Politico tried to supply the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris with some much-wanted political quilt for her flip-flop on fracking over the weekend.

On Sunday, the outlet published an article about Harris’s new pledge not to ban fracking below the headline “Harris campaign pledges she received’t ban fracking after Trump accusation.” After coming underneath fireplace for its headline, Politico later dropped “after Trump accusation” from it, however saved the underlying framing inside the story itself.

In the physique of the piece, vitality reporter Ben Lefebvre wrote that “Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign pledged the doubtless Democratic presidential nominee would not ban fracking, rejecting what it called ‘false’ accusations by Donald Trump that she would prohibit the technology if elected president.”

“The response via the Harris marketing campaign came after the previous president brought up statements Harris made throughout her 2019 major run pledging to ban fracking at a Minnesota marketing campaign rally on Saturday,” he persevered, ahead of occurring to include an extended statement from the Harris marketing campaign contending that “Trump’s false claims about fracking bans are an obtrusive try to distract from his personal plans to complement oil and gas executives on the rate of the center classification.”

Lefebvre not directly handed no judgment on who was telling the truth about Harris’s report on fracking, but did tsk-tsk Trump for repeating “several falsehoods in regards to the Biden administration’s energy policy.”

This was once an act of journalistic malpractice — and CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski  referred to as it out.

“This can be a unusual framing — it’s no longer an accusation or allegation,” he wrote on X. “She stated it on file a lot of instances in 2019. The information is that she only recently modified her position publicly.”

It is a odd framing — it’s no longer an accusation or allegation. She mentioned it on record a lot of occasions in 2019. The news is that she only recently modified her place publicly. https://t.co/io86ijdMa3 percenttwitter.com/BUlIcE1mtn

— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) July 29, 2024

Indeed. As Kaczynski notes, Trump didn’t make an “accusation,” he effectively recalled her campaign for the Democratic nomination back in 2020 when she declared “There’s no query I’m in choose of banning fracking” and said she would be in prefer of eliminating the Senate filibuster to “to pass the Inexperienced New Deal,” which would also cast off fracking.

Harris is perfectly inside her rights to reverse her position for political expediency’s sake (to enhance a ban on fracking is beyond toxic in the battleground state of Pennsylvania) just as Trump is perfectly within his rights to put up that her former position higher displays her exact choice.

However to launder Harris’s flip-flop with the aid of posing Trump’s argument as an allegation and parroting her claim that it is “false,” as Politico has, is greater than just a little misleading.

The put up Politico’s ‘Atypical Framing’ Offers Political Quilt for Kamala Harris’s Fracking Flip-Flop first appeared on Mediaite.