In February of this year we deigned to call the Associated Press the “official home of the 2008 election-related non-story,” based on its “compulsion to cover the least consequential bits of (non-)news about the 2008 presidential election.” Later, in May, we examined the unacknowledged role of the political press in building up the unlikely candidacy of Al Gore — enjoying a new wave of popularity as An Inconvenient Truth was released — despite his repeated assertions that he had no plans to again run for president.
So you can imagine our delight today when we spied a headline on ABC News’ homepage discussing the political future of a certain former vice president.
Clicking through brought us an AP dispatch from Sydney bearing the headline “Al Gore Says He Hasn’t Ruled Out 2nd Run.”
“Former Vice President Al Gore said Sunday he hadn’t rule out making a second bid for the White House, though he said it was unlikely,” began the AP.
There are a couple of problems here, and the missing ‘d’ from “hadn’t ruled out” is the misdemeanor: Al Gore already made a second bid for the White House! Yes, that little something called the 2000 presidential campaign might have been Gore’s best shot at the presidency, but it wasn’t his first. But the AP seems to have forgotten about his 1988 race — and so ABC, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times all passed on the same mistake as they carried the AP’s story.
So too did the International Herald Tribune: “Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore arrived in Australia on Sunday for the local premiere of his documentary on global warming and declared he is still considering a second tilt at the White House.” (Staying optimistic, the New York Sun put a different spin on things with its headline: “Gore Says He May Make Another Bid for the Presidency.”)
Back on ABC’s site, Gore explained that “I haven’t completely ruled out running for president again in the future but I don’t expect to” — a variation of a demurral he has made countless times this year. Echoing previous attempts to fend off a forward-thinking press, he elaborated that his explanation is not “an effort to be coy or clever. It’s just the internal shifting of gears after being in politics almost 30 years. I hate to grind the gears.”
Added the AP: “Gore’s renewed popularity and movie tours across the United States have spurred speculation of a White House run in 2008. He has previously repeatedly denied such intentions.”
And therein lies the larger problem: until Gore definitively says that he is or is not running, eagerly reporting his latest non-statement statement is not really news — whether he is in Tennessee, Scandinavia, or Kuala Lumpur.
Edward B. Colby was a writer at CJR Daily.