There has not been such an apology by the media in Denver in some time, but after yesterday’s firestorm involving a 9News Truth Test gone wrong, it was appropriate. Last night, 9News anchor Kyle Clark took to the airwaves to apologize for his station’s mistakes. Just watch:
From Clark’s apology:
“Tonight, a correction and an apology. Our Truth Test in the nationally-watched Jeffco School Board recall contained multiple errors. We failed to properly label a falsehood by recall organizers about the superintendent’s salary. We also inaccurately described the conservative board majority’s plan to build a school without debt….You deserve to know how these errors happened and how they’ll be prevented in the future.
“The Jeffco recall reporting question was not subject to the normal scrutiny that we have applied to each of our Truth Tests over the last three years. It failed to meet our standards for journalism. 9News has taken steps to ensure that future fact checks like our previous Truth Test reports are each properly researched with documentation online for you to see. We want you to be able to rely on our Truth Tests to inform your voting decisions, which is why we are sincerely sorry for our errors and our failures that allowed them to occur.”
While not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth, it would be interesting to know why the Truth Test was not subject to the normal scrutiny. Additionally, Todd Shepherd reported that he twice reached out to the newsroom at 9News to understand where the newsroom got its information and twice was told that the newsroom would stand by its story and would not provide documentation. Why did the newsroom refuse to consider Shepherd’s additional information? Why did it take five days during the most critical part of the election, when people are turning their ballots in, for the newsroom to correct its story?
Nonetheless, Kyle Clark is a class act who takes seriously his job to present facts to his viewers. He should be commended. The question is whether the damage done over the five days that these lies were allowed to linger out there will have an effect on the election.
You should be charged with election rigging
Maybe there was a huge payoff to 9 News from the union to hold back their "apology" until now. Just saying, the media is not to be trusted and this is a classic example of why.
Doesn't matter, Jeffco recall was wildly successful.
Voters also decided to let Colorado keep the excess pot tax revenue.
Overall another big night for the left in Colorado.
Colorado's gone.
It's irritating. Shame on 9 News. It's a good thing we don't all take the media's opinion seriously.
Probably too little too late. Sickening!
Perhaps the results from this election should be completely thrown out and 9 News can pay for a new election
I hope the steps they took to prevent this from happening in the future include firing Nelson Garcia. It is absolutely not surprising that he is behind the entire mess. If 9News had an ounce of integrity they would have gotten rid of him ages ago.
Not really. You can love him a little all you want. This apology is days too late and the election is 99% complete. If 9News and Clark's reporting influenced many voters, they stole the election. This isn't even close to good enough.