New York Post unpublishes, corrects Kid Rock, Sharpton stories

The New York Post unpublished two stories about Kid Rock and Al Sharpton after finally admitting it had been duped by a fake Twitter account.

The Post‘s Sept. 10 story, as iMediaEthics previously reported, claimed Kid Rock, the American entertainer who is toying with running for public office, had re-tweeted a story about Sharpton’s daughter being arrested, and commented “These ‘activists’ are such nice people . . . not.” Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, said the account was a fake Twitter account and released a statement calling the Post‘s story fake news.

But, despite Kid Rock’s denial, the Post doubled down, publishing a follow-up story claiming Kid Rock only “distanced himself” from the tweet and maintaining the account was linked to Kid Rock because it was linked to his website. iMediaEthics contacted the New York Post last week and asked why it didn’t post a correction and why it thought a Twitter account linking to a website amounted to it being a verified Twitter account, but never heard back.

However, the links to both the original and follow-up Post story now lead to error pages, indicating they have been unpublished. And, the Post published correction on Page 4 of its print edition this weekend, finally admitting it erred. The Sept. 16 correction reads, “An article in the Sept. 11 issue of The Post incorrectly said Kid Rock retweeted and commented on a story about Al Sharpton’s daughter. The Twitter account those comments appeared on is not run by or associated with the singer. The Post regrets the error.”

iMediaEthics searched the Post’s website and didn’t see any correction regarding Kid Rock posted online. We have asked the Post if it will post the correction online and disclose that it removed the two articles, and why it only published the correction five days later.

Shortly after iMediaEthics’ e-mail, iMediaEthics saw the Post tweet a correction.