Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s office Fox News Digital said Thursday that an alarming update to a Richmond Times Dispatch report is the reason “people don’t trust the media” after Ford Motor Company quashed an anonymous claim that the automaker was telling the state “selected” for an electric car only had to reject the battery system.
The original Richmond Times-Dispatch story appeared on the front page of the newspaper with the headline “Sources: Ford had selected Virginia for the plant,” citing anonymous sources who claimed Ford had selected Southern Virginia like the page before “Youngkin scuttling the plan”.
Ford and the governor’s office have since denied that Virginia was selected for the job creation project.
The office of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin told Fox News Digital Thursday that an alarming update to a Richmond Times Dispatch report is the reason “people don’t trust the media.”
(Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The governor told the Richmond Times-Dispatch it was “fundamentally wrong,” but said the newspaper anyway published the report based on anonymous sources and found that Youngkin refuted this.
The plant would have created about 2,500 jobs in one of the state’s poorest areas, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. However, the plant would have been a partnership between Ford and a Chinese company. Youngkin had previously barred Virginia from auditing the work over concerns about Chinese government influence.
Hours later, the Richmond Times-Dispatch added an update to its original story, indicating that Ford hadn’t made a final decision after all.
The original Richmond Times-Dispatch story appeared on the front page of the newspaper with the headline “Sources: Ford had chosen Virginia as a plant,” citing anonymous sources that claimed Ford chose southern Virginia as a location before “Youngkin scuttled the plan.” .”
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“A spokeswoman for Ford Motor Company said Thursday that the company has not made a location decision for its plans to partner with a Chinese company for an electric vehicle battery factory,” the newspaper said. The company’s statement came in response to a report Thursday by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which cited two sources saying the company had notified Virginia officials that it was building the Southern Virginia megasite in Berry Hill, Pittsylvania County selected for the facility. These sources continued to speak on condition of anonymity.”
The Richmond Times-Dispatch at the time published a second story this contradicted his original report. The follow-up story, “Ford says it hasn’t made a location decision for the battery factory,” quoted Ford spokeswoman Melissa Miller as saying the newspaper’s initial report was inaccurate.
“Ford had not made a site selection decision,” Miller said.
The newspaper also noted that Miller said on the website that “nobody at the company told a Virginia official that Ford had decided.”
Youngkin spokesman Macaulay Porter criticized the Richmond Times-Dispatch for relying on anonymous sources.
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“The governor made on-file comments refuting the outlet’s blind procurement, but knowingly released false information. That’s why people don’t trust the media,” Porter told Fox News Digital.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
