The Washington Post’s Capitol Briefing blogger, Ben Pershing,
explains how it was that he and several other news organizations
reported yesterday afternoon that Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D,
OH) was dead when (at that time) she was not:  Capitol Briefing
reported at 2:10 p.m. that Tubbs Jones had died. The Cleveland
Plain-Dealer, the Associated Press, and CNN came out with
similar reports at the same time, all based on anonymous
sources. At that point, neither Tubbs Jones’s office nor the
hospital had confirmed her death.  It is not clear why Capitol
Briefing’s source and those cited by other news organizations
believed she had died, though it may be related to confusion
over a report in the Plain-Dealer saying she had been taken off
life-support…  It’s also not clear why a news organization would
report that someone had died “based on anonymous sources” when
neither the person’s “office nor the hospital confirmed” it.
Beware that rush to be first. And that rush to be first to take
back that first report (w