Is there safety in numbers? That was a reality for a major news organization for a time.
Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin included a faulty number in a recent opinion piece centered on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Here’s what she originally wrote on Friday:
“DeSantis likes to brag that more people are moving to Florida than ever. Not so fast. ‘An estimated 674,740 people reported that their permanent address changed from Florida to another state in 2021,’” Ms. Rubin said.
The columnist, however, had cited some erroneous information — and it made national news.
“Rubin had linked to a faulty Business Insider story which mistakenly switched the number of people who had moved out of the state during the pandemic with the number of people who had moved into the state during the same time period,” explained Fox News on Monday — deeming it a “drastic correction to a left-wing column bashing Florida under DeSantis.”
The correction was succinct, though.
“A previous version of this article misstated Floridians’ state-to-state migration in 2021. According to the Census Bureau, more people moved into Florida than any other state that year. This version has been corrected,” The Washington Post correction advised.
Business Insider also revised their report.
Mr. DeSantis’ campaign team was quick to react to the situation.
“That’s quite the correction, WaPO,” tweeted Christina Pushaw in the aftermath.
She is rapid response director for Mr. Desantis — and offered an image of both the column and the correction to get her point across.
There must be some interest out there in such matters, meanwhile. The single tweet was viewed by 123,000 as of Monday, liked by 2,800 and retweeted almost 400 times.
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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