The relentless drama over which woman Joe Biden will pick to be his running mate is still ongoing, but some publications seem to know something the rest of us don’t. Or do they???
Politico published an article on Tuesday claiming that “after keeping his choice close to the chest for months,” Joe Biden named Kamala Harris as his running mate—on August 1, a date that has not yet happened.
“In his announcement, Biden called Harris ‘a worthy opponent and a worthy running mate,’ alluding to the pair’s rivalry during the earlier stages of the Democratic primary,” the piece read. Except Biden had made no such announcement, at least not publicly. Weird!!!
Politico quickly deleted the announcement and restored their running VP pick tracker, which lists potential Biden picks like Karen Bass, Stacey Abrams, Val Demings, and Elizabeth Warren, in addition to Harris. An added Editor’s Note at the bottom of the piece noted that “an earlier version of this graphic mistakenly reported that Biden had made his VP selection.”
A not-so-big-secret about journalism is that publications will often pre-write up big things that haven’t happened yet, like obituaries, Supreme Court decisions, election outcomes, etc. so they can be published quickly. It’s possible that the Kamala Harris announcement was just one of those pre-writes. On the other hand, usually journalists will put TKs (shorthand for “to come”) in place of things like dates, statements, etc.
The Politico piece has all the specifics written out, as if they perhaps weren’t just pre-writing a placeholder piece but maybe got, say, an early scoop instead? Anything’s possible! Guess we’ll find out on Saturday…