So It Was DRUDGE? I Don’t Think So

This is stunning, either in its ignorance or its misdirection (bold is mine):

Did the Drudge Report Help Tank the Stock Market?

Here’s a headline sure to spook any investor or economist: “Greenspan warns of likely U.S. recession.” That was the headline right near the top of the widely surfed Drudge Report yesterday afternoon and this morning, referring to a speech that former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made the other day via satellite to a business conference in Hong Kong. Many market watchers are blaming those comments– along with a weak durable goods report and the plunge in the Chinese stock market – for today’s stock market sell-off. But despite the inflammatory Drudge headline – which, in all fairness, linked to an Associated Press story with that same title – the Maestro was hardly so definitive as Drudge made him out to be. Here is what Greenspan said, according to AP:

When you get this far away from a recession invariably forces build up for the next recession, and indeed we are beginning to see that sign. For example in the U.S., profit margins … have begun to stabilize, which is an early sign we are in the later stages of a cycle. While, yes, it is possible we can get a recession in the latter months of 2007, most forecasters are not making that judgment and indeed are projecting forward into 2008 … with some slowdown.

The bio at the link says that “James Pethokoukis is a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report.” Since the experienced Pethokoukis surely knows that Drudge is merely linking to a headline from AP and did not write it, why does he act as if Drudge is responsible for the “inflammatory headline”? Drudge isn’t the one who misinterpreted Greenspan’s remarks and turned into a scare headline. So why is Pethokoukis speculating that it was Drudge “tanking the market”?

“In all fairness,” the real question Pethokoukis should be asking is: Did the Associated Press Tank the Stock Market?

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UPDATE: AP — Oh, never mind (”Economists: Recession unlikely”)

UPDATE 2: I just bolded “as Drudge made him out to be” above, because, Mr. P, Drudge didn’t write the headline, or the underlying story.

UPDATE 3: One has to wonder, given their relative stature, why the Washington Post isn’t getting any grief from Mr. P for carrying the very same AP headline:

UPDATE 4: Taranto at Best of the Web saw the absurdity, and took a snarky shot at AP that is richly deserved –

This is hilarious. All Drudge did was link to the AP piece, but Pethokoukis treats the venerable wire service as if it were merely incidental to all this. The media world isn’t what it used to be.

UPDATE 5, March 2: Taranto found another Drudge blame-shifter at ABC, one Michael Malone, who doesn’t seem to realize that the headline Drudge used was COPIED from the Associated Press. A copy of that AP story, with the headline (”Greenspan Warns of Likely U.S. Recession”) intact, can be found at among other places, …… ABC.