Media wets itself over reports Trump still hadn't decided on VP after they reported he had

These are the times when my utter disdain for the media border on sheer hatred. You may recall that I wrote on Friday morning about the possibility that their "Pence is the choice" story from Thursday could have been wrong based on the possibility that they a) had an unreliable source; or b) had no real source and just went with smoke and tea leaves. It was less than an hour after I published that piece that Trump did indeed announce Pence as the pick, so it appeared that the media stories from Thursday were vindicated.

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But were they? Their reports on Thursday said the choice was made. Trump had said no such thing, and no one actually named a source that had the knowledge or the authority to say so definitively. But they insisted it was "confirmed," even though they didn't tell us how it was confirmed. Cut to Friday,and now CNN thinks it's got a "scoop" with a report on late Thursday night, Trump still wasn't sure (See Below): So let's deconstruct both the media's presentation of this, and what actually happened. First there's the fantasy world of the media, in which everything they're reporting is true because they're reporting it. In this world, the Trump selection of Pence became final the moment their unsourced "confirmation" of the pick was reported on Thursday afternoon. Thus, when Trump said on Fox on Thursday night that he still hadn't made the choice, this was either a) B.S.; b) Trump being sloppy with his public statements; or c) Trump getting cold feet after having already made a commitment.

Scoop: @realDonaldTrump was so unsure about @mike_pence that around midnight last night he asked top aides if he could get out of it

— Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN) July 15, 2016

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And that means that in media fantasyland, if Trump was still talking to people late Thursday night about what the choice should be, that means he was desperately trying to get out of a corner he'd boxed himself into. Now let's look at what probably really happened: When Trump said on Thursday night that he hadn't made a final decision, that would trump the media's claim that they'd "confirmed" the Pence pick by any reasonable understanding of how you do journalism. You can claim all you want that of course he'd made the pick and he was just lying, but if you don't have a named source talking on the record, and the candidate himself says there is no pick, then there is no pick - your so-called scoop notwithstanding. Thus, his late-night calls to advisors were not "trying to get out of picking Pence" so much as trying to get the best advice he could right up to the deadline. There is some thought that Newt's appearance on Hannity advocating loyalty tests for Muslims did not sit well with the campaign, or perhaps even with Trump himself, and that up to that point Newt might very much have still been under consideration. I have no problem with the Pence pick, but I would have absolutely loved to see the media hyperventilation over a Friday announcement that the pick was Newt after they'd all run with their big fancy scoops that it was Pence. They would have tried to say Trump "flip-flopped" when in fact Trump had never announced Pence and they just flat out got it wrong.

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The fact that it didn't go that way is well and good, but you can't say Trump is trying to get out of a choice he hasn't even made yet. Trump was merely doing his due diligence late Thursday night before he finally made the call on Pence - either later Thursday night or some time early on Friday morning. So my belief is that the Pence reports on Thursday were premature and unreliable, but that they ultimately turned out to reflect what actually happened later on. That does not mean it was good reporting. What you're supposed to do is report what's factual, not guess what might happen and then crow about it later if it turned out you guessed right.

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