Hillary Clinton says Sec of State "likely" last public job - AP vs NY Times

Hillary Clinton
(http://media.supereco.com/)

Hillary Clinton quietly dropped a public bombshell last Friday, when she reported that her current role as Secretary of State would most likely be her last one.

The term most likely be is important, because its omission from some news reports - like that from CBS News, or from The Associated Press. The New York Times Caucus Blog, which filed a blog post from Manama, Bahrain, where Clinton was, is the source that got it right, but in so doing, has caused a problem. One that Google's Josh Cohen should pay attention to.

The NY Times Mark Landler wrote as if he was actually at the place where Clinton talked when she dropped her juicy news. He blogged this:

MANAMA, Bahrain — Journalists and political analysts who follow Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton love to parse her comments on her future career plans for clues as to whether she will take another run at the White House. On Friday, she gave them yet another tantalizing tea leaf to read.


Answering a question from a student at a town-hall meeting in this Persian Gulf kingdom, Mrs. Clinton said, "I think I'll serve as secretary of state as my last public position and the probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on behalf of women and children."

Mark also noted Mrs. Clinton's "qualifiers," "I think," and "probably," which are important doors for the Secretary of State to maintain in case she changes her mind.

But this is what The Associated Press' wrote in a post hosted by Google:

"I think I'll serve as secretary of state as my last public position and then probably go back to advocacy work, particularly on behalf of women and children, and particularly around the world because if you look at what is still happening to women in many parts of the world it is tragic and terrible," she told a Bahrain TV interviewer.
The interviewer began by asking if she planned to run for president.
"No, I do not," she said.
She then launched into a detailed review of her career, noting that she began as an advocate for neglected and handicapped children.

The problem with The AP account is it fails to give a link to the actual source and it doesn't offer more information on who gave the interview. Thus,could the AP have gotten its information from The New York Times and not sourced it? It would at least seem that the AP leaves itself open to such a charge.

It's one more piece of evidence that The Associated Press, which Google News' Josh Cohen has worked so hard to help at the expense of bloggers, is itself to be questioned in how it presents the news. The AP accuses bloggers of the same behavior that it apparently shows in this case. For Google News to favor the AP at the expense of blogs is damaging to the effort to democratize news.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton will most likely give an even clearer, definitive statement on her future soon.