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The uber-left website Salon.com was forced to change the headline of an old story that had already been debunked after prominent Twitter liberals revived it to attack Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In June 2021, Salon published a story with the headline, "DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state."
At the time, PolitiFact declared the claim as "false," explaining that the HB 233 law that was passed would require public colleges and universities to conduct a survey exploring the "intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity" on their campuses and that individual participation is voluntary.
The survey, which hadn't been drafted yet, would ask whether individuals "feel they can express their political viewpoints and opinions in their college classrooms.’"
Salon.com was forced to change a headline to a 2021 report that falsely claimed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was forcing colleague students and educators to "register" their political views. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
However, the Salon article resurfaced on Twitter this week as if the law had just passed. The Lincoln Project and its co-founder Rick Wilson promoted the false article along with MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill, former Obama campaign staffer Jon Cooper, OccupyDemocrats executive editor Grant Stern and leftist activist group MeidasTouch.
Even journalists like USA Today correspondent Josh Meyer and Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch also parroted the fake narrative.
Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson tweeted a year-old article about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that had already been debunked. (Brad Barket / Stringer via Getty Images)
Salon executive editor Andrew O'Hehir told CNN that upon further review of the article after another editor defended the original headline last year, the outlet concluded the headline "conveyed a misleading impression of what the Florida law actually said, and did not live up to our editorial standards."
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The headline was changed to "DeSantis signs bill requiring survey of Florida students, professors on their political views."
A disclaimer was added to the article, telling readers, "The headline for this article has been revised since its original publication to more accurately reflect the language of the bill in question." It stopped short of calling it a correction.
U.S. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida, U.S. February 24, 2022. (Reuters)
DeSantis' liberal critics who pushed the faulty Salon report accused the governor of being an "authoritarian" pushing a "fascist" law. Despite numerous fact-checks debunking the narrative, many of them did not retract their tweets.
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Famed author Stephen King, whose tweet knocking the law with the false characterization had gone viral with over 20,000 retweets, told CNN he regrets posting the headline "without being more confident the story was correct. Salon is usually more reliable." He vowed he'll "try to do better."
Notably, King never took down the erroneous tweet.