ProPublica Responds to Pete Hegseth West Point Story With B.S. Lecture About How Journalism Works

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Earlier, we told you about Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth absolutely kneecapping ProPublica before the outlet could publish a smear about Hegseth not being accepted into West Point.

Here’s an editor at ProPublica explaining ‘how journalism works’ (read: trying to do some CYA because ProPublica dropped the ball on this):

1/ Here’s a story about how journalism works.

Spoiler Alert: This is how we decide *not* to publish.

We were recently looking at Pete Hegesth’s different statements over the years about West Point, where he has said he was admitted.

First stop: West Point. https://t.co/TceZdglkmL

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

Keep in mind ProPublica is the outlet that published the lies about Georgia’s abortion laws, tying those laws to the death of Amber Nicole Thurman.

They are garbage.

Jesse continues:

2/ We contacted the West Point Public Affairs Office.

The first spokesperson wrote on the record: “According to the admissions office – Hegseth had not applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy.”

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

This will be important to the story in a moment.

3/ We called back to ask if that meant that Hegseth had never been admitted and a second spokesperson told us on the record:

“Absolutely 100%. Because he never opened a file.”

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

‘He never opened a file.’

A second spokesperson said this. On record.

This will also be important.

4/Now we thought we had the makings of a significant story.

But the first rule of good journalism is: No Surprises.

You must give the subject of a potential story a fair chance to respond to all of the salient facts in the story.

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

Oh, they have the makings of a significant story, just not the smear piece they wanted to tell.

5/Why do we do this? We want to make sure what we have is correct.

We care about accuracy. We aim to get both specific facts & the larger picture right. The essential part of this is contacting subjects & being intellectually honest enough to change your mind & drop a story.

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

That’s adorable.

They still haven’t corrected the article about Georgia’s abortion laws.

6/ One of the reporters called Hegseth’s lawyer.

The attorney made a lot of angry legal threats to him, but didn’t deny the facts.

We urged him to contact his client to make sure Hegseth understood what we were planning to write.

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

‘Made angry threats’ – yeah, we don’t believe you.

7/ A second Hegseth PR person then called. He asserted Hegseth still had his letter of acceptance to West Point.

We asked him to send it to us, but he just hung up.

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

Given how dishonest the media are, we don’t blame them for not sending the letter initially.

8/ That gave us pause. But we had to on-the-record info from the academy itself.

We went back to West Point.

We also sent that Hegseth PR person a screenshot of a West Point email telling us Hegseth hadn’t been admitted.

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

Again, two spokespersons from West Point are on the record saying Hegseth never applied. Despite Hegseth having an acceptance letter.

9/ He responded with an image of the acceptance letter.

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

They must not have liked that.

10/ We went back to West Point. They apologized.

An Army spokesman wrote: pic.twitter.com/HFN76mOSOh

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

Why did they apologize? How did two spokespersons go on the record saying Hegseth never applied? 

Why and how did they get this wrong?

11/ So: No, we are not publishing a story.

This is how journalism is supposed to work. Hear something. Check something. Repeat steps 1 and 2 as many times as needed.

The end.

— Jesse Eisinger (@eisingerj) December 11, 2024

No, this isn’t ‘how journalism works’ — this is ProPublica getting its a** handed to them in public by Hegseth’s team and spiking a story they would have otherwise run with.

Did Jesse ask any follow up questions? No.

The story here is not Hegseth’s statements about West Point, the story here is that West Point apparently lied and colluded with a media outlet to smear the nominee for Secretary of Defense.

Will ProPublica run that story?

Doubtful. Because that’s how journalism actually works.