ProPublica’s reporting on Pete Hegseth is journalism done right

This is a lesson about journalism done the right way. And, interestingly enough, it is about a story that was never published.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Like many media outlets these days, ProPublica was looking into former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who is Donald Trump’s nominee to be the secretary of defense. Hegseth is currently in a fight to convince skeptical senators to confirm his nomination — which is far from given due to past allegations of sexual assault, financial mismanagement and drunken behavior.

Jesse Eisinger, an editor at ProPublica, explained what happened in a long thread on X on Wednesday. ProPublica was looking specifically at comments Hegseth had made about West Point. Hegseth has said he was accepted to West Point when he was younger.

So ProPublica, doing its due diligence, looked into the matter. The nonprofit reached out to the West Point public affairs office. A spokesperson went on the record. Eisinger tweeted, “According to the admissions office – Hegseth had not applied for admission to the U.S. Military Academy.”

ProPublica double-checked with another West Point spokesperson, asking for clarity on if Hegseth had never been admitted. That spokesperson said, “Absolutely 100%. Because he never opened a file.”

Wow. OK. If true, that’s a major story — a nominee for defense secretary lying about being accepted to West Point.

But ProPublica did the responsible thing. Before printing what had been the official word from West Point, they reached out to Hegseth.

As Eisinger explained, “You must give the subject of a potential story a fair chance to respond to all of the salient facts in the story. Why do we do this? We want to make sure what we have is correct. We care about accuracy. We aim to get both specific facts & the larger picture right.”

A ProPublica reporter reached out to one of Hegseth’s lawyers.

Eisinger wrote on X, “The attorney made a lot of angry legal threats to him, but didn’t deny the facts. We urged him to contact his client to make sure Hegseth understood what we were planning to write.”

Then a second Hegseth PR person called and said Hegseth still had his acceptance letter from West Point. ProPublica asked to have a copy of that sent to them, but the spokesperson hung up.

Eisinger wrote, “That gave us pause. But we had on-the-record info from the academy itself. We went back to West Point. We also sent that Hegseth PR person a screenshot of a West Point email telling us Hegseth hadn’t been admitted.”

Then ProPublica received the acceptance letter that Hegseth claimed he had.

So, ProPublica went back to West Point again, and it was then that West Point realized it had made an “administrative error.” They said that Hegseth, in fact, was offered admission to West Point in 1999. They apologized for initially giving ProPublica the wrong information.

A potentially big story turned out to be a nonstory, and ProPublica did the right thing by not publishing.

Eisinger tweeted, “So: No, we are not publishing a story. This is how journalism is supposed to work. Hear something. Check something. Repeat steps 1 and 2 as many times as needed. The end.”

But it really wasn’t the end, unfortunately. At some point during all of ProPublica’s reporting, Hegseth tweeted out his acceptance letter and wrote, “We understand that ProPublica (the Left Wing hack group) is planning to publish a knowingly false report that I was not accepted to West Point in 1999.”

To be clear, ProPublica wasn’t “planning to publish” a “knowingly false report.” They were merely reporting a story — reporting to make sure it was not false. When they had all the facts, they didn’t publish anything.

The usual suspects such as Donald Trump Jr. and other right-wingers tried to dunk on ProPublica. Don Jr. retweeted Hegseth’s acceptance letter and wrote, “The Fake News is the enemy of the people!”

This isn’t to applaud ProPublica for holding off on publishing a story that ultimately turned out to be not true. That’s pretty much Journalism 101: Make sure everything you publish is accurate.

But this is to applaud ProPublica for going to great lengths to check the facts of the story. Twice they were told by official people at West Point that Hegseth had not been accepted. But ProPublica kept digging just to make sure, and to give Hegseth every chance to respond. The whole thing would have come and gone without notice had Hegseth and others not made a big stink about something that never even happened.

In the end, ProPublica got it right because its reporters and editors acted professionally and ethically.

What’s disappointing is to see them being attacked as “fake news” or a “hack group” even though every single thing they did was the exact opposite of that.

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Trump is the pick

Time magazine will announce its 2024 person of the year on this morning’s “Today” show on NBC. But Politico’s Meridith McGraw reports that it is expected to be — no surprise — Donald Trump. McGraw writes that to celebrate, Trump will ring this morning’s opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange.

If Trump is named, it will be the second time he is Time’s person of the year. He also was named in 2016 when he became the U.S. president for the first time.

The latest with Infowars

The Onion’s attempt to buy Alex Jones’ Infowars through a court-ordered auction took another sharp turn late Tuesday night when a judge would not approve the sale. In federal bankruptcy court in Houston, Judge Christopher M. Lopez said, “I don’t think anyone acted in bad faith here. I think everyone was trying to buy an asset and put their best foot forward and play by the rules.”

Lopez ruled that The Onion wasn’t paying enough money — which ultimately would go to pay off Jones’ creditors.

Lopez said, “I think you’ve got to go out and try to get every dollar. I think that the process fell down.”

Really, this is disappointing news to those who wanted to see the satirical site take over — and ultimately make fun of — Jones’ Infowars.

