The Propaganda FilesAP: 'More than half' who met Clinton at State were Foundation donors
The AP's promotional tweet for its analysis of Hillary Clinton's State Department calendar said more than half of the people who met her as secretary gave money to the Clinton Foundation.
The overstatement served the Trump campaign's pay-to-play attack on Clinton, which Pence later repeated.
What was reported
The AP's promotional tweet for its analysis of Hillary Clinton's State Department calendar said more than half of the people who met her as secretary gave money to the Clinton Foundation.
What actually happened
The analysis covered only 154 meetings with private individuals from roughly the first half of her tenure, of whom 85 were donors. It excluded thousands of meetings with government officials and foreign leaders, so the tweet misstated the share of all her meetings. After about two weeks of criticism, the AP deleted the tweet, saying it fell short of AP standards by omitting essential context.
The proof
The AP's own standards statement deleting the tweet, and the analysis's limited sample of 154 private-interest meetings.
The receipt. Copy this and paste it anywhere:
AP: 'More than half' who met Clinton at State were Foundation donors — Retracted. The AP's own standards statement deleting the tweet, and the analysis's limited sample of 154 private-interest meetings. Full file: https://www.thepropagandafiles.com/case/ap-clinton-foundation-tweet-deleted/
Original reporting
- AP (via PBS NewsHour): AP delves into Clinton's calendar at Statehttps://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/clinton-donors-state-department
Corrections, findings & records
- Mediaite: After two weeks, AP deletes misleading tweet about Clinton Foundationhttps://www.mediaite.com/online/after-two-weeks-and-much-criticism-ap-deletes-misleading-tweet-about-clinton-foundation
- Yahoo/Business Insider: AP deletes tweet, says it 'fell short'https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/associated-press-deletes-controversial-tweet-213953259.html
- PolitiFact: Pence wrongly repeats the 'more than half' claimhttps://politifact.com/factchecks/2016/oct/16/mike-pence/pence-wrongly-says-more-half-hillary-clintons-meet/
Archived copies
Stories get edited after publication. These open the Internet Archive's earliest saved copy of each original.
- Archived copy: AP (via PBS NewsHour): AP delves into Clinton's calendar at Statehttps://web.archive.org/web/2/https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/clinton-donors-state-department