Perhaps the most notable speaker on day two of the 2020 Democratic National Convention was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (sorry Bill Clinton), but her speech was limited to 60 seconds, and its purpose was merely to carry out one of the many arcane procedural processes that take place at a political convention. Essentially, AOC was tasked with seconding the nomination of Bernie Sanders as president. Sanders obviously ended his presidential bid last year and enthusiastically endorsed Biden, but he was in line for a formal nomination as part of the process of transferring his delegates to Biden.
Not surprisingly, with only 60 seconds to speak and tasked with delivering a very specific message, AOC did not mention Biden in her brief remarks, something a lot of folks found confusing. But you’d think one of America’s leading news organizations would have known better. Instead, NBC News stoked controversy by tweeting, “In one of the shortest speeches of the DNC, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez did not endorse Joe Biden.” The tweet remained live and uncorrected for a while into the night, something AOC was understandably livid about and took to Twitter to express her frustration over.
“This is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and appalling,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “The DNC shared the procedural purpose of my remarks to media WELL in advance. @NBC knew what was going to happen & that it was routine.” She added, “You waited several hours to correct your obvious and blatantly misleading tweet. It sparked an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol, & now the misinfo you created is circulating on other networks. All to generate hate-clicks from a pre-recorded, routine procedural motion. This is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and appalling.”
You waited several hours to correct your obvious and blatantly misleading tweet.
It sparked an enormous amount of hatred and vitriol, & now the misinfo you created is circulating on other networks.
All to generate hate-clicks from a pre-recorded, routine procedural motion. https://t.co/crDlEymgMD
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 19, 2020
This is completely unacceptable, disappointing, and appalling.
The DNC shared the procedural purpose of my remarks to media WELL in advance. @NBC knew what was going to happen & that it was routine.
How does a headline that malicious & misleading happen w/ that prior knowledge?
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 19, 2020
In further evidence that 2020 is one of the weirdest years in world history, having a beef with NBC means that AOC and Trump might finally have something in common. And you know you’ve messed up when you’re getting shade tossed at you by frozen sliced meat companies.
a communications course that covers media literacy, critical thinking, and a history of american institutions, polarization, conspiracies, and internet culture should be required in all high school curriculums
— Steak-umm (@steak_umm) August 18, 2020