The New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin and Elizabeth Williamson wrote, “The Onion’s bid was backed by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting, who in 2022 won a $1.4 billion defamation lawsuit against Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones spent years claiming that the 2012 school shooting was a hoax and that victims’ family members were actors complicit in the plot. The Onion has said that it wants to turn Infowars into a satirical site mocking the kind of conspiracy theories that Mr. Jones spreads. Judge Lopez’s ruling put the fate of Infowars in limbo. He instructed a court-appointed trustee, Christopher Murray, to come up with an alternative resolution, though it was not immediately clear what approach Mr. Murray would take.”

The Onion put out a statement saying it was “deeply disappointed” by the decision, adding, “We will also continue to seek a path towards purchasing Infowars in the coming weeks. It is a part of our larger mission to make a better, funnier internet, regardless of the outcome of this case.”

According to the Times, the Sandy Hook families were disappointed with the decision, as well. Chris Mattei, an attorney for the Sandy Hook families, said, “These families, who have already persevered through countless delays and roadblocks, remain resilient and determined as ever to hold Alex Jones and his corrupt businesses accountable for the harm he has caused.”

In a video, Jones celebrated, saying, “Finally, a judge followed the law.”

For now, Jones can keep broadcasting on his site.

Where’s the leak?

Last Sunday, the College Football Playoff committee announced the bracket for the first 12-team playoff in that sport’s history. Going into the announcement, there really was only one big question that needed to be answered: Who would get the final spot, SMU or Alabama?

Well, 30 minutes before the announcement was made on ESPN, Action Sports’ Brett McMurphy tweeted that SMU was in and Alabama was out. McMurphy said he was told by “sources.” And he was right. It was SMU over Alabama.

The committee’s director, Rich Clark, told USA Today’s Matt Hayes this week, “I was furious. I told all involved, you’ve betrayed the process.”

Clark said there would be an investigation to find out how the information was leaked. He said, “There are only a certain number of people who know. I know one thing, it wasn’t me. There’s the selection committee, ESPN and our staff. Someone in that group (is the leak).”

Kudos to McMurphy for breaking the news; that’s his job. And, to be clear, this isn’t the Pentagon Papers or Watergate. But you can understand why Clark and ESPN would be bothered that their big announcement would end up getting leaked.

Sticking around

Al Michaels’ contract to call “Thursday Night Football” for Amazon Prime Video is up after this season. But Michaels, who turned 80 last month and calls games as well as ever, is likely to return next season. The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reports, “The plan is for Michaels to go year-by-year. He has said many times in the past that he will know when it is time to hang up his headset.”

That time doesn’t appear to be close, as Michaels continues to be at or near the top of NFL broadcasters.

Media tidbits

• Powerful reporting from CNN and Clarissa Ward: “‘Are you serious?’: He spent months in a Syrian prison. CNN’s camera caught the moment he’s freed.”
• CNN’s Clare Foran and Brian Stelter with “Senate GOP blocks bill to protect journalists after Trump opposes it.”
• A Syrian undercover journalist says at one time he was held in the same jail as American journalist and Marine Corps veteran Austin Tice, who was kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012. The Times’ Josie Ensor has more.
• Meanwhile, The Washington Post’s John Hudson, Ellen Nakashima and Dan Lamothe report, “U.S. group travels to Syria in search of missing reporter Austin Tice.”
• Vanity Fair’s Kase Wickman with “Kylie Kelce Knocked Joe Rogan Off the Top Podcast Slot, In Just One Episode.”
• The Washington Post with “Enduring images of 2024.”
• After more than two years without a contract and a weeklong strike, the Times Tech Guild has reached a tentative agreement with The New York Times. The Times’ Katie Robertson has more.
• Minnesota Star Tribune editor Suki Dardarian announced her retirement on Wednesday after more than a decade with the company. Dardarian said in a statement, “The opportunity to help lead the Star Tribune has been one of the greatest gifts of my 43 years as a journalist. I’m humbled to close out my editing career at a 157-year-old local news institution that is a treasure in the community and in the news industry. It's been an honor to relaunch our news organization as The Minnesota Star Tribune and now feels like the perfect time to pass the torch to other great leaders who will ensure the Strib continues to achieve greatness for years to come."
• The New York Times’ Cade Metz and Nico Grant with “Google Unveils A.I. Agent That Can Use Websites on Its Own.”

Hot type

• The Wall Street Journal’s Valerie Bauerlein, Joshua Chaffin and Jim Carlton with “Luigi Mangione’s Dark Descent From Promising Student to Murder Suspect.”
• The Washington Post’s Michael Lee with “A leader in sports activism, Harry Edwards has some final lessons to share.”
• From the editors of GQ: “GQ’s 30 Favorite Things We Watched, Listened to, and Read in 2024.”

More resources for journalists

• Peak Producing: Elevate Your Newsroom, Accelerate Your Career
• Are you an up-and-coming newsroom manager?
• Lead With Influence is for leaders who manage big responsibilities but have no direct reports.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].