{"id":855,"date":"2008-03-18T02:34:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-18T08:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=855"},"modified":"2008-03-18T02:34:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-18T08:34:00","slug":"is-this-the-dirtiest-political-reporting-trick-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/03\/is-this-the-dirtiest-political-reporting-trick-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Is this the dirtiest political reporting trick ever?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcaps\">T<\/span>here are probably earlier examples of the non-denial denial in political campaigning, but this is my personal favourite. It\u2019s from the dirty tricks handbook of onetime <span style=\"font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.philly.com\/inquirer\/\">Philadelphia Inquirer<\/a><\/span> owner, journalism <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/annenberg.usc.edu\/\">education<\/a> <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.asc.upenn.edu\/\">philanthropist<\/a>, and general <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2071870\/\">bad egg<\/a>, <a style=\"font-weight: bold;\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Walter_Annenberg\">Walter Annenberg<\/a>: <span id=\"fullpost\"><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One day in 1966 a Democrat named <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Milton_Shapp\">Milton Shapp<\/a> held a press conference while running for governor and Annenberg\u2019s hand-picked political reporter asked him only one question. The question was, \u201cMr. Shapp, have you ever been admitted to a mental institution?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy no,\u201d Shapp responded, and went away scratching his head about this odd question.<\/p>\n<p>The next morning he didn\u2019t need to scratch his head any more. A five-column front page <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Inquirer<\/span> headline read, \u201cShapp Denies Mental Institution Stay.\u201d <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/citmedia.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/03\/guest-posting-is-media-performance-democracys-critical-issue\/\">I\u2019m not making this up<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Poet <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Philip Larkin<\/span> wrote that <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.poemhunter.com\/poem\/an-arundel-tomb\/\">what will survive of us is love<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His dirty tricks are in the grave. What will survive of Annenberg is his money.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are probably earlier examples of the non-denial denial in political campaigning, but this is my personal favourite. It\u2019s from the dirty tricks handbook of onetime Philadelphia Inquirer owner, journalism education philanthropist, and general bad egg, Walter Annenberg: One day in 1966 a Democrat named Milton Shapp held a press conference while running for governor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}