Bizarre

TONE does not spend a lot of time critiquing journalism--maybe we should--but this one is too good to let pass by.

MSNBC has a page it calls First Read, which it bills as "The First place for key political news and analysis." A box entitled, "About First Read," leads with, "First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit." So it's not pretending to be a spur-of-the-moment blog.

OK, so this morning, they run a story headed, "Rep. (Steve) King endorses Romney," the first paragraph of the post reads:

And the endorsements keep coming... Congressman Steve King (R), one of Iowa's most strident critics of illegal immigration and a champion of the state's rural conservatives, has endorsed Romney. [Emphasis in original.]

No real news there. Except that when you get to the fourth paragraph you see,

*** UPDATE *** King just announced that he's supporting Thompson. Team Romney is in the back of the room looking bewildered. They were all here, leading all the press to conclude that it was an endorsement for Romney.

Huh? You mean that no one leaked to the press what the Congressman (R-IA) was going to say? Maybe the MSNBC reporter didn't get the phone call. Or did King mistake the Mittster for the guy who really was a TV star? This King--not to be confused with the bombastic Peter King (R-NY)-- is an anti-immigrant ranter, so maybe he meant to endorse Tom Tancredo.

Bizarre.