ask a question, the press conference abruptly ended. So what I would suggest is that anyone who has any queries about whether I heckled, watch the videotape of the press conference.

What a good idea. Raw Story dug up the actual video footage from McCain’s press conference and confirms that Ware did not ask any questions, nor was there any heckling. Oh well. Looks like Matt Drudge is still biased and unreliable, while Michael Ware is still one of the five best journalists in Iraq.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog