Washington Post Accidentally Publishes Biden Running Story


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Editor’s Note: This post has been updated. The author was accidentally referred to as Ford in the third paragraph. TKNN regrets the error.

On Monday evening, the Washington Post accidentally published a story by Paul Kane that said that Vice President Biden would be running for President. The article was then pulled and replaced with an Editor’s Note saying that the “file was inadvertently published.”

The published article was more of a draft or a template than a fully written article. There were Xs to denote areas where more specific detail would be filled in. For example, the lede to the story includes “according to XXX sources familiar with his decision.”

Kane addressed the accident on Twitter and explained that the article was published while editors were embedding a video file. Kane also says that he has a Biden Decides Not to Run story prepared in addition. Journalists and news organizations will regularly pre-write stories for expected news events, obituaries being the most common example.

Kristine Coratti, Vice President of Communications at the Washington Post, provided the following statement to TKNN, “Earlier tonight, a technical glitch occurred when video was being embedded into a story prepared in case of an announcement from Vice President Biden, inadvertently causing it to be published. The story was immediately pulled back down, and The Post regrets the error.”

The incident comes as journalists and Americans await Vice President Biden’s decision on a presidential run. Despite several reports that he has made a decision, the Vice President and his office are still claiming otherwise. Some reports indicate that his announcement for a run could come in the next few days, before the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Iowa.


About Tyler

Tyler is the chief media reporter for TKNN, with the news organization since its founding in November of 2010. He has previously served as chief political reporter and chief political anchor for TKNN.

